How will theatre function when the lockdown ends?

I agree, they will need some good favourites to tempt us back in. Sad for new writers but you never know, there might be a ‘new post viral wave’ as the future theatre historians might term it.
Personally it will take something for me to go back into the theatre un gloved, without anti viral spray squirting all I see. TBH I think we are a long way off reopening.

If wearing gloves was sufficient then I'd me much more inclined to go back to theatres when they re-open but it's breathing the virus in that worries me. I already wear gloves whenever I'm out, due to my OCD, & it's effective at not picking up sickness bugs but I still get colds & suchlike airborne diseases, which would include coronavirus. If the recent research that one sneeze can send germs up to 26 feet is correct then one person in a theatre with coronavirus could infect at least half a dozen rows of people. I really cannot think of any practical way that theatres can remove the risk of infection so it may have to be up to individuals to decide if they're prepared to take the risk or not.

I will have to afford a box! Limit the contact and the germ distance. 

I found a point in this article interesting www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-52246319 It says "Their contact-tracing method would work by using a smartphone's Bluetooth signals to determine to whom the owner had recently been in proximity for long enough to have established contagion a risk." So what happens in a theatre where everyone has turned off their mobile phones? If none of the phones are getting a signal then presumably it won't register if you were sat near to someone who is subsequently established to already have had coronavirus at that point. Is turning off your mobile phone in theatres suddenly going to become a bad thing to do?!

Sooner or later we will need to get things moving again and accept the risk we all face. Those who know they are higher risk will need to take necessary precautions. The economy and theatre can't stay on hold forever, nor do I want to spend the rest of my life in an anti-bac bubble. Likeliest outcome will be one or more vaccines - can't come soon enough for me. (Oh and certain folk need to stop eating bats and dogs.) Theatre will return to normal - it has to in order to survive. The idea of socially distant seating appals me.

They tend to be younger and often write for a younger, smaller cast and younger audience, so maybe that sort of theatre will be the first to come back? Open air theatre might be more popular too. I do think it's going to be a write-off for months if not years, until a vaccine is found. And what of things like TV and film? The cast-of-thousands, multiple location fantasy epic looks doomed for a while, and anything requiring a studio audience, unless they can be vetted.

The world has to start turning again, just as it did after 9/11. And it will. Economically, we all have no option as markets are interdependent and businesses are global. We may have to accept combo of higher death rates and higher risk till vaccines appear. After all, death to infection ratio typically ranges from 2-4% with 6-10% for exceptional cases. It will come down to how many trillions of debt we want to preload for future generations. Plus, without wanting to sound callous, more folk have died in Syria and many other war zones through deliberate human decisions and interventions. Millions died in World wars. Covid 19 has proved containable with a lower impact than might otherwise have been expected. Mass lockdowns needed to happen as nobody knew how severe it might get; with every passing day we have a better idea of the numbers, rate of infections and deaths. We now need a plan to kick start the global economy otherwise in the long term more people will die of poverty or hyperinflation than the coronavirus.

Following the uniquely massive financial stimulus and support for those who can't work, the government will be penniless.

Expect savage cuts to all "non-essential" services, including to the Arts: a swathe of funded venues and companies face closure.

If you thought austerity was bad...

Sadly I fear theatre will be one of the biggest casualties of the post Covid world. This will be the worst recession ever seen in our or indeed any lifetime and the fallout will be huge. People will have very little money to buy tickets never mind theatres having the infrastructure in place to reopen. Ticket prices may have to rise, making theatre even more exclusive than it was. And this is before the issue of audiences willingly flocking to confined spaces again, which could take years.

I hate to be negative but it is better to be realistic than optimistic projections I think.

As a little positive, and an indication of what theatre could look like post Covid, the St Helens Theatre Royal are streaming an Easter panto every day over Easter: theguideliverpool.com/st-helens-theatre-royal-are-bringing-rapunzel-the-lockdown-panto-to-your-house-this-easter/

I think those businesses in the leisure and entertainment industry who manage to ride the storm and survive will absolutely boom when things return to normal. Look at the way people behave the minute you tell them they can’t do something... they insist that the absolutely must do it. I think pubs and restaurants will be full, people will be out shopping, and yes I think Theatres will find themselves selling lots of tickets. 

That’s not to underplay the plight of the many people who will be out of business or unemployed and won’t be able to afford to do those things, but as we know there always seems to be plenty of people with money to spend. 

I think cinemas will struggle just as much - films might lose the Chinese market for films (if an embargo is put in place by the USA government) so that will filter through a lot.
The New Mulan might never get a cinema release as an anti Chinese mood will put people going to see it.

It's all speculation but to give a less pessimistic view - when I speak (virtually) to friends, one thing that comes up all the time is how much people miss communal experience, whatever that might be - the pub, parties, clubs, gigs, cinema and theatre; one person who is a confirmed atheist even said she feels sad walking past churches and feels a need to go inside and find a service she can join. There seems to be a general craving to experience things together in a way that technology just can't replicate.

And many people, particularly in London, are working from home being paid exactly the same and therefore are saving loads of money because there's nothing to spend it on currently. I can easily foresee a huge splurge on all the things we've missed when restrictions are lifted and a greater appreciation of them. Yes, there will probably be a residual nervousness about big gatherings amongst some people for a while since we are now internalising a sense that other people are potentially dangerous to us and us to them, but people are generally adaptive and forgetful; the new normal quickly pushes out the old normal, as these strange days show.

I will certainly be back in the theatres as soon as they open. And definitely pubs and restaurants as well, I have already had enough of my own cooking. And I predict there will be queues around the block for a haircut as soon as the hairdressers open again...!