Impact of COVID-19 and the Arts Industry – Documentary: COM 451 Spring 2021

FESCH.TV INFORMIERT:

The arts industry, along with most industries, have gone through a big recession since the start of the pandemic. Many of those industries have been able to reopen with certain precautions and rules, whereas theatres have remained closed. I say the arts in a very general sense, but for this video I am going to focus primarily on the performing arts. “​The coronavirus pandemic
devastated the arts community with a blow so strong and swift that it immediately sent home
nearly everyone connected to the stage, leaving behind administrative staffs to keep driving funds into its arteries.“

Pennsylvania alone, “creative industries lost more than 97,000 jobs and $4.4 billion in sales
between April and July this year.” ​I want to tell the stories of real people in the performing arts,
both positive and negative. I want people to watch this and realize number one, how much art
impacts a community and number two, how much this pandemic continues to affect artists
everywhere. Additionally, I’d love to highlight the ways artists have adapted their art during the
pandemic. I want to show the ways artists have creatively been fulfilled. Though the pandemic
has hurt a lot of artists, it has also created new outlets and opportunities for artistic exploration.

As Tony Nominee Jeremy O. Harris puts it, “There are so many tools now that allow artists to
imagine new ways to engage with the idea of live-ness and community through a digital
landscape.“

For this documentary, I’m incorporating many different perspectives and stories, which means I am interviewing multiple people. I will be interviewing Asten Stewart (who was performing on a
cruise ship when covid hit), Daniel Gaymon (who was performing in ​Lion King​ on Broadway
when covid hit, he has also become a director during the pandemic), Laura Leigh Turner (who
had her Broadway debut in ​Mean Girls​ two days before Broadway shut down), Briana Stone
(who moved to NYC during the pandemic and worked at a testing sight), and Chad Henderson
(artistic director of Trustus Theatre in Columbia, SC).

This story takes place in the present. It tells the current stories of artists and how they have had to adapt during the pandemic. I want to hear their stories and journeys starting from when the pandemic hit to now. I want to see how they have adapted this past year and what all in their lives have changed. ​Pittsburgh Cultural Trust CEO J. Kevin McMahon said that the entertainment industry was some of the first businesses to close and will probably be the last to reopen. This industry was not built for social distancing.

All but one of the interviews will be conducted over Zoom due to my interviewees living in
various cities. I am gathering footage from my interviewees of them performing on stage or of
them working on whatever they are currently involved with (i.e. what job they have now, how
they stay involved with the arts, etc.). I am also going to Trustus Theatre and filming the empty
stage, empty audience, empty dressing rooms, the unlit Trustus sign, etc. Other footage in this
documentary will feature myself explaining why I chose this topic and my connection to it. I am
also capturing my journey when I travel places to film.

Grayson Anthony
Producer/Director/Camera Operator/Editor

This documentary was a product of Anderson University’s COM 451 Class: Documentary Storytelling. This project was created in the Spring of 2021.

Bobby Rettew, MA / COM 451 Instructor
Assistant Professor
Anderson University
Department of Communications