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Redhouse Arts Center planned to host its final show of the season to a full audience May 28 at 7 p.m. Instead, the theater was empty that evening.

The theater’s last show, a production of the play “Fun Home,” had been canceled two months earlier due to the coronavirus pandemic. Redhouse at the time was one week into its rehearsal for “Fences,” the fifth of six shows planned for the 2019-20 season.

Theaters across New York state were required to suspend all in-person performances in March as the virus spread. Among them was Redhouse, which has temporarily closed and attempted to survive in a virtual world.

Redhouse decided to experiment with virtual productions and performed “Waiting for the Host,” a play existing entirely on Zoom, from May 28 to June 1. A digital screening of the show was available for $15.

No one considered halting Redhouse’s productions completely, Artistic Director Hunter Foster said. Instead, the theater wanted to make sure it was still connecting with its audience.

“So many people have invested in this building and this theater and what we’re trying to do,” he said. “I think that people are willing to sort of help us, hopefully, continue what we started.”

When Dramatists Play Service, a theatrical publishing and licensing agency, pitched “Waiting for the Host” to Redhouse, Foster was already considering the theater’s virtual options. He could create his own Zoom play, or the theater could tape performances or attempt in-house plays.

The use of Zoom “sort of came with (‘Waiting for the Host’),” Foster said. The script, which playwright Mark Palmieri wrote, centers on a church producing its annual Easter Passion Play via Zoom amid a “modern plague” that creates social isolation.

Foster loved the play’s relevance to national issues related to COVID-19, particularly how artists are finding ways to deliver content, said Marguerite Mitchell, Redhouse’s director of education and an actor in the play.

The cast and production team, who had not hosted a performance since February’s “Romeo and Juliet,” learned by trial and error during its first digital production, Foster said.

Foster received the script in April, and rehearsals — held on Zoom a few times a week — began the second week of May. Cast members coordinated their own camera placements, lighting, microphones, sets, costumes and props from what they had in their homes.

Although they struggled with the inability to feed off the energy of a live audience and fellow castmates, the biggest obstacle to producing a Zoom play was figuring out the technical aspects.

The actors — recording from laptops, computers, iPads and iPhones — had different bandwidths, causing delays. If they didn’t receive others’ lines in time, there was a pause. Mics dropped out. Screens froze. And if someone had a bad internet connection, they’d have to stop the recording.

“We were holding our breaths when we were recording because we knew if we got halfway through and something didn’t work, we were gonna have to start at the beginning again,” said actor Jennifer Cody.

Three weeks after the first rehearsal, “Waiting for the Host” streamed. Foster and the cast were happy with the final product, despite not knowing what to expect at first.

“I was really unsure how it was all going to come together, but that’s the beauty of theater: Right when you think it might not come together, it always does,” Mitchell said.

Redhouse’s virtual offerings have since extended beyond “Waiting for the Host.” The theater streamed a sequel to the play, titled “Still Waiting,” from June 25 to 29 and has hosted online programming for children and adults.

The theater offers virtual summer camps for children, and its Youth New Works Festival provides script development via Zoom in partnership with Open Hand Theater. In a program called Redhouse Reads, professional actors read story-time favorites to children.

For adults, Redhouse has offered interactive workshops with its actors and weekly Q&As called RedTalks, in which Foster interviews Redhouse directors, choreographers, designers and artists from its education program.

Redhouse wants to do some type of low-scale, in-person production this fall in accordance with state and union safety precautions, but the theater’s plans for the 2020-21 season are still dependent on the trajectory of COVID-19, Foster said.

“It’s just sort of a waiting game to see where we’re gonna be, if there is a resurgence, or if the virus is weakening, or if there’s a cure,” he said. “It’s just a hundred different scenarios that could play out.”

In the meantime, Redhouse will continue to offer virtual content. The theater can expand its reach outside of central New York and to older audiences who can’t get out or don’t want to risk exposure to COVID-19, Foster said.

And once live performances return, Redhouse won’t get rid of its digital footprint that many people have enjoyed so far, Mitchell said.

Being in an industry that’s so people-centric at a time when people can’t be together is “incredibly sad” to Foster. But the circumstances have also made him think about how Redhouse can adapt and continue to produce shows.

“I think it’s just, you know, we don’t want to die,” Foster said. “We wanted to keep going. It’s important that theater continues, and whatever we can do to help it continue, we’re going to do. Whatever we have to do.”

Published on July 15, 2020 at 5:28 pm

Contact Austin: aclamb@syr.edu | @AustinCLamb