Little Lake Theatre calls off the remainder of its 2020 season
Little Lake Theatre, the venerable Washington County community theater company, has called off the rest of the season it had planned for 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic.
This means that Little Lake will be dark for a whole season for the first time in its 72-year history.
“It was really difficult,” said Jena Oberg, Little Lake’s artistic director. “We all want to create art, but human life is more important.”
The production of “Matilda: The Musical” that had been due to begin Sept. 17, along with a planned Christmas season staging of “Mrs. Bob Cratchit’s Wild Christmas Binge,” are being canceled. Fall productions of “And Then There Were None,” “Disney’s Frozen Jr.,” “Parfumerie” and “Madeline’s Christmas Musical” are being shifted to 2021.
In addition to the remainder of its season, Little Lake is also calling off its “Step Right Up Gala” that had been scheduled for Oct. 18. Little Lake’s bottom line will take a hit as a result, Oberg said. However, she added, “For me, several thousand dollars is not worth a human life.”
The long coronavirus shutdowns have hit cultural institutions that rely on paid admissions particularly hard. Oberg said Little Lake will be able to weather the COVID crisis, but there will be “some tight years ahead.”
Oberg explained that about six of the 15 main stage and children’s productions next year will be holdovers from the 2020 season. Next year, the emphasis will be on lighter fare, she explained, because “people are ready to laugh.” Of course, Olberg also pointed out, the 2021 season rests on the development of a vaccine or reliable treatment for COVID-19 that will make it safe for a theater audience to gather in a relatively tight space for a couple of hours.
While Little Lake’s stage remains dark, it has been offering online acting classes for children and adults. The company is also looking at performing a staged reading online of a classic play by Oscar Wilde or George Bernard Shaw later in the year.