Rosebud stands tall amidst theatre closure, RSA in-class restrictions

By Adelle Ellis, Times Reporter

As a community that both works and lives off creating personal connections through gathering, performance and hospitality, Rosebud has been feeling deep, impacting effects of COVID-19 as the hamlet’s main attraction, Rosebud Theatre, is closed for the foreseeable future. 

Rosebud Theatre has cancelled three out of five of their 2020 performances, including Glorious!, Chariots of Fire and Every Brilliant Thing. Management is unsure if the theatre will be allowed to open for their fall and winter performances, Silent Sky and All is Calm: The Christmas Truce of 1914.

But despite the troubles, Rosebud Theatre and Rosebud School of the Arts (RSA) have proven resilient and found ways to adapt. 

Both the theatre and RSA budget is made up 90 per cent from ticket purchases and independent giving, which means no shows ultimately means no income. For that reason, the theatre is having a series of donation drives, with several donors matching amounts, to help fund the theatre and school (information to donate is available at rosebudtheatre.com).

While some theatre staff has been laid off, those still employed via the government’s wage subsidy are working on projects to help update the theatre and clean up the town. 

“We are putting our staff, who are normally on stage, to work making the place better (by) repainting the backstage walls of the theatre and filling them,” said Morris Ertman, Rosebud Theatre’s artistic director, who added the prop shop is getting reorganized “and there are a bunch of labour intensive projects these folks are doing around town.”

Creatively, actors and musicians in Rosebud are using their time not spent beautifying the town holding “homestage tours” in their homes every Friday at noon. The hour-long performance is available for viewing free every week at facebook.com/RosebudTheatre/, offering “respite for those stuck at home” for both artist and audience.

Time away from the stage has been both hard for actors and for acting students at RSA who had to cut their stage-time education short this year after all in-person classes were cancelled on March 14, over a month earlier than their usual last day of term on May 2.

“This was not easy; we were half way through the term (with) midterms coming up that week and we were thick into rehearsal for a student production of a play called Our Country’s Good,” said Paul Muir, education director at RSA. Both Our Country’s Good and a devised movement show, Roots & Roses, were both cancelled but Muir said they will hopefully be produced later in the year by the students. 

Most lecture-based classes, such as theatre history and script analysis, shifted to a video conferencing format. Hands-on classes, such as acting, dance, voice and text, and singing and choir, had to adapt into solo assignments to allow students to complete their term. 

“We recognize this meant that theatre training this term suffered somewhat, but we plan to catch up on missed curriculum in the fall term,” said Muir. “RSA remains committed to not holding a student back due to the COVID-19 crisis.” 

RSA, which offers a one-year Theatre Foundations Program and an additional three years of professional theatre training with a Mentorship Program, requires fourth year students to complete a major final project to graduate where they must completely produce an independent show from beginning to end. Out of five 2020 RSA graduates, only three completed their final projects before COVID-19 hit, leaving two students unable to complete their final project. RSA extended their completion date to allow the two remaining final projects to be completed later in the year when theatres can open again. 

RSA is “full steam ahead for a fall term starting in September” and has had “higher than usual” interest in students looking to start their first year, indicative of a strong desire for students to still study theatre despite the trying times. 

“One of our biggest challenges has been the financial impact … as a post-secondary institution which does not receive any public education funding, it is Rosebud Theatre ticket sales that help offset the cost of delivering our professional theatre training programs,” said Muir urging “generous-hearted people who believe in what happens here and feel compelled to support” to look at the different fundraising opportunities available for both RSA and for the theatre, and that when people are able to get together again, that they congregate at the theatre and support this version of storytelling. 

“I hope that when the all-clear is sounded and we can meet once again, people will be so hungry to gather that they will rush to the theatre; that people will recognize how important these things are to their lives,” added Ertman.