Future shows at Dublin’s Gay Yeti Theater will remain “impossible” as long as the audience is limited, and the team behind the new stage show warns.

For the first time since the pandemic broke out, the actor stepped on the board again in one of Ireland’s oldest theaters, and James Joyce’s short story Dead’s opera revives Dublin’s Gayety Theater.

However, public health guidelines limit the audience to 50 per show, questioning the future of the magnificent Victorian theater and the wider industry.

The new work, which is almost sold out, is funded by the government’s € 25 million live performance support scheme launched earlier this year to support commercial establishments, promoters and producers.

Laura McGuigan, General Manager of Gaiety, said large-scale production is not commercially possible under current restrictions.

“After this performance, the theater will be dark again until the government allows us to open in a commercially viable number,” she said.

If the audience is seated in the four performances from August 7th to 8th, it will be an intimate performance, but in the long run it will not be economically viable.

Ms. McGuigan said that theaters with 1,115 seats usually need to fill 60% of the seats by the break-even point. During these four productions, only 4% of seats are filled per show.

“Most of the other sectors are almost at the finish line and they can see the finish line. If you want to make an Olympic analogy, we’re just at the starting point,” she said.

Breda Cashe, producer of “The Dead, An Opera,” said the industry was a “bleeding” staff member after 18 months of uncertainty.

She said she wouldn’t be able to do a big show with a limited audience.

“If we don’t start drawing more people into the theater, it will be impossible. And that really needs to happen. I know we all say that, but in reality it Is really needed. “

“I think it’s especially difficult because I still don’t know where it’s heading. I still don’t know the solution for these beautiful theaters.”