KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The Folly Theater, Kansas City's oldest performance theater, has survived many emergencies, including the 1918 Spanish flu. Now, it's faced with tackling another pandemic.
The theater at 12th and Central streets has been closed due to the coronavirus since its last performance on March 8.
"It’s been tough,” Gale Tallis, the theater's executive director, said. “We’re used to doing shows every single day basically, and so it’s been very odd not to have those performers and artists here in our theater.”
Tallis told 41 Action News she had to furlough most of the theater's crew during the pandemic. Many full-time staff are working from home and keeping the theater alive.
The big question that remains is when the theater will reopen for performances. Tallis said she doesn’t know for sure and is taking a wait-and-see approach.
"It is the $64 million question that all of us are wanting to know the answer to," Tallis said. "At this point, most of us are trying to figure out what it’s going to look like when we do reopen and how to do that safely and following all the CDC and Kansas City, Missouri, guidelines."
Tallis also said the theater created a task force to plan ways to keep people safe when they return, with ideas such as blocking off rows and requiring masks to be worn. Tickets may have to be paperless and purchased online.
"We’ll probably have some decals on the floor to help people understand where they need to stand," Tallis said. "We may decide to not do concessions or bar, just for the early time being to see how it all works."
Right now, the theater has a couple of performances listed in mid-July, but Tallis doesn’t know if those shows will go on as scheduled.
The Folly Theater is also looking forward to jazz season, which starts in October.
The Unicorn Theatre in Midtown is a smaller theater, but it's facing similar struggles as it continues to be shut down because of the pandemic.
"It’s terrible because no one can work. If we are not in production, none of us are in production, there is no work,” said Cynthia Levin, producing artistic director for the Unicorn Theater.
The Unicorn Theatre's last performance was on March 15. Levin said the actor’s union is hesitant on performers coming back during the pandemic. Meanwhile, the theater is brainstorming ways to generate some revenue, such as streaming performances as early as July.
"We would potentially, hopefully do it for a small live audience and then be able to live stream to people who could go in with a password, buy a ticket and watch it from the safety of their home,” Levin said.
Levin and Tallis both agree there’s built-up demand to see live performances — but they don't know what the coming months will bring.
"There’s the idea of how long do we wait, do we want to wait for a vaccine? That’s sort of impossible, but how about if we wait until the numbers come down," Levin said. "There’s so many ways to measure safety right now."
Both theaters told 41 Action News the philanthropic community is helping them stay afloat during the shut down.
