Local lovers of theatre and live entertainment will soon be able to indulge in such as Delta Center Stage has begun preparing for its reopening at E.E. Bass Auditorium.
DCS’ executive director Tim Bixler met with the Greenville City Council on Tuesday during their regular meeting regarding protocols for reopening as it relates to COVID-19.
Bixler informed the city council of DCS’ plans to safely reopen, heeding the advice of DCS’ legal counsel to consult with the council and mayor.
Discussing DCS’ attempts to reopen, Bixler noted, “It has now been one full year since we’ve had any activity.”
He shared DCS intends to stage a children’s production of Schoolhouse Rock Live in late April to “kick off” its activities.
“My reason for being here is to make sure we honor the right protocols as far as crowd size and any other group or crowd or masking restrictions or requirements, especially in light of today’s mask suggestion from the governor,“ Bixler said.
He highlighted, “In the year that we’ve been inactive, we’ve actually been very busy doing whatever we could to make the place as safe as possible and I can tell you with complete confidence that when you walk into the auditorium at Bass you’re walking into the cleanest air in the City of Greenville and probably in Mississippi.”
At “considerable expense,” $8,000 worth of air treatments have been installed at E.E. Bass along with UV light and other technology purposed to kill bacterias such as those associated with COVID-19, according to Bixler.
“We’re very pleased to see those kinds of results,” he added referring to the demonstrations of the newly installed technology. “These are installed in all of the HVAC systems in the rehearsal halls and the auditorium.”
Mayor Errick Simmons informed Bixler the city’s mask mandate will remain in place but aside from it, there are no other glaring restrictions as it pertains reopening E.E. Bass.
He noted he would be consulting with city attorney Andy Alexander to ensure the latest update from Governor Tate Reeves’ clearly spells out how the venue should proceed as it relates to crowd size.
