The Show Goes On at Kumu Kahua Theatre
Managing Director Donna Blanchard tells us how the theater is pushing forward through the age of COVID and beyond.
A still from the online performance of Aloha Attire
Founded in 1971, Kumu Kahua Theatre has spent the last five decades executing its mission to showcase and support theater about Hawaiʻi, by Hawaiʻi’s playwrights. The 2020-2021 season would have been their 50th, a huge milestone for any institution, nevermind a small, independent community theater. Planning for this occasion began five years ago. Fundraising was well underway and the theater had begun working with local playwrights to write five new shows, each taking place in one of the five decades the theater has been around. It was an exciting time for Kumu Kahua Theatre.
Then COVID-19 hit.
To protect its residents, the state of Hawaiʻi ordered a series of restrictions and shutdowns which unfortunately crippled many businesses and hampered life in general. Food service, education, tourism, entertainment — few corners were left untouched. Local theater was an early casualty, all but shutting down altogether. Kumu Kahua Theatre wasn’t spared, but it was able to pivot and adapt to this ever-changing, ever-new “normal.”
Kumu Kahua Theatre Managing Director Donna Blanchard was gracious enough with her time to answer several of my questions about how the theater was affected by COVID and how things look moving forward.
This interview has been lightly edited for clarity and flow.
Q: When in the unfolding COVID timeline did you get a sense that there was a serious problem coming our way? Were you blindsided by the arrival of COVID and its impact or did you have a sense that something was brewing?
A: I remember reading a New York Times article in late February or early March about how numbers of new cases had doubled in a matter of a few days, and I started paying attention to and believing every word Dr. Fauci said. I mentioned it in a theater team meeting and said we should start to create protocols to keep people safe. Someone in the room said, “You mean, in case this virus gets serious?” and I said, “I mean in case we don't have to close the theater.” There was dead silence for a little while. I don't think anyone else there had been paying much attention to national news. By our next meeting, everyone was well-read on the subject.
Q: At what point did COVID start affecting your decisions about operations? It started cutting into the end of your 49th season, correct?
A: We were scheduled to open a show on March 19, the fourth of five shows in our 49th season. We were creating protocols to eliminate surface sharing and disinfect the theater between shows. At that time, we were all mostly focused on surfaces and not touching our head-holes. We adjusted those plans as the news evolved daily. We called a special meeting on the 16th. Even though we had been barreling forward with plans to open the show and the rest of Hawaiʻi was still operating as usual for the most part, it was a quick, cut-and-dried decision to temporarily close. For me, the turning point was when I realized that even if we successfully carried out all of our plans, I personally wouldn't feel safe at the theater night after night — how could we ask our volunteers and artists to be there? I said as much, everyone agreed, and we started going through a closing procedure we created for Hurricane Lane. We didn't know how long we'd be closed, so we put The Conversion of Ka'ahumanu by Victoria Nalani Kneubuh, which was scheduled to open a few days later, and Blue by Wil Kahele, which had just been cast, on indefinite hold. We had every intention of opening both shows in the theater at a later date.
Q: When and how did the decision come about to proceed with your 50th with virtual performances? Was there ever talk about canceling the season altogether? Or delaying it?
A: Initially, there was a lot of work to be done — planning our communication strategy internally and externally to patrons and the media, calling ticket-holders for Conversion, and making our box office software accommodate changes it wasn't meant to handle. I kept thinking that we needed to figure out a way to give our artists an avenue to express what was going on, as we did shortly after the ballistic missile scare. We started working on plans for our artists and audience to engage via social media and once the dust settled on the administrative tasks at hand, we announced a few initiatives to exercise our creativity, engage with each other, and keep Kumu Kahua Theatre relevant.
We surveyed our audiences in April and learned that the vast majority of them were not interested in online theater, but our job is to fulfill our mission and our choices were very limited. In May, we produced a simple show of storytellers online via Zoom. I ran it. We had three storytellers who all stayed visible throughout the presentation. I had an intern playing whack-a-mole, taking out audience members' video as they occasionally popped up on our screen with confused looks on their faces. I also shared my screen to play a brief video of one of the storytellers playing the guitar and singing. Doing that took a while to figure out! We were pioneers. We also live-streamed the presentation to our Facebook page. We opened the waiting room and were shocked to see that our Zoom filled to capacity immediately. Altogether, more than 200 people watched our little production live.
In early June, a friend of mine (Magaly Colimon Christopher of Conch Shell Productions), who runs an East Coast theater focused on people of the Caribbean contacted me and asked if Kumu Kahua Theatre would join her in creating something in response to #BLM and the George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Travon Martin cases. Without hesitation, I said yes, and was very glad that (Artistic Director) Harry (Wong) later agreed. Only one other theater — Braata Productions, also focused on people of the Caribbean — answered the call. I understand why so many hesitated. We had no idea what we would do; we only knew that we were going to use our artists to figure out a new conduit for our theater platform to express what was happening in our country.
The three theaters formed The RESET Coalition. Magaly created a draft plan — she deserves the lion's share of the credit for this — and we met via Zoom to hone it. Our goal was to produce a series of five performances that would run on the five Fridays in July, via Zoom. We sent out a call to our playwrights of color to write 10-minute scenes and 5-minute monologues in response to a set of prompts such as breath, justice and humanity. We read the scripts and chose to use every single one of them. Each theater had roughly the same number of pieces. The theaters then recruited directors for each piece. The Coalition engaged a stage manager, Veronica Vera, who is now Kumu Kahua's digital engineer.
The RESET Series was a magical success. More than 100 artists across the country collaborated to create five one-hour productions, each followed by conversations with the artists that were as moving as the productions themselves. More than 10,000 viewed the series, and we're currently working on publishing a book of selected scripts from the series.
Making the jump from traditional theater to the concept of digital theater has been more difficult for some to accept, but The RESET Series helped show that it could be possible for us to move forward with our 50th season online. Not only did we have some experience under our belts and a team who enjoyed the challenges of working in the new medium, we knew there was an audience — maybe not the same audience — but an audience who would come along with us.
Harry spoke first with Victoria Kneubuhl, asking if we could present Conversion online, then he approached writers for the first two shows of our 50th season, and eventually all of them as we realized we probably wouldn't be back in the theater any time soon. All of the writers agreed except Lee Cataluna. She felt that her script wouldn't play well digitally and she offered to write another script for us. That was Aloha Attire.
I never for a moment considered canceling the season. And by the way, Harry has plans to put Wil's show Blue in our 51st season.
“Who knows what tomorrow holds? What we do know is that we're nimble and that has served us well. We'll keep nurturing that spirit as much as possible.”
— Donna Blanchard, Managing Director
Photo: Adam Jung
Q: I recall reading an interview with you earlier this year, after COVID restrictions were in place, where you were discussing novel ways to continue holding performances while maintaining proper safety guidelines. Can you touch upon the ideas that came and went, and how did that all shape where you guys are at now?
A: We didn't give up on the idea of presenting theater in person until June. Even while we were working on the storyteller show and RESET, we were still trying to figure out what we could do. It was quite exhausting to run in both directions at the same time! We hoped to create “lawn chair theater.” Folks would be invited to bring their own chairs, transistor radios, headsets or whatever earpiece or listening device and concessions. We'd present Conversion in the pocket-park outside the theater with a stage and lighting that could be set up and removed nightly. The actors would each have lavalier microphones that would transmit sound to the audience via FM signal.
Three things put an end to those plans: our volunteers were nervous about policing the audience to stay appropriately distanced and wear masks; the city wasn't willing to let use the park even with exhaustive protocols in place; and we didn't have the internal capacity to work both digitally and in-person. We had to make a choice. It was such a relief to finally put all of our focus in one direction, but I'm glad we already made those plans and did our research. We'll be ready to move forward with lawn chair theater if we need to.
Q: How different is the current season’s line up from what you had originally planned out, pre-COVID?
A: The only change is Lee's show. It's really remarkable how much boundary-pushing we've been doing with our shows. I watch a ton of online theater and can proudly say that we are in the vanguard of live digital work.
Q: Walk me through an online event: A viewer wants to attend a performance. What will they experience from the point of purchase to showtime?
A: You go to our website and purchase a ticket as usual. When you purchase a ticket, you immediately get a receipt that has a link to the web page and a password. That link will take you to a private livestream on YouTube. Because we're streaming to YouTube, it's easy for you to cast the show to your TV.
Q: How have these gone? Hiccups, lessons learned? Is there anything that went far better than you thought it would?
A: In general, things are going well. We've lost some of our usual patrons. I received a very disheartening email from a man asking me to take him off of our mailing list until we're in-person again. He said that if he wants to watch something on his computer or TV, there's a lot out there that's done much better than we'll ever be able to do.
The fact is that theater is not meant to be produced this way. You're meant to be in the room with a bunch of strangers, watching human bodies interact with each other. What we're doing isn't purely theater, or TV, or anything else — it's something new. We're watching a new art form being born and I find that very exciting. Without the benefit of camera crews, editors, etc, we're creating live events, telling local stories.
Q: How has attendance been? Seating capacity is unlimited with virtual showings, correct?
A: In three short weekends, more than 3200 people saw Aloha Attire. That's more people than have seen even our most popular shows during a 6-week run in our theater. The vast majority of those people are in Hawaiʻi, but they are also in 35 other states and eight other countries, and 1347 of them were first-time ticket holders for Kumu Kahua Theatre.
Q: Have you received any feedback from audiences in regards to the season’s shows thus far, as well as with the new normal of virtual performances? How has that informed how you approach future performances?
The feedback has been widely mixed. Some love it, some just can't embrace it. A lot of people who wouldn't otherwise be able to see our shows are elated that we're presenting this way. We've been reaching out to mainland hālau and popular areas for the Hawaiian diaspora — they love it. And there are people on neighbor islands and people scattered across Oʻahu who, for whatever reason, couldn't get into town to see our shows.
Honestly, I think there are a lot of introverts who aren't happy about the pandemic, but are jumping for joy that they can now experience so much of life without leaving their homes.
Q: If I may ask, how has the bottom line for the year been impacted?
A: We're doing okay. We were able to access CARES (Act) funds through a few different portals – I've written more grant proposals this year than I normally write in three years – and over the last several years we had been fundraising for a lot of 50th season events that never happened. We're grateful for the luxury of that cushion. We also had a generous sponsorship from The Island Insurance Foundation for our last show allowing us to offer it free of charge. Moving forward, we're switching our tickets to “pay what you can.” So many people are struggling financially and need entertainment more than ever. We hope this helps.
We have some great fundraising activities coming up and we continue to seek business sponsors to support us through this and into our next 50 years.
Q: Outside of your regular programming, Kumu Kahua Theatre is known for engaging with and nurturing the theater community through classes, workshops, dark night events, and other activities. Where are things today? Are you still able to hold such activities?
A: We had an online improvisation class during October and that went well. In fact, we had several students who had never tried such a thing before — that's exciting to see. We continue to develop more educational opportunities.
As for our dark night events, that's technically what the storyteller evenings and RESET were. We also did a Zoom-staged reading of a new musical a few weeks ago. We're definitely not sitting still. In fact, we may be doing more than ever before!
Q: As COVID has upended most everyone’s plans for 2020 in wholly unpredictable and unprecedented ways, how does one look towards 2021? What sort of lens or mindset are you keeping in mind? What are the red flags and/or positive signs that you see?
A: We're getting ready for our next strategic planning session with the board of directors and staff. We'd like to present theater in person again ASAP and we'll continue to offer shows digitally in some limited capacity as well — perhaps catering to different time-zones, which is not something we're doing now.
Who knows what tomorrow holds? What we do know is that we're nimble and that has served us well. We'll keep nurturing that spirit as much as possible.
Q: Anything specific you’re able to share about KKT’s plans for the future?
A: 2020 has kickstarted a lot of creativity and discovery and we're going to continue to explore everything we can, from a local perspective, of course. Everyone wants to be safe and secure again, but I haven't talked to anyone who wants life to go back to exactly what it was before.
I'm thinking of the Marie Kondo method of cleaning — you remove everything from the closet and return only what brings you joy. Well, we're all going to have to start wearing pants again, but let's choose the pants that really make us happy and let the others go.
Q: What would you like readers to understand about theater and the arts, whether today or in general?
A: The arts are self-care. Experience and learn about our humanity through the arts to nurture yourself. It is just as important as exercise, hydration, and a good diet.
Kumu Kahua Theatre is located at 46 Merchant Street in Downtown Honolulu. Learn more about the current season and their other activities by visiting kumukahua.org.
