While the coronavirus pandemic has theater houses across the country on lockdown, Terra Kulture, home of contemporary visual and theatre arts, is turning to its YouTube channel to keep fans of creative arts productions glued to their favorite entertainment as well as attract new audiences.
Starting from 19 April, the company through its production platform BAP Productions plans to stream a show every Sunday. The first show, Fela, which BusinessDay monitored saw thousands of views.
Online platforms not only gives theatre lovers the opportunity to see a play, but it also keeps theatre in the minds of people and will hopefully encourage more people to want to see theatre productions when the lockdown is over.
It is the first of its kind in Nigeria which the showrunners also say will enable them to plug into the evolving trend of virtual theatre arts productions.
Terra Kulture is not the only operator turning to streaming services, Park Theatre Lagos the creators of Wole Soyinka’s Trial of Brother Jero also started streaming the play online from Tuesday, 21 April. The company opted for the Zoom platform instead of YouTube.
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Theatre arts revenue has taken a direct hit since the pandemic swept through the incomes of different countries and individuals across the globe. Nigeria is forecasted to be heading for a second recession in barely four years of emerging from one. Oil prices are at a low last seen since the 1980s and investors have shut off the tap on foreign investment as uncertainties heighten. Coronavirus cases are also on the rise further worsening fears the lockdown may not be called off any time soon.
“We were in the middle of production when the lockdown started. We had to cancel the show and refund tickets that had been sold,” Joseph Umoibom, general manager, Terra Kulture Producer, BAP Productions, told BusinessDay in an interview. “We had also completed pre-production on another show that was supposed to run during the Easter season but also had to call it off. We also called off an exhibition we had been planning.”
The company known for globally renowned productions like Felabration had to incur heavy losses from the uncompleted projects.
The cost of a production depends on a number of factors including the size of a play, intricacy of the set; costume and props; the technology deployed in terms of sound; lighting; audio-visual projection or 3D mapping; holographic technology and a host of other techniques a director and producer is willing to deploy into creating a fantastic scenic atmosphere on stage. There is also the cost of marketing and PR and the venue. In all, Umoibom estimates that a production company could spend between N3 million and N70 million on one production depending on the factors highlighted and how long the production will be in the theatre.
Successful shows like Fela and the Kalakuta Queen first hit the stage in December 2017, then had another run at Easter 2018 and in Abuja in June 2018. The production then went live in Cairo in December 2018 and in Pretoria South Africa from March to April 2019. The last showing was in December 2019 and January 2020 when it ran for 10 days.
With the lockdown in place and the number of COVID-19 continuing to rise, the theatre industry is at a crossroads where it must decide to innovate or risk losing everything.
“The way business is done worldwide will definitely change because of this global lockdown,” Umoibom said. “Lessons have been learnt, fingers have been burnt. A lot of changes will happen across the world to prevent a negative impact on business and avoid being caught napping again should for whatever reason a situation like this rears its head again in the future.”
Online theatres are one of the changes show producers are making. This model is fast rising across theatre practitioners in the United Kingdom and the United States of America. A production company in the US, for instance, is launching Broadway on Demand service in June which promises a library of recorded plays, exclusive Livestream events, interactive platforms, and educational resources. The company plans to monetise it through premium subscriptions that allow more access to premium services.
“There is a strong possibility that online theatre shows will continue even after the lockdown. There is interest both from producers and aggregators to see how monetization of theatre content online will form an integral part of theatre revenue going forward,” Umoibom said.
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