A STATEMENT FROM RED LINE PRODUCTIONS (OLD FITZ) ARTISTIC DIRECTOR ANDREW HENRY

Theatre is my greatest love. It is the space that has most inspired me, challenged me, changed me and motivated me. Across the country, my greatest love is hurting badly. The COVID-19 pandemic is already wreaking havoc with closures, postponements and cancellations of so many events and theatre productions across Australia and around the world. My personal gripe about all of this isn’t worth even mentioning because this needs to run its course.

Our 60 seat theatre runs on a month by month basis. We are unfunded, we have the tiniest of reserves and we have only survived because of our ability to operate with a guaranteed 60% minimum capacity. We run off our box office takings and that has always been our sure thing. Over the past two weeks that has dramatically changed, so we have made the decision to postpone our upcoming production of IS GOD IS so that we can mitigate the potential decimation of our company by running without our ‘sure thing’. This sucks, but if we are to survive we have to make this decision.

I hated maths at school but as it turns out, Mrs Seckold was right and the numbers don’t lie. This decision has been made with excellent advice from excellent people and it breaks my heart. We just need to see what happens and postponing IS GOD IS will allow us the next four weeks to observe what happens with COVID-19.

Our current production of OUR BLOOD RUNS IN THE STREET will run as scheduled until 21 March. It’s really brilliant and you should book a ticket to see it.