The Artistic Director for the Blyth Festival says the stage could look different next year, because they could be outdoors.
Gil Garratt says they are still deciding on their playlist but they will be on an outdoor stage.
“What the shows are that we're going to put on are still up in the air, for a lot of reasons. One thing that I really want to do is find a way to honour the nurses and the health care workers, you know, everybody on the front line really and how can we make something special for those folks,” said Garratt.
And plays that work in Memorial Hall in Blyth won't necessarily work outdoors.
“Suddenly you take away the lights and you take away the sets and you take away the pin-drop silence that you can achieve in that room and instead you put in the trees and the birds and the breeze and all of that and suddenly you're in a different environment and what is going to translate across that space,” added Garratt.
Garratt says they have to go back to their writers and ask them to think about telling the same stories on the scale that they need to when they're outdoors. And to keep in mind that the outdoor audience of one hundred will be safely distance rather than in much more closer seating under normal circumstances.
