Green Light Arts celebrates a triumphant return to live, in-person theatre

After a pandemic-induced 18-month hiatus, local theatre company Green Light Arts returned live, in-person theatre to Waterloo Region last month with a brand new theatrical production. 

The play, titled WE COULD BE, featured various stories from five local playwrights, and ran from  Aug. 16 to Aug. 25 in the Kitchener Market. It was free to attend, and saw a full house each night — a sight artistic director Matt White said was reassuring for future productions.

“It was such a vote of confidence. It was so, so lovely, to see people again, and to hear people laugh together. You forget how much you miss all of that, until you’re actually back inside of it,” he said. 

WE COULD BE was essentially a collection of stories, each piece as unique as the next. 

“The only prompt I gave [the playwrights] was that it has to talk about hope and resilience, and whatever that means to them. And that hopefully, it can also be viewed by as wide an audience as possible,” he said. “And so that's why we also made the show free, because we're trying to just thank audiences for coming back into theatre, and to remove as many barriers as we could.”

Because everyone has been unable to attend theatre performances with the pandemic, they wanted to make sure their returning show was as accessible and appealing to as many people as possible. 

As a result, the series of performances had something for everyone, from comedy to serious, to mythological to realist pieces — all centred on the theme of hope and resilience. 

“This was definitely an exciting way to come back in person,” White said. “To the best of our knowledge, in terms of live in-person theatre that wasn't over zoom, this was the first time in the region [since the pandemic.”

But a show of this nature wasn’t without its challenges. To ensure the show would go on, they held it outside at the Kitchener Market, which meant they also had to build it and tear it down each night. 

“That was certainly, you know, a testament to the production team that we have that, you know, they just got quicker every night,” he said. 

They were also nervous about putting on the show safely, and making sure it actually happened — things were uncertain until just a couple weeks prior. 

“We didn't fully know if it was going to happen until three quarters of the way through July, and then we turned around and started rehearsing in early August,” he said. “It's one thing to make a play happen. But then it's one more thing to make sure that people feel comfortable, safe, and aren't going to get sick from coming and experiencing it. And, you know, so far, it looks like everything was great by that standard.”

And while the future remains uncertain, he says that kind of hesitancy will likely not be as prominent as they move forward with their future productions, as with the success of WE COULD BE, they realized making covid-safe adjustments are completely doable. 

Production announcements for the season should come within the next few weeks. 

“We're hoping to be staging a previously published work in February. And then a new piece in June,” White said.