With heavy hearts, the Market Theatre board of directors has made the difficult decision to cancel our upcoming production of Shrek the Musical in Carolina Wren Park.
This decision comes after research and input from local health authorities. This is not due to any outbreak within our cast, but out of care and concern for our community as a whole. Our diverse board of directors includes frontline workers whose local, personal experience illustrates just how threatening the current wave of the pandemic is to our community.
• On Tuesday, September 14 AnMed had 165 Covid patients. Our hospital is currently overwhelmed with the greatest number of Covid patients since the pandemic began in addition to our typical volume.
• In January the average age of Covid patients was 75. Now it is 40. We are seeing very sick Covid patients in their 20s.
• AnMed is expecting that within 2 weeks the numbers will be worse due to the recent holiday weekend, school activities and football season.
• The Delta variant is far more contagious and settles deeper in the lungs than the previous variants, so people are getting sicker.
• Brad Mock, MD, the Chief Medical Officer at AnMed recommended that we postpone based on the situation at AnMed.
Over the summer, Mamma Mia! was an incredible experience that drew an average of 1000 people per night to Carolina Wren Park. It is our belief that Shrek the Musical would be no less popular. Even though it is an outdoor event, it would provide ample opportunity for this highly contagious variant of the virus to spread in a densely populated, uncontrolled environment. We considered all alternatives to cancellation, including an extremely limited audience capacity, but ultimately determined that such measures would be challenging in a public venue setting.
We ask that everyone do their part to protect our community from this threat and prevent future outbreaks like this one. We hope that other event organizers, theatre producers, and community leaders will take note of the current COVID-19 threat and do everything in their power to protect our community. And to our individual friends and neighbors, we ask that, if possible, you get the COVID-19 vaccine. With low vaccination rates in our community (only 34% of Anderson County is fully vaccinated) and the likelihood of more COVID variants down the line, this is the best tool we have to break the cycle and bring our community—and theatre—back to normal.
We will revisit Shrek the Musical at a later time when it is safe. Our cast and creative team have been working tirelessly for over 6 weeks on this production. Sadly, we know that not all of them will be available if and when this event is rescheduled, but we want to acknowledge all of their hard work and dedication to what would have been an incredible production.
We also want to acknowledge the City of Anderson for providing the opportunity for the Market Theatre to pursue this production for the people of Anderson. The City’s beautiful Carolina Wren Park is the perfect stage for outdoor theatre, and we hope to return soon.
Market classes and other events are still on the way. We’ll be back soon with safe, quality theatre for everyone. We love you, Anderson.
