Newtown’s Theatre Scene Amidst The Outbreak

Newtown’s Theatre Scene Amidst The Outbreak

Newtown is known as one of Sydney’s creative epicentres, and as such the suburb has been one of the hardest hit by social distancing measures. To gather some insight into the mindset of Newtown’s theatre community City Hub spoke with Old 505 Theatre Director Kerri Glasscock this week.

“Over the last few weeks [the feeling within the community] has been quite despairing, especially if you are a venue owner or operator,” said Glasscock. “As a venue owner you still have fixed overheads that you need to pay, even when no shows are running, so that’s quite depressing.”

Thankfully though as progress has been made in the fight against COVID-19 Glasscock has noticed a turn in the mindset of the Newtown creative community.

“What I think we have seen over the last couple of weeks is a shift in that feeling though as the curve has been flattened and some of the social distancing measures have been relaxed. So there is now a small sense of optimism.”

In order to further this optimistic turn Glasscock and the artistic community are calling on the government to provide “really clear recommendations around a staged recovery” so that they can begin formulating reopening strategies.

However, don’t expect life to return to the exact way it was before.

“It’s definitely not going to be a flick of the switch and it all goes back to normal,” explained Glasscock, “We ‘re going to need to rebuild audience confidence because people will have become comfortable with staying  at home, and there will be an element of fear about immediately returning to going out in large crowds.”

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