MMT's Ginger Poole says the asterisks used to represent union actors, but now it denotes those who have had vaccinations.

Theatre Coming Back to Life Soon

When I finally packed up my gear in Ginger Poole's office this morning, getting ready to make my exit, I had that cool, fresh feeling you get when taking your mask off after wearing it for hours.

Ginger is the artistic director at Mill Mountain Theatre. We had been chatting about the end of the theatre's year-long sabbatical from live, on-stage productions and its resumption without the cumbersome intervention of new technology like Zoom.

Bottom line: MMT's production of Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream" will be performed on May 8-16 outside former Mayor Nelson Harris' church at the corner of Grandin Road Memorial Avenue. That this play is normally set outside presented the first opportunity for a comeback in a season that will have some popular highlights. 

My first foray back to live entertainment comes April 25 with the Wasena Park production of Lee Hunsaker's lively Hoot and Holler storytelling fest.

Mill Mountain Theatre, Western Virginia's premier professional theatre, has a lot to offer in the coming season: Write Stuff, Midsummer Night's Dream, Thomas and the Library Lady (children attending get a free bi-lingual book), Million Dollar Quartet, A Christmas Story (one of my all-time faves), Legally Blonde and Music of the Crooners.  

Some of those are musical concerts and some for children, but the plate is full, even though the audience will not be.

Ginger says the theater will likely begin with half-a-house capacities and finish with something near 75 percent capacity. My guess is that every ticket that is available this year will be sold.

I have been especially impressed with Mill Mountain's lack of panic during Covid and its optimism in moving forward, sometimes with zoom, always with enthusiasm and creativity. When Ginger took over at Mill Mountain more than 10 years ago, everything was more than bleak. It didn't look like the theater could survive at all. It was riddled with debt and had a history of marginal-to-bad management.

Having to scramble to survive was nothing new for Mill Mountain, nor was it for any non-profit, Ginger insists. It is a way of life and those callouses helped get MMT over the hump with a solid outlook and a good bit of creativity. "We had recent experience" with difficult challenges, says Ginger. "In 2009, the problem was our fault. This time it wasn't and we weren't the only one in trouble. This time, it was all of us."

Ginger bets that "everybody's ready to come back." I can assure that at least one old man certainly is.