Theater companies arrive in Bilbao on the day of the premiere to cut costs
Producers and businessmen dispense with press conferences “to save diets” and for the television commitments of the artists
Nothing is what it was before the theatrical premieres in Bilbao. Most of the companies that will star in the billboard of this Aste Nagusia will dispense with the press conferences and almost all the artists will arrive in the Biscayan capital the same day they go on stage. The crisis, aggravated by the impact of the coronavirus, has forced producers and businessmen to tighten their belts and cut expenses on diets and hotels to try to balance the accounts.
Gone are the days when companies, made up of a large number of artists -the artistic casts have also suffered a significant reduction- arrived in Bilbao up to two or three days before the first show to finish rehearsals and get in touch with the city. The new times mark a completely different roadmap with an eye on the progress of the box office at all times.
strong outlay
«Bringing the artists a day earlier means a lot of money and now it is cut on all sides»
Ángel Llàcer, the protagonist and director of ‘The Cage of the Crazy’, will raise the curtain tomorrow at the Arriaga after attending journalists hours before in a graphic pass in which he will grant interviews. He will not be the only one. Antonio Molero and Marina San José, the daughter of Ana Belén and Víctor Manuel, bring ‘Escape room’ back to Euskalduna. They will arrive on Saturday morning, have lunch and in the afternoon they will perform a comedy that questions the friendship of four friends.
“He gets up very little by little”
Not even exclusive releases like ‘Lapland’ are cooked the old-fashioned way. On their return to Bilbao, Amparo Larrañaga and Iñaki Miramón gave an account of the assembly in the Arab Hall of the City Council, taking advantage of the traditional meeting of the mayor, Juan Mari Aburto, with the entire world of entertainment based these days in the Biscayan capital. «For a company, taking artists out of their homes a day before means a lot of money in diets. And, unfortunately, there are no times for that. The theater is rising very little by little. Save and adjust expenses on all sides”, acknowledges María Díaz, press officer of different theatrical shows and producer.
radical change
Amparo Larrañaga and Iñaki Miramón trust everything to their popularity and dispense with any presentation
To these changes must be added the impossibility of many theater actors – a trade “with 80% of the members unemployed” – of approaching the locations in which they act several days before the premiere due to the need to attend to their television commitments. . “But if we don’t hold a press conference, it’s because Campos has decided so,” settle sources from the show ‘Adictos’, with which Lola Herrera will stop, at 87, again in Bilbao. In the play, directed by Magüi Mira, she shares the stage with Lola Baldrich and Ana Labordeta.
It will be one of the great claims of a festival in which the theater reinvents itself out of “pure necessity”. “If we want to survive, we have to adapt to the new times,” confesses María Díaz.