The Roxy Theatre in Owen Sound is reopening its doors in November to feature its first performance in more than 19 months.
Roxy Theatre Executive Director Marcia Cunningham says the play, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, officially marks the reopening after the Roxy closed its doors in March 2020.
Cunningham adds while the province has allowed the Roxy to open up to full capacity, the OSLT has made the decision to limit their capacity by ensuring there is one vacant seat between group ticket holders.
Cunningham notes, with the start of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, the Roxy will be going into its 2021-2022 season, with other shows lined up including, A Red Plaid Shirt in February, Born Yesterday in April, and Matilda Jr. in May.
Various other events will be coming to the Roxy Theatre including live music performances, with some available through a livestream, and others at full capacity, according to Cunningham.
“We wont put the socially distanced seating plan in place for those, because we are hearing from those audiences and those promoters they are ready to get back to 100 per cent capacity,” says Cunningham.
“That’s going above and beyond what the province is requiring us to do, because as far as the province in concerned, we can have the theatre open to 100 per cent capacity, but we felt this was what the OSLT patrons wanted,” says Cunningham.
In preparation to opening its doors, Cunningham says the Roxy was able to host some of the Summerfolk events in August, providing the opportunity to practice physical distancing in the lobby area and checking identification for contact tracing.
“We are following all public health guidelines from the province and also from Grey Bruce Public Health locally, and so we will be requiring proof of vaccination and a government issued I.D. as is required by the province,” says Cunningham. “We will also be requiring masking when coming into the theatre and moving throughout the theatre. Once the patrons are sitting down, they are permitted to remove their masks if they like. Our bar will be open so they may have purchased a drink at the bar and want to sit in the audience a drink their drink, however we are encouraging people as much as possible to continue to wear their masks.”
Cunningham adds they are very much excited to welcome people back to the Roxy and have had their team work to ensure the flow through the theatre is as safe as possible.
She says those with tickets might want to consider coming earlier than normal as there might be extended wait times due to the employed measures.
The first show is running between Nov. 17 to the 20, then from the 24 to the 27 and anyone who previously brought a ticket back in 2020 when the show was initially supposed to hit the stage, are being contacted about show dates.