As you know, last week Governor Raimondo announced Rhode Island’s progression into Stage III of the Reopening Plan.
Under that plan, Live Entertainment and Performances are now able to resume under certain conditions. However, as much as we’re looking forward to reopening the theater again, we don’t believe that now is the right time to do so.
But we have been working diligently to get ready for the day when we are ready to reopen, and I’m excited to share some of that work with you today.
Since April, we have been working on our COVID-19 Health + Public Safety Plan. With guidance and input from epidemiologist Brandon Marshall, PhD. of the Brown University School of Public Health, Mike Aldridge of Coastal Medical, in accordance with standards and best practices defined by the Rhode Island Department of Health, and the Office of Governor Gina Raimondo, and resources provided by the City of Providence Dept. of Arts, Culture, and Tourism, the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts, and the Event Safety Alliance.
Over the course of the last few months our plan has undergone many, many edits and revisions. And even though we don’t feel it would be prudent to reopen our theater now, we want to share the most recent version of our Public Health + Safety Plan with you today.
View Our COVID-19 Health + Public Safety Plan
This document has been an incredible team effort, and I especially want to recognize our House Management team of Christine Treglia and Renee Bessette, General Manager Max Ponticelli, and our Board President Gene Spector for their tireless work in putting this plan together.
We’d like to recognize Director Stephanie Fortunato, Micah Salkind, and the entire team at the City of Providence Dept. of Art, Culture, and Tourism for their invaluable guidance and input along the way, and to Randy Rosenbaum, Todd Trebour, and the staff at the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts for the tireless advocacy and resources they’ve been working so hard to provide for arts organizations like ours.
We are extremely grateful to Mike Aldridge and Brandon Marshall for so graciously sharing their time and expertise as health professionals with us. Mike and Brandon have been supporters of the Wilbury Group for a long time, and we are so lucky that they found us putting on our plays all those years ago.
And last but not least, we are grateful for YOU. Our supporters who have kept us going these last few months. Thank you for your donations, for your letters, and for your words of encouragement.
Our audience is such an important part of our work, which is why even though we’re not reopening the theater yet, I’m sharing this document with you now so you can see the care, work, and attentiveness that we’re putting into getting the theater up and running again. And I would love your feedback.
If you have any feedback, please email me directly so that as the document continues to evolve, we can take that feedback into consideration.
Until we open though, we’re still hard at work! The theater isn’t dark, and we’re delighted that our friends at the Manton Avenue Project are using it under their own carefully considered health guidelines for their annual summer camp.
And in a few weeks we’ll continue our streaming programs as we present the first ever digital
Providence Fringe Festival, July 19-August 1
Then in August we’ll be making our return to live-performance with an outdoor production we’ve been developing in collaboration with WaterFire, entitled A Providence Decameron.
Sneak peek here, but stay tuned for more info about this exciting project…
My hope is that we’ll be back in the theater with you again in September. The layout of things will be different, to be sure, but I believe I speak for all of the artists who work with us when I say that this period of uncertainty has created an incredibly opportunity for creativity, and we look forward to meeting the challenge.
No doubt there’s a long road ahead, but we’re in this together. And we’re happy to have such incredible supporters by our side.
Sincerely,
Josh Short
Founder / Artistic Director
The Wilbury Theatre Group