Here Comes the Wave

4 min readJun 25, 2021

Here Comes the Wave

June 24, 2021, 11:54 pm
Filed under: art, art institutions, economics, pandemic, theatre | Tags: Brief Encounter, Minneapolis, pandemic, theatre, Theatre de la Jeune Lune

When I was in grad school, I brought the guest director from England to see a Moliere piece made by Theatre de la Jeune Lune, on tour from Minneapolis. I’d seen Jeune Lune’s work in their home when I was on tour and fell in love with their production of The Kitchen. If you saw this production you’ll know why. (Plates!) So I knew this visiting director would find something of interest in their Moliere piece. She was very impressed and we talked about that production a lot, even later that year, when I came to assist her on a production in London.

Not long after that, Jeune Lune, after thirty years of innovative work, had to close. Word on the street was that financial troubles had sunk them and they had to disband. Every time I saw this director I’d brought to the show after that, she’d ask me, “Darling, how could this happen? How could they let this wonderful company die? What is wrong in your country that they don’t know they need to take care of extraordinary artists like that?” She was greatly troubled by the loss. I was too — though a lot less surprised, as I’ve come to expect a terrible survival-of-the-financially-fittest in the arts in this country. It’s not the best art that survives — just the stuff that generates the most financially stable footprint.

I think this is backwards, of course. Personally, I don’t need my great artists to be financial wizards. If they’re not great at managing their money, I don’t think that should be a death sentence for a theatre company. I want a company to make great theatre; I don’t need it to make great investments. Anyway — Jeune Lune died and it was a tragedy for their community not to mention theatre in general, and its reverberations were felt everywhere, even across the ocean to a director who’d seen their Moliere once.

Now, here in 2021, a beloved and cherished English company has died. It is one with a similarly storied history, aesthetic chops and full touring schedule. If you saw Kneehigh Theatre, you know you saw something special. And they survived through the pandemic! They made it through the eye of the hurricane! But they could go no further. It’s heartbreaking. I want to call up that director who used to bemoan the loss of Jeune Lune and say, “Darling, how could you let this happen?”

But of course — this is only the first of many beloved companies hitting the rocks, I expect. I expect this is about to happen around the world. There will be companies that quietly folded while we were all at home. There will be companies that held on throughout but could not pick up the pieces here at the end of the road. It’s about to get very sad around here for the performing arts and it’s been sad for some time now but it’s somehow going to be a whole new wave of closures and sadness. Darling how could we let this happen? There are a lot of positive developments in process. Broadway will be back in the fall. The Public is doing some Shakespeare in the Park this summer (featuring one of the actors from the Dragoning! Go see him!) But Jeune Lune is long gone. Kneehigh is shutting down.

As things start to open up, many other companies we love will discover that their futures are unsustainable. Darlings, do we have to let this happen?

It’s probably too late for most of them but if you have a company you love — maybe let them know now, maybe drop them a donation, before they’re gone forever.