How will theatre function when the lockdown ends?

I don't know the legality of it but surely a workplace can't dictate your life to this degree? In any case, it would be totally impractical in terms of first proving that said employee went to the theatre and also if there was an outbreak identifying the initial cause would be almost impossible. Besides which, you could catch the virus nipping into a shop or on the bus to work. Way too many variables.

Most people are being sensible most of the time. I didn't say I necessarily believed all of the headlines but from personal experience I do know multiple people that are still visiting their mothers who are also being visited by all their other children, or are popping round their friends and having a coffee with them in the back garden. Plenty of people are taking these risks even while the virus is peaking. It's no less risky just because it's not being done in public spaces where we can all see them.

I'm not sure how my post was unfair when it came to finances. I never claimed that everyone was working from home or that no one was struggling financially? I clearly stated that everyone's financial situation and employment status is different right now. Just that there ARE some people who are currently earning money that they are only currently spending on the basics ie. bills, rent and a weekly shop. Therefore, those people are already saving money. I'm well aware how expensive the theatre can be, which is also why I pointed out that most regular theatregoers (again, not ALL) are likely to be in a stronger financial position than the worst affected. Of course theatre will be something that a lot of people cut back on. It's not something the majority of the population do anyway. Most financially stable Brits will go to see a handful of West End shows in their life. But I do think that most people that have prioritised theatre in the past will happily welcome it back into their lives to some degree when they have re-opened. I don't believe that people will be happy to go back to work and use public transport but terrified to sit in a cinema or theatre. I don't believe that after not having done anything social for months, people wont be willing to spend a bit of money on these types of activities. For as many people who are being more cautious with their health or finances, there will be those that have managed to save money over these months or that don't consider themselves particularly vulnerable that are even more eager than they were pre-coronavirus to go out and enjoy themselves.

I didn't once say in my post that people will forget about coronavirus. Of course they wont. I said that when the next thing comes along, people will move on from it and that eventually it will be a distant memory for most. None of this is false. We move on from recessions, wars, disasters and most of the time it doesn't take long for humans to adapt back to how they were before these things. New York didn't forget about 9/11 but they absolutely moved on from it. For a while after, tourists avoided NYC because they were scared. Broadway actors had to make a TV commercial urging people to see shows. Shows closed and the new shows that were successes were largely light hearted fare like Hairspray. But eventually people came back, dark shows like Spring Awakening were being workshopped within a few years and would go on to be successful on Broadway, normality resumed in NYC. That's just one example because it's something we all remember. Just because the things we read about in history books didn't happen in our lifetime doesn't mean they happened to a different species who had a better ability to recover and readjust to normality. Spanish Flu killed more people than WWI yet is referred to as the 'forgotten pandemic'. It got overshadowed by the war that people wanted to talk about more. Obviously with the media and technology, it's not so easy for huge events like this to be forgotten nowadays. But that doesn't mean that something else wont come along that people will want to talk about more within the next few years. Humanity is not lucky enough to have long periods of peace, financial stability, health and so on. There's always something around the corner that will be more of a worry than the thing we're currently worrying about. I think denying that is what is actually short sighted.

The point about shows running with smaller audiences revolves around the “weekly nut”, the point at which costs are covered and losses avoided. To have a production running with, say, a 20% downturn will put many into a loss making position, even 10% will make the difference. This is show but also business, so such a production will close. Theatres could reduce rent, employees take a pay cut but there is only a small margin that could be withstood, there’s a reason for high ticket prices. Hamilton? Probably fine, it’s also got a young audience who will feel much more safe, maybe the highest ticket prices will have to come down. Phantom? Lots of tourists missing, so very much touch and go.

It will till a vaccine comes.

Which will kill toursm as simply only the rich and those going to see family or freinds will bother. Most of the People who have made city breaks to New York will not be  crossing the Atlantic for a weekend in New York any time soon.

International tourism will be non-existent for months one way or another - internal tourism within the UK will take up some of the slack. 

Can't see lots of people going to London from the rest of the UK- people will replace international holidays with rural holidays in the UK.

    Through equally they might just shut the doors for a year and revive them when theatre world is profitable again (through if international tourism never returns to anywhere near the old extent that might never be the case for the big musicals.)

I think people need to remember that this lockdown isn't just about the virus. Its about creating social immunity to death. Whether we like it or not, death is bring normalised. We need to get used to the figures. The number who die from coronavirus remains in the low % of total cases, and sooner or later life will need to get going. The question will always be around how many is too many - one death or one hundred thousand deaths? Another aspect of this is that our relatively safe cocooned lives have been shaken by this. We are led to believe that most people are born, grow, live to reasonable or older age, then hopefully pass on peacefully. This is as much a struggle to understand our own mortality as it is to understand the disease. For this reason, I want to see theatres reopen and life get moving as soon and as normally as possible. If the consequences of this are that I become a statistic, then so be it. Lockdown is no life for anybody and we need to flip the coin and say "those with known risks must continue to self-manage, everybody else needs to crack on with life and accept a very real new threat to their health and well-being". This is no time for the cossetting, touchy-feely, 'accept and accommodate all' world that we have become used to where we flex and bend to satisfy and pacify every microcosmic element of society. Theatres need to reopen; life must go on; we need to grasp the nettle and accept that we can't cocoon ourselves for eternity. If we don't, there will be no theatres to function because the economies will cease to exist. All to save a tiny percentage of global population.

If theatre owners have a choice of a production running at half capacity paying reduced rent, or empty and no rent, they'll pick reduced rent. There will be some running costs that don't exist in an empty theatre, but the capital cost is already out there. It's going to be about covering the running costs, or even covering the additional running costs based on it being uses, not empty. Even an empty theatre requires some heating and security.

There won't be much room for a pay cut, and it would be hard after several months with no work, but if it's a choice between that and not working at a time when the economy is struggling and many people have been made redundant, a lot of people will chose that.

We can hope for some grants, and the wealthier members of the community pitching in. Perhaps some of better off names would be prepared to work for well below their normal fees, or would it be better for them to let the jobs go to the less famous? Hard to say, as I think names will help to get reluctant bums back on seats.

I know that some film and tv actors have clauses in contracts banning them from doing any dangerous sports like skiing. I'm not convinced any employers could try the same with banning trips to the theatre, but it's fair to say there could be a bit of social push back if people think their colleagues are taking unnecessary risks. I can't see that sticking too long - at least not if the phased withdrawal from lockdown is done correctly. But I do foresee a few family arguments about whether it's OK to do x or y when there's a plan to visit granny the following weekend.

On the BBC now they're talking about social distancing lasting indefinitely. Obviously this won't happen because humans need contact and people will congregate eventually lockdown or not. This will mean that theatres will at least become a place where there is a reason to congregate and to an extent it can be controlled.

Indefinitely doesn't mean permanently. One way or another we will beat this.

If we get a vaccine fairly soon that would be great, but there's another way to beat it and that's by stepping up the distancing. This is a virus that can only survive for a few days outside a host. If we follow a hard-line isolation policy where everyone with the disease and everyone they've come into contact with are isolated for a couple of weeks then it won't be too long before the virus is extinct. The italicised part is important, because that way you stay one step ahead of the infection instead of chasing after it as we are right now. If every infected person has zero chance to pass on the infection then there are only two outcomes: they recover and the virus dies, or they die and the virus dies. It has no way out.

It's just a disease. We've driven quite a few diseases into extinction. There's no reason why this one can't be the same.