Interview: Theatre creativity during lockdown and its legacy - with Chloe Nelkin
08/09/2021
Chloe Nelkin has run theatre, arts and opera PR company, Chloe Nelkin Consulting, for 10 years, and we sat down to talk about how theatres responded during lockdown and what the legacy will be. I also asked her what we should look out for and what she's most looking forward to seeing.
You can watch the full chat with Chloe on IGTV (link below).
What was it like when lockdown was announced in March 2020?
Crikey, it was devastating. Everything that we know and loved in this industry was just torn apart. The live entertainment industry, the very nature of it is all about being out and about and suddenly we were all locked inside for our own safety.
So, it was a horrible time, especially as we didn't know how long it was going to go on for and if everybody would get through it.
At the beginning of March, we'd actually celebrated CNC 10th anniversary and brought together loads of our past clients and our current clients and friends, and it was then the most bizarre thing that a week later suddenly that was all ripped away from us. So it was bittersweet as, of course, we just entered such a horrible 18 months.
What was the response from theatres like?
I think what was incredible was the resilience of so many theatres, particularly smaller theatres, who were suddenly working to get their programmes online, were working within the restrictions to try and film new work to still make things accessible.
Or were commissioning and coming up with new projects or fundraising initiatives.
Just thinking back to what we worked on, we worked on something called All The Web's A Stage for Shakespeare day last April. And loads of artists came together and just donated their time to raise money for those in the arts who were affected by the pandemic.
So they were amazing initiatives like that. We also worked with High Tide, and they commissioned five new writers to create pieces in response to what was going on: Love in the time of Corona.