There’s a familiar slogan in our business that literally everyone knows and almost everyone subscribes to. “The show must go on!” This slogan is helpful when a performer or technician is feeling under the weather and needs an extra boost to rally the energy needed to perform. It also serves well when there is great sadness in the company or the world, and we need an injection of commitment and good will to fortify our hearts before we can bare them before an audience.
But there are instances, in my opinion, when the show must
not go on if the more responsible decision is to delay an opening or cancel a particular performance.
Ticket holders, understandably, hate it when a performance is cancelled. They’ve gone to a lot of trouble to set up their schedules around a particular evening in the theatre, and then they’re asked to go back to their calendars to select a different date and plan their lives all over again. The decision to cancel a performance should always be a last resort.
So when is cancellation the best policy? I believe that a performance should be cancelled when the producer believes that:
A. doing the performance under existing circumstances would create an unsafe environment for either performer or audience member, and/or
B. the performance that could be mustered under existing circumstances falls significantly short of the artistic standards that the theatre has led the audience to expect.
This past weekend I made the tough decision to cancel the Friday student matinee and the Friday Opening Night of
The Wizard of Oz at Theatre IV. As much as I am aware of and sorry for the inconvenience that the cancellation caused valued members of our audience, I still believe I made the right call.
Wizard is a huge show, and despite everyone’s best efforts, we simply weren’t ready. We faced technical difficulties that posed a significant threat to the physical safety of our cast and crew of approximately 70 theatre artists. We desperately needed several hours of additional rehearsal time to operate a show of this size safely, and the only way to get that rehearsal time was to postpone opening by one day.
Within 24 hours of my decision, our wonderful box office staff worked its hardest to personally contact every one of the 800 or so audience members affected. Most audience members were understanding; a few were furious.
The request I make of audience members is this. When informed by a reputable theatre that a particular performance has been cancelled, please know that the decision was not made lightly. And consider that being offered the opportunity to switch dates or accept a refund will always be preferable to seeing someone seriously injured on stage, or seeing a show that is simply no good because it isn’t ready to open.
When facing these difficult decisions (which I have to do once every 15 or so productions), I will always err on the side of safety and artistic quality. I think that’s the best way to serve our audience responsibly. Only when I know that the workplace is safe and that artistic standards are being respected and maintained will I insist that the show must go on.
The good news is that the extra rehearsals we had this morning and this evening
for
The Wizard of Oz made all the difference in the world. I'm now confident that we'll have a terrific show. And in the end, that's what everyone wants the most.
On May 12, I wrote a blog entry about Adam Tiller, our wonderful Electrics Associate who wound up in the hospital on May 11 with a broken hip. It was a work-related accident, one that broke our heart as well as his hipbone. You can check the blog archives for the gory details, or just click the label Tiller at the bottom of this entry. After clicking that label, the May entry will appear immediately under this one, and you can scroll down to read it.
