Festival shows cancelled in wake of COVID clusters

The festival had offered to pay for quarantine costs of performers but the company members felt that they needed to heed the health advice from their own government, artistic director Wesley Enoch said.

“We were doing everything possible to help them come here, even to look at what the quarantine costs were, but they were feeling too compromised,” Enoch said.

Likewise, the Seymour Theatre premiere of Hide The Dog, a Tran Tasman production about two boys’ sighting of the world’s last Tasmanian Tiger, has fallen foul of border closures.

Last week Brisbane’s Orava Quartet withdrew from its January 10 concert at Vaucluse House. Refunds have been promised for all cancelled shows.

“My job is to be radically optimistic and keep saying to artists and audiences keep checking the websites and the health directives as they come through,” Enoch said.

“We’re making sure for all intents and purposes the Sydney Festival is on and making sure the safety of our artists, our staff, and our audiences are paramount in our minds.”

Asked if this was the final festival changes, Enoch said: “We’re not in charge of what other states do, we are not even in charge of what our own state does so we just keep responding and ultimately we need to look after people and give people a good time either in the theatres or our outdoor venues and celebrate Sydney.”

A festival highlight bringing together 30 acrobats and 30 choristers, The Pulse was to have opened the festival’s pop-up stage built on Barangaroo Reserve on January 6.

The first performance at The Headland will now be the Sydney Symphony Orchestra’s reorchestration of Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons on January 12.

Enoch said most of The Headland theatre had been sold out “or very close to it”. The festival’s box office particularly for outdoor venues had been “really solid” considering all of the disruptions. Larger productions at Carriageworks and Seymour Centre were tracking well.

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The Opera House said it was continuing to monitor NSW health guidelines and advice, reviewing and implementing measures in line with current public health orders, and was committed to the health and safety of everyone on site.

The Opera House said it had measures and risk management controls in place for everyone involved in performances, specific to their roles and responsibilities.

Front of house, the Opera House said it had reduced venue capacities, spaced seating between ticketed groups, and introduced strict queue management measures to maintain physical distancing.

Back of house has had increased hygiene and cleaning, updated procedures for the management of technical equipment, COVID training, staggered break times to support physical distancing, separate entry and exit points for performers, crew and staff, and record-keeping and health declarations required for all staff on site.

At the Lyric and the Capitol theatres where Pippin and Frozen are playing cast and backstage crew have been placed in a separate bubble from the audience and ushers.

If for any reason those working back of house need to move into the other bubble there are strict procedures including the requirement to sanitise their hands, wear a mask, and wear protective booties over their shoes.

All cast and crew have to have a weekly COVID test to ensure they remain negative, and masks must be worn by everyone backstage apart from cast while they are performing on stage. While it was a complicated procedure it was necessary to protect all concerned, the producers said.