How Regina theatre is adapting to COVID-19

All of the information for the Regina Lyric Musical Theatre 2021 season can be found on its website. Picture By Jennifer Francis.

While many theatre organizations in the city have cancelled their 2021 seasons, there are a few who are adapting to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Regina Little Theatre has had to postpone its mainstage production of Writers’ Runaround from this month to April. The dates in April are tentative and will depend on Regina’s COVID-19 case numbers in the coming months.

Regina Little Theatre, which has a schedule on its website for shows to come, could not be reached for comment.

Regina Little Theatre adapts to COVID-19 with online Christmas events

As for those who have cancelled seasons altogether, the Globe Theatre announced that the shows scheduled for January are no longer going forward and it has cancelled the 2020-21 season.

“Like many other theatres across the country, we are taking a time out on announcing programming too far into the future and will announce one event at a time as we cautiously move forward,” The Globe Theatre said in a statement.

There is one organization in the city that is going forward with virtual and pre-recorded musicals and that is Regina Lyric Musical Theatre. It is holding an event May 7-9.

Adriana Putz is a board member with Regina Lyric Musical Theatre. She said the 2020 season was completely cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic but things are looking up for the 2021 season.

“We sort of had to get really creative and switch gears,” Putz said. “For a long time we didn’t have the capacity to do anything really.”

She said it’s difficult to have online musical theatre and choir through Zoom as the audio lags too much for everybody to be in sync.

However, Putz said Regina Lyric is putting together a virtual show for this spring called Flip The Script: Broadway in Reverse.

She said when Regina Lyric put out a call for auditions for the pre-recorded show, the response was overwhelming.

“Clearly the performing community just really misses music and wanted that opportunity to do something in the safest way possible,” Putz said.

She said there were over 30 auditions from talent across the city who have not had the chance to “share their gift” in a year. Putz said the show had to be expanded just to accommodate all of the performers.

“It’s really exciting, a lot of people are really pumped to get going again and to have a reason to really sing and to push them to sing again,” she said.

Putz said if this show is successful and able to get some momentum going, Regina Lyric might be able to do more but right now planning is on hold.

She said Regina Lyric put together a Christmas karaoke sing-along show that was sent out to people who donated to the theatre. Putz said the pre-recorded show was also shared with people living in retirement residences and care homes.

“We wanted to share that bit of music with people who would be isolated and who would be missing annual Christmas caroling in their facilities where it wasn’t possible,” she said. “That brought a little bit of spark to us, a spark of hope for music going forward.”

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

In Depth
1 year ago
3 years ago
5 years ago
6 years ago