The Road Back: Forecasting for Change

Managing Director Sara Young chats summer theater in a changing climate.

In general, I make it a rule not to talk about the weather with you, our audience. Theater folks can lean a little superstitious, and even as I write this, part of me wonders if I’m invoking some sort of otherworldly comeuppance.

So please know that we think about weather. Obsessively. We discuss, philosophize, hypothesize and create policy. We have well thought-out plans for every weather scenario we can think of – and then we plan again when a new one arises.

We do all of this to alleviate the need for you, dear audience member, to worry about the weather when planning your visit to APT. I want you to think of APT under perfect conditions – those beautiful, mild, sunny days fading into a perfect starlit night. (And when in doubt, there’s always the free exchange policy).

So I hesitate to bring up the elephant in outdoor theater: the effects of climate change. But recently I noticed a few questions about the subject in an audience survey and figured maybe it was time to give you a peek into our thought process. The questions on the survey were generally some form of “Are you paying attention to climate change? How are you going to operate APT as climate change becomes more acute?”

The truth is we don’t have a definitive answer. We simply don’t know exactly how conditions will affect us in the medium or long term. Even so, we’ve been preparing and reacting to conditions for some time – mostly in subtle ways that may have escaped your notice.

For example, we never dealt with poor air quality before the 2023 season when we and outdoor venues around the Midwest were forced to consider cancelling performances. It was a steep learning curve, but now we have policies and procedures to guide us. I anticipate those policies will change over time, and in the meantime we’ll stay vigilant.

The matinee schedule has also changed. Twenty years ago, we had 18 weekend matinee performances in the Hill Theatre. This year we have 12, and most of them are in late August and September when temperatures tend to be cooler.

That decision wasn’t solely based on climate change, though I’m sure it subconsciously played a role in how we scheduled. The impetus was really the opening of the Touchstone Theatre in 2009. We load the Touchstone up with matinees because we think the outdoor plays are ideally seen at night, and the Touchstone offers climate control. Of course, there are good reasons for people to attend matinees on the Hill – schedule, availability, night driving, personal preference, among others – and we’ll gladly keep them on the schedule. However, we know the day may come when we need to consider limiting them more, or change the time, or find another creative solution.

We can’t ignore this reality, but we have great confidence in our ability to plan, to be creative and to keep our artists and audience safe. That confidence will guide us through the (hopefully limited) literal and figurative storms that may be ahead. We hope you’ll stick with us.

I’ll leave you with this. Though the clouds may at times roll in, those exquisite, starlit nights are in abundance during our season. To make sure I back up that claim with data, I checked the statistics from last season:

• Seven of our 97 outdoor performances were rained out.
• Another three experienced weather holds but ultimately made it through curtain call.
• Eight more performances were influenced by weather, including light rain that the actors played through, or rain earlier in the day.

That leaves 79 glorious APT performances - more than 80%! So the odds of having a temperate (and dry) adventure at APT are very much in your favor. And we can’t wait to see what the new season has in store.