Twin Cities' arts organizations are in the midst of a post-COVID comeback, including perhaps the biggest of them all, the Guthrie Theater.
The iconic modern blue building on the shore of the Mississippi River in downtown Minneapolis was teeming with visitors and theater patrons every day of the week until that fateful day last May. Guthrie Artistic Director Joseph Haj says that screeching halt resulted in $28 million in lost revenue.
“It was all systems go and we were really, really excited for what the future held,” Haj tells WCCO’s Laura Oakes. “We had “Emma”, our own commission of Jane Austen's play in rehearsals. We had a workshop with Mark Rylance for a new piece that we had commissioned. And we closed everything down as everyone else in the universe did. And here we are, 15 months later. It was brutal in every single respect. We had to let go of a lot of people that we love in the organization. And, it's been a brutal, brutal 15 months.”
Now Haj is putting the wheels in motion once again. The building will reopen to the public in a few weeks. They've already started design meetings for a new version of the Guthrie's signature "A Christmas Carol" returning in November, and plans are in the works for a 7-play season starting in January.
“Our vow to ourselves was when we come back, we're not going to come back in some creeping way, making three person plays for five years until we can sort things out,” Haj said. “We wanted to come back robustly and I think it's just a big ambitious season. It's big in its themes, it's big in its ideas. It'll put a lot of artists and artisans and administrators to work and I can't wait.”
In the meantime, Haj and his staff have been taking full advantage of an empty building with a series of fixes and improvements, including a new state-of-the art ventilation system. He says they hope to raise some much-needed money to help open the doors again with a virtual benefit anyone can attend this Friday evening.
“So the benefit is supporting us coming back to work as getting our lights back on,” Haj explains. A lot of the capital work we've been doing on the theater is spending a lot of time during this dark time, reupholstering all the seats in the thrust, adding safety railing, changing carpets and the proscenium, changing the arm rests there. So a lot of capital work. So I think folks are going to come back to newly refreshed building and a lot of the monies raised are going to help us keep this building in tip top shape and prepare us for reopening.”
The virtual benefit's special guest is actor Leslie Odom Jr. who is famous for his role as Aaron Burr in the original Broadway production of Hamilton. He's performing three numbers and sits down for an in-person interview with Haj. Registration is free on the Guthrie's website.