Five Virus Theater members meet by Zoom to plan the piece of theater that will be available to all on their soon-to-be launched Patreon page.In March of 2020, the performers, designers, and teachers of the Virus Theater company were looking forward to a season that included a reprise of their popular original play Oeddy Wrecks, a regional tour of Oeddy Wrecks with shows in Albuquerque and Tucson, a new original melodrama, and an expanded summer youth theater program in partnership with the Silver City Rec Center and the Town of Silver City.

When the pandemic hit, the Silver City-based theater company closely followed news of the requirements of progressing restrictions, waiting as long as possible to postpone components of its season. By early summer, all planned Virus Theater 2020 offerings had been postponed. The theater company “making theater at the edge of the wilderness,” as Co-Executive Director Jessa Tumposky describes it, had to develop a new plan.

In early June, Virus Theater received a grant from the New Mexico Humanities Council through a program funded through the CARES Act. This essential funding helped Virus Theater pay some of its overhead costs during the time of year when ticket sales for live theater productions would usually provide it with its primary source of annual income.

Even the pandemic cannot hamper that traditional theater adage, “The show must go on.” With its financial needs partially supported, Virus Theater leadership turned its focus to the important questions of how to make creative work and connect with audiences and its community during the pandemic. After following an array of trends in the theater world, in which theater companies worldwide scrambled to survive in a time of restrictions that prevent all traditional live theater productions, Virus Theater landed upon a way to make theatrical work, connect with its community of supporters, and potentially even grow its reach beyond the geographical area of its home in Silver City.

With live theater shut down for the foreseeable future, the creative collective that comprises Virus Theater needed a new outlet for their imaginations and stories, and a way to connect with their community. Virus Theater decided to expand into new formats for their work, with the potential to reach a wider and more diverse audience, which has been and remains a major goal of Virus Theater.

Virus Theater is launching a Patreon page on Tuesday, September 15, 2020. Patreon is a subscription-based web platform that allows artists to appeal directly to their supporters to become Patrons and support their artwork by paying a monthly fee. In return, artists provide creative work along with other perks to their Patrons.

“We treasure our committed audiences and are always interested in expanding with whom we’re in conversation. In the performing arts in particular, the creation and reception of a piece of artwork is an interactive conversation,” notes Tumposky.

On Virus Theater’s Patreon launch day, a link to its Patreon page will be available on the theater company’s website, www.virustheater.com, as well as on its social media accounts. Audience members locally and anywhere the internet reaches can find updates on Virus Theater’s progress on social media or by signing up for the company’s email list on the bottom of its website pages.

As an offering to all its interested followers, on the launch day Virus Theater will post a video piece of theatrical work, available to anyone who visits the Virus Theater Patreon page regardless of whether one becomes a Patron of Virus Theater. The piece, called 40/40, is a performance of nine 40-word poems about the quarantine by Melanie Zipin, a local artist, writer, and artist who is a part of the company.

“Being creative and resourceful is what we do,” notes Kristen Warnack, who along with Tumposky is a Virus Theater Co-Executive Director, “and it’s often uncomfortable and vulnerable, as well as exhilarating. If there’s no growth and connection, there’s no Virus Theater. So here we go, doing what we do, in a different way. Check it out!”

For those wondering about the theater company’s name, which has a stronger connotation in the age of COVID-19, Warnack notes, “We were here first! We’ve been performing under this name for over 20 years, and we’re not going anywhere. So, for now, we remain Virus Theater.”