We could have celebrity monologues in half-empty auditoriums. Or, we could look to the experimental theatremakers who’ve made space for new forms.

By Alice Saville: “Cameron Mackintosh has said that the West End won’t reopen until 2021. And an American Theatre article suggests that people will be reluctant to come back to crowded auditoriums, even when they can. There’s been speculation that theatre will soothe its audience’s fears with a socially-distanced ‘new normal’; creating a landscape made up solely of sure-fire hits or celebrity monologues, playing to social distancing audiences that fill only a third of the auditorium. Shoot me first. I don’t mind a monologue, but not when it’s a sad, cautious compromise rather than an all-in creative choice.

But what if theatre makes this a time for fringe to the front? Experimentation first? Bigger platforms for the live artists and experimental theatremakers who’ve been trialling new forms for decades? Here are some alternative visions for what theatre might look like over the next few months and years. Ones that probably won’t bring in the huge revenues that struggling buildings need to plug the gaps in their finances, but could show future audiences that theatre is something worth saving at all costs; something forward-looking, local, subversive and immediate.”

Source: Exeunt