With the end date to Illinois and City of Chicago mask mandates close at hand, most music clubs and performing arts venues say they are not yet ready to relax their COVID protocols. Earlier this week, Mayor Lori Lightfoot announced that she would fall in line with Gov. J.B. Pritzker and lift mask and proof-of-vaccination requirements at the end of the month. Cook County’s public health department announced a similar move. Effective March 1, Chicagoans no longer need to mask up indoors, nor will vaccination cards be checked when entering restaurants, bars, gyms and other public spaces, and museums including the Shedd say they will follow suit.
For music, opera, dance and theatergoers, however, most venues are continuing their current COVID protocols. A coalition of performing arts organizations (who together developed unified precautions ahead of state and municipal mask mandates last summer) met Feb. 21. The coalition, led by the League of Chicago Theatres, determined that in most cases masks and proof of vaccination will continue to be required of patrons.
The coalition includes Loop theaters run by Broadway in Chicago; the big nonprofits such as Steppenwolf, the Goodman and Chicago Shakes; as well as more than 60 other theaters in the city and suburbs and presenters such as the Joffrey Ballet and Harris Theater. Guidelines regarding concessions and for children under the age of five, who cannot yet be vaccinated, vary by location and event type.
The Lyric Opera, a participant in the coalition, intends to maintain the protocols put in place this fall, at least until their season ends in April. Face coverings are required when not eating or drinking and proof of vaccination will continue to be enforced at the front doors.
“The feedback we received consistently through the fall was overwhelmingly positive,” Lyric Opera General Director, President and CEO Anthony Freud said in an interview. “People seemed reassured by the clarity and simplicity of the approach we were taking. Our view is that given the 3,300-seat opera house and given that the demographic of our audience skews older, it feels like the right thing to do.”
The omicron variant wreaked havoc on much of the winter arts calendar, with the Goodman, Joffrey, Broadway in Chicago and Lyric Opera among the companies forced to cancel performances in December and January due to COVID complications. Joffrey, which performs at the Lyric Opera House, also preemptively postponed “Don Quixote” — originally scheduled to open Feb. 16 — with additional postponements announced by Lookingglass and Court Theatre, among others.
While the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, another coalition member, did not face as much interruption to its winter season, current protocols will continue until further notice. Unlike the Lyric, Symphony Center does not restrict attendance for children under five and recently reintroduced family programming.
On the music club front, another venue consortium, the Chicago Independent Venue League (CIVL), said that many of its more than 40 partners — including Park West, Thalia Hall, Old Town School of Folk Music, Metro, The Vic, Joe’s on Weed, Schubas Tavern and Hideout — will also continue to require masks and vaccination checks. But final decisions are left to individual venues and may differ show-to-show.
“Our door staff had checked tens of thousands of vaccine cards before the city introduced its mandate, and our masked bartenders have served countless masked patrons,” a CIVL spokesperson said in a statement to the Tribune. “We’re proud of Chicago’s progress in the face of increasingly contagious variants, but we’re only here because safety has been our priority.”
Among Chicago’s major museums, the Art Institute and both the Shedd Aquarium and Adler Planetarium on the Museum Campus said they would follow the city and state’s timetable and not require masks or proof of vaccinations after Feb. 28 — the Adler when it reopens March 4.
In addition, the Drury Lane Theatre in Oakbrook Terrace, which had previously relaxed its vaccine requirements for audiences ahead of other area theaters, confirmed to the Tribune it would also follow the state’s timetable.
Most other theaters, including presenter Broadway in Chicago, when asked individually about their COVID protocols, referred the Tribune to the League of Chicago Theatres statement.
