One year ago today was our last performance of The Nether. It wasn’t supposed to be. The last performances, already over half sold, were to be that coming weekend. Our closing weekend.
Photos by Christal Wagner Photography. Maya Danks as Detective Morris, Jaime Jastrab as Cedric Doyle, Robert W.C. Kennedy as Sims/Papa, Rebekah Farr as Iris, Matthew Scales as Thomas Woodnut; Set and Costume Design by Sarah Harris, Lighting Design by Bryan Byars, Prop Design by Jordan Stanek, Production Assistant is Liz Erhler
Our closing weekend that never happened.
Now we haven’t had an in-person performance in a year. We’ve done two wonderful projects (with more things we’re chewing on), but any theatre artist will tell you the in-person thing is what makes theatre truly magical. We’re not tv. We’re not webisodes. We’re not film. We’re the sitting-next-to-a-stranger-hearts-beating-as-one, in your face, art.
We had sixty seats per performances available for The Nether. 53212 Presents did all they could above Company Brewing to squeeze every ounce of audience space within the intimate setting we wanted for The Nether. We wanted everyone to feel like they were IN that interrogation room, IN that digital space of The Nether. And it worked. It kicked ass.
Until COVID started kicking Milwaukee’s ass.
All of us were keeping watch on news coming from the CDC – 53212, Company Brewing, our team – all of us. I was just hoping against all hope that we could beat this thing. The clock, I mean. That we would be able to get all of our performances in before the CDC pulled made us close. Because at that point we knew it was going to be a shutdown of a few weeks when it did finally shutdown. Even as kids were going into their virtual learning worlds (OH WHAT KIND OF LIFE IMITATING ART IS THAT??), even as numbers of infections (and then deaths) were starting to climb and climb, I was hoping against hope we could make it through that closing weekend. The show must go on.
Oh how naïve I was. Am.
And so our closing weekend never happened.
It was really just. Sad. Just sad. After that last performance – our industry performance – on that Monday, afterward, we were all just sort of stunned. Shellshocked. I just kind of said to everyone, well, we’ll see how it goes. I could only just throw up my hands to the gods.
But by that next morning we were scheduling load out. All hope lost.
One year later, the team is still trying to figure out how to bring The Nether back and get the run and exposure it deserves. Keep moving forward. The show must go on. Plans had currently stood to remount the show early April 2021 – which means we would have to be in rehearsals right now, have a new location locked down right now, have agreements sent out right now.
But we aren’t. And we don’t.
And so we continue to watch the news and wait until we can be with you again. In-person. Sitting-next-to-a-stranger-hearts-beating-as-one. In your face. Making art.
Jaimelyn Gray
Artistic Director
PS. We STILL have yet to receive payment from Brown Paper Tickets.
Set Designer Sarah Harris in the last days of tech at 53212 Presents, March 2020.
