Traditional indoor events step carefully into outdoor realms - Times Union

With indoor events bearing the risk of being possible super spreaders, performance venues in the Capital Region have decided to embrace the outdoors.

Theater and dance companies such as Opera Saratoga, Jacob’s Pillow and the Albany Symphony Orchestra have moved their summer festivals outdoors. 

But moving a performance dependent on lights, sound systems and a large backstage crew to the outdoors comes with its own challenges. 

For its 2021 Summer Festival, Opera Saratoga will present a series of outdoor performances inspired by Cervantes’ novel, Don Quixote. According to Larry Edelson, artistic and general director at Opera Saratoga, safety for the audience as well as artists, was the deciding factor behind all major decisions. 

“As much as there are the physical and the medical concerns, there's also the psychological concerns of coming back to performing after a year of not doing it,” said Edelson. “And the artists and the technicians, they need to feel safe to do their jobs well. So that's really been guiding us.”

Opera Saratoga’s performances will be at three different locations, the Saratoga Performing Arts Center, The Saratoga Spa State Park Pavilion, and at the Pitney Meadows Community Farm off West Avenue.

The company has altered each performance to suit their venues through measures like limiting the number of musicians to ensure proper social distancing and placing plexiglass shields between them to prevent any sort of transmission. 

“We knew we couldn't put them in the (orchestra) pit,” said Edelson. “So, we're actually putting them on stage behind the action of the show. But we could only select pieces performed that didn't have a large orchestra.”

He said the production, Man of La Mancha, at SPAC, would incorporate fewer traditional physical sets that will not be moving on and off stage, because of the additional labor that it takes and because it requires that people be closer together. 

Instead, the company will be using projection technology to create sets. The performances will begin at 8 p.m. because, according to Edelson, those projections won't look right in the daylight. This means that there will be no matinee shows.

For a venue like the pavilion at Saratoga Spa State Park, the company chose a piece that could be performed with an even smaller orchestra, with simpler costumes and a smaller audience space with more shows to ensure proper distancing. 

Jacob’s Pillow in the Berkshires has also moved their Summer Festival outdoors, on to the Henry J. Leir Outdoor Stage. Pamela Tatge, executive and artistic director at Jacob’s Pillow said that while they did have to make certain adaptations, most of their performances were choreographed, keeping the festival in mind. The festival did this by investing in residency time for artists. 

“If artists are creating a work specifically for our environment, then they need time to create it,” said Tatge. “And that's not something we've done in the past. So, we are investing in residencies that have been just before the performance engagement to make sure that the performances are crafted and ready.”

She said that while the company has an excellent sound system that can be used outdoors, the company had to have a lot of in depth talks with artists about producing performances without their lighting requirements. 

This has also required a lot of medical advice and the company has two medical consultants, one in New York and one in situ in Berkshire County. Tatge added that it has also brought them closer to other performing arts organizations in the region.

“It's also, brought the cultural organizations and Berkshire County together to plan collaboratively for our patrons so that what we're doing at one institution is mirrored in what's happening at another institution,” she said.

Closer to home, the Albany Symphony Orchestra is starting to consider holding outdoor events as well.

David Alan Miller, the orchestra's music director, said that while most of the its events take place in the fall, they were looking at a few summer venues for smaller concerts. 

“I think I speak for many people in saying that we feel much more confident and comfortable outside that inside, especially in the lovely weather,” he said. “And the fact that we know that COVID transmission is much less than outside makes it much more comfortable for people to go outside together.”

Other venues like the Glimmerglass Festival in Cooperstown as well as Shakespeare and Company in Lenox, Mass., are also moving to outdoor venues. The Glimmerglass festival alongside Otsego Lake will take place on the lawns of the venue. This program too, has been tailored specially for the outdoors. 

Miller said the orchestra has its own challenges in terms of sound and social distancing that he and his team are still discussing before moving further. 

“This is a time of adaptation,” said Tatge.  “And people are dying to come back to perform. So, we are we are adapting.”

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Traditional indoor events step carefully into outdoor realms - Times Union
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