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GALA Theatre is a covid-19 ‘guinea pig’: first District theater to resume live indoor performance

November 4, 2020 at 10:00 a.m. EST
Soraya Padrao, left, and Ariel Texidó in “The Dog in the Manger” (“El Perro del Hortelano”) at GALA Hispanic Theatre. (Daniel Martínez)

Amid all the doubt that has enveloped the theater community in recent months, it was with a sense of certainty that GALA Hispanic Theatre — closed since March because of the pandemic — decided on its comeback production: the 17th-century comedy “El Perro del Hortelano.”

As GALA penciled in its coronavirus-altered 2020-21 season, with ambitions of being the first D.C. theater to resume indoor performances, the idea of a sprawling, crowd-pleasing musical was taken off the table because of social-distancing concerns. A heavy drama didn’t feel right, either, considering the grave state of the world.

So GALA’s leadership, led by the husband-and-wife team of producing artistic director Hugo Medrano and executive director Rebecca Read Medrano, landed on Spanish playwright Lope de Vega’s class-conflict laugher, in which a conceited countess falls for her young secretary in a tale of forbidden love. Last week, GALA raised the curtain on the play — whose title translates to “The Dog in the Manger” — before a limited capacity audience at the Tivoli Theatre in Columbia Heights.

“It’s a play about two people who can’t touch each other,” director José Zayas says. “So it’s a socially distanced romance.”

“Humor is the survival tool that we need in this moment, and in any moment of crisis,” actor Carlos Castillo adds. “And this play has plenty of humor.”

Although most live performance spaces, along with all movie theaters, are still closed, GALA was given the city’s permission to stage in-person performances of “El Perro del Hortelano” because of its participation in a D.C. pilot program allowing the resumption of live entertainment. (Also included in the program: the Kennedy Center, City Winery, Union Stage, Pearl Street Warehouse and the Hamilton.) Although the pilot initially was scheduled to end Oct. 30, the District last week informed GALA that it was extending the program through mid-December.

To comply with the program’s safety requirements, GALA is limiting ticket sales to 50 audience members per performance in the 274-seat venue. (The cap originally was 25 visitors before the District eased that requirement.) Temperature checks are conducted upon entry, and the space is sanitized before and after every performance. Every patron, staff member and artist must wear a mask, except for the actors when they’re performing. An updated air-filtration system, installed as part of the theater’s summer renovations, allows the venue to meet the pilot’s ventilation requirements.

GALA also communicates frequently with the D.C. Homeland Security and Emergency Management Agency — as well as some other local theaters — about the production’s progress.

“Really, we’re being their guinea pigs,” Read Medrano says. “I’m happy and I’m delighted that we can hopefully be pioneers and use this as an example for other theaters to start up.”

During its originally planned 2020-21 season, GALA intended to stage “El Perro del Hortelano” with a cast and director visiting from Spain, before travel restrictions quashed that idea. So the theater reached out to Zayas — who was in rehearsals with GALA’s “Tia Julia y el Escribidor” in March before that production was postponed — to helm the play, and recruited a largely local cast. (The performers are not a part of the Actors’ Equity Association, which has its own health and safety guidelines before it will allow its members to return.)

Rehearsals were moved from a basement space at the Tivoli Theatre to the Josephine Butler Parks Center, with its myriad windows to facilitate air circulation. Members of the design team, who typically would contribute to the technical rehearsal process in person, communicated their instructions and feedback via Zoom. And the actors, who have been tested for the coronavirus several times, were asked to avoid unnecessary exposures.

“We definitely have limited our social life,” Castillo says, “just to be with ourselves.”

Clifton Chadick, meanwhile, designed a plexiglass box set in which the actors — who wore masks during rehearsals but will not do so during performances — are barricaded from the audience. Zayas says he conceived the idea while considering additional safety measures, but also saw a thematic resonance to the fishbowl-esque experience.

“The experience that the audience is going to have is going to be very much like being voyeurs,” Zayas says. “It’s very intimate because of it. And it’s something that I don’t think I normally necessarily would have done with this production if it hadn’t been because I was thinking about covid. So that necessity has turned it into an artistic plus.”

Following this production, GALA hopes to forge on with a season that also includes a three-day flamenco festival in December and three productions in the first half of 2021, with full casts and crews already set.

“We are trying to be realistic,” Hugo Medrano says. “Everything is in order to follow up the total season. . . . Of course, it is a season that is not as expanded or ambitious. But it is a very possible season.”

Although the limited capacity means “El Perro del Hortelano” and any other upcoming productions won’t be profitable, GALA was willing to take that financial hit in exchange for the visibility that comes with returning to the stage. Even during a typical season, only 18 percent of the theater’s income is derived from ticket sales, Read Medrano says, with grants providing the bulk of the revenue.

“We’re not going to make any money — we’re going to lose money,” she says. “But we sort of planned for that. I would venture to say that unless we do huge musicals like ‘Fame’ or ‘In the Heights,’ we don’t live off of our ticket revenue at all.”

Like many other arts administrators, Read Medrano is driven by a sense of urgency.

“We feel the longer we wait, the harder it’s going to be to bring people back,” she says. “Being a smaller theater, if you’re not out there, you disappear. It’s harder to restart, I think. So we felt even if we do the minimum, even if only 25 people come in, even if we’re losing money, the act and the faith of doing live theater is still important.”

El Perro del Hortelano

GALA Hispanic Theatre, 3333 14th St. NW. 202-234-7174. galatheatre.org.

Dates: Through Nov. 22.

Prices: $25-$45.