BY CHRISTIAN CARVAJAL

Theater has survived a lot worse than the COVID-19 pandemic. In Shakespeare’s time, productions were obliged to shut down after any week in which over 30 potential theatergoers succumbed to bubonic plague. Four centuries later, AIDS ravaged Broadway and the New York City Opera. On the financial front, theaters struggled through the Great Depression thanks to the Federal Works Progress Administration. Now they’re forced to navigate the fragile health of their aging patron base, the allure of streaming video, and the thinning of the print medium that promotes local artists. Nevertheless, our theater companies stagger, however hesitantly, forward.

For a positive example of crisis management, look no farther than Tacoma Little Theatre, which appears to have sailed through the last five years with flying colors under artistic manager Chris Serface. “We came out of the pandemic in good shape,” says Serface. TLT had already planned to upgrade to stadium seating during the summer of 2020. “Instead of three months,” Serface continues, “we had 18 months.” The theater remodeled its façade to add attractive new signage. As for the upcoming season, “We exceeded our season ticket goal,” Serface reports. “We are seeing an increase in interest in shows, and for ‘The Play That Goes Wrong,’ we’ve already added an extra week.” Actors must, however, sometimes remain home due to COVID infections. “You just have to be smart,” says Serface. “We know that we are taking risks in what we do, but the risks are a lot less dire than they once were.”

Tacoma Musical Playhouse is selling subscriptions for its upcoming 30th season, the start of which reflects a common trend: namely, offering audiences familiar material in hopes of fostering ticket sales. Both TMP and Olympia’s Harlequin Productions will stage “Cabaret,” a show TLT produced successfully in 2015. TMP’s season continues with “Cats,” a show that seems to have more than nine lives despite its catastrophic (no pun intended) film version four years ago, plus the doo-wop of “Jersey Boys.” Then, however, comes a riskier spring lineup that includes the tap-themed “Stepping Out” and “The Prom,” a show about resistance to a homophobic Indiana school board. In response to COVID, TMP was obliged to forgo live orchestras for some of its shows, relying instead on prerecorded or synthesized music until it’s safer to cram musicians into its wing space.

Lakewood Playhouse had an even bumpier road. After an investigation in late summer 2020, its board decided sexual assault and harassment charges against its managing artistic director were credible. He resigned and was banned from the building. In October 2022, Scott Campbell, associate managing artistic director of Lakewood Playhouse from 2002 to 2009, returned to serve as managing artistic director, seemingly heralding a brighter future for the company, but that hope proved short-lived as Campbell resigned in July 2023. Despite that, the theater is moving forward with its 85th season, featuring an adaptation of “The Giver,” the black comedy “Incorruptible,” and the Lynn Nottage dramedy “By the Way, Meet Vera Stark,” among others under interim administrator Erin Chanfrau. “We have a job search open,” says Chanfrau. “We have some amazing candidates, and we hope to fill this chair soon.” Despite a shortened 2022-2023 season, Chanfrau notes, “We’ve had an almost 90% season ticket renewal rate, so we’re super excited about the support the community is showing us. We’ve had to be a little more operational than we’d like to be, just because of the transitions, so we want to get back to being a governing board focusing on fundraising and grant writing and getting sponsors and getting advertisers, so that the person running the theater can really focus on the artistic mission and the community mission.”

Meanwhile, over in Olympia, Harlequin Productions, which links its season schedules with calendar years, planned a 2024 season comprising almost exclusively such household-name-brand scripts as “Sweeney Todd” and “A Christmas Carol.”

Olympia Family Theater plays to full houses more often than not, but it’ll have to steer through the departure of managing artistic director Lily Raabe after a busy, two-year stint.

The last few years were great for Theater Artists Olympia, an ad hoc company that seemed all but deceased until it landed a storefront space in the Capital Mall. (TAO shares the venue with Broadway Olympia Productions and JuiceBox Theater for children.) TAO’s artistic director Pug Bujeaud says one of live theater’s ongoing concerns is, “How do we get people back involved? How do we get younger people involved? With the loss of Evergreen (State College) and Saint Martin’s theater programs, we’ve lost a lot of influx of people who are excited about theater.” As for TAO itself, she says with a laugh, “I think we’re fine. I mean, we have low expectations. If we have enough money to do the next show, that’s a win.”