Julia Catalano is a 20-year-old junior at Syracuse University and is currently cooped up in the house she rented for the Spring 2020 semester. She is a theater studies major and is passionate about theater and how it brings people together. Through many pandemics and plagues alike, theater has always survived. Shakespeare shared his art during the Black Plague, and there were political pieces during the Spanish Flu pandemic. The form of its survival is different over the years but unites theatergoers under one roof: the ability to overcome hardship through collaboration and shared struggle. Julia is part of Syracuse Stage, the university's production organization. Next semester she is directing Shakespeare’s “ A Midsummer Night’s Dream” and is seeing close productions being cancelled due to coronavirus. She talked about how coronavirus has temporarily halted life upstate, and how it may affect student theater productions going forward.
This interview has been condensed and edited for length and clarity.
Hi Julia! How are you doing right now?
OK, I guess. And then better than usual, you know what I mean? It’s just so effed up right now.
How is Syracuse compared to New York City? I could see how much more distressed the city is, so how is upstate? Do you see people taking the precautions they need to remain safe?
Our numbers are climbing now. I know yesterday the cases were 350 in Onondaga County, where I live. So it’s been going up. For a while I was wondering if the virus had been contained to a certain degree. I felt a little safe here, but I don’t know anymore. On precautions, I was hanging out with my friends last week. I think what people are doing right now is keeping their circles small. A couple weeks I saw someone in the house behind me dartying (day partying). I saw my friends over spring break, but I saw people who I knew had stayed here over spring break and didn’t really go anywhere. We (her neighbors and her) are so close together so we’re basically quarantined.
You’re fortunate enough to still have a job amidst this crisis and currently working on campus. What do you do?
So I work in the student center and am kind of in charge of all the buildings on campus and the events that happen. So anyone who had to stay on campus, because we have international students who couldn't go home, had to stay at our South Campus. If you left campus over spring break, then you couldn’t come back to school property until online classes began. So I stayed because I don’t want to be out of a job this semester. Apparently people have moved back in after moving around. It's uncomfortable now because it's not just students who come in. Janitors and bus drivers come in sometimes and I get paranoid sometimes.
How is your relationship with the theater department being affected by this?
I’m directing " A Midsummer’ Night’s Dream," so I was casting for next semester. But once I found out we weren’t coming back, we were starting to plan for each inevitability. I talked to my thesis advisor for the play. She said that as of right now, there is a 20 percent chance I won’t have face-to-face classes next semester. It’s bad right now. She said next year is going to be painful for theater because everything right now is up in the air. It’s all on hold. Next year we are looking at how we recoup all of this money.
Does Syracuse Stage have logistical issues to work through?
The department has to see who we have to let go. What shows we have to let go of, what shows do we even put in the season. How are people even going to see theater again? They lost so much money. My advisor said we are doing so much better than Syracuse’s colleagues right now because it is so much better to be associated with a university right now.
Syracuse Stage funds the theater program? If it were an independent theater would they most likely close?
Yes. The general manager of Syracuse Stage is my teacher and he told us before this hit us really hard that there are going to be contingency plans and how we would handle next season. Every other theater that isn't connected to a university like this, that would be the end of that theater forever. Regional theaters, theaters in New York.
How do you see the future of theater in general?
I think theater will always survive. Shakespeare went through plagues and it would always come back. I think there will be a huge emergence of poor theater (makeshift productions using very limited funds.)
It's a terrifying time for students in theater departments around the country, I imagine.
You dedicated your education, your money, to study for a job that can’t happen unless people can assemble.
There's such a huge possibility that we would be disappointed in anything going forward. Do you agree?
Butwhat I learned from this more than anything is that you just have to have no expectations and just live in the present. Whatever I’m doing right now, I’m focusing on that. It’s not even worth thinking about my show next semester. I just need to not have the expectation that it will happen. Just value the pre-production work. There’s no reason to think ahead because no one knows.