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Courtesy of the Arsht Center for the Performing Arts

The cast of the original troupe from “Zoetic Schmoetic: A Hysterically Safe & Socially-Distanced Improv Comedy Experience,” at the Arsht Center.

Going Live and In Person

Performing and visual arts start slow return

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A year since arts groups across South Florida took a heavy hit due to the pandemic, performing and visual arts are starting to slowly emerge back into the spotlight. From outdoor theater and music performances to timed exhibition appointments, in-person activities have been exponentially growing since the new year.

“We’re slowly beginning to experiment, and we are analyzing (outdoor) events we’ve begun to present – to see if people feel safe and what we can improve upon, and we’re all going to learn from this,” said Johann Zietsman, CEO and president of the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts.

This month, the Arsht is debuting three theater experiences, with two set up on outdoor plazas at its complex.

Galleries and exhibition spaces, such as Locust Projects and the Moore Building in the Miami Design District, have found success in welcoming visitors back into their spaces with protocols in place and using timed-appointment scheduling.

COVID-19 struck at the very heart of Miami’s creative and economic engines that depend on the interaction between artist and viewer to create a two-way exchange.

Local arts groups made a valiant effort right out of the box to keep engaging with their audiences using platforms like Zoom. The small screen didn’t always play very well. For theaters, actors who were quarantined together – perhaps a couple – would virtually interact with a solo actor in a living room somewhere else. Dance was stymied in the same way. Museums and galleries curated virtual exhibits. It wasn’t the same.

After the realization that COVID-19 wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon – and Zoom and other virtual platforms just weren’t cutting it – local arts groups found that South Florida’s weather was conducive to outdoor performances. The success of Miami New Drama’s “Seven Deadly Sins” on Lincoln Road in December and January led the way. The transformation is starting to become apparent with more and more opportunities for audiences to step out of their living rooms and see the arts live and in person.

There are live performances and exhibits now popping up all over town.

While it’s not an economic windfall by any means, “people are eager to gather and enjoy some shared experiences,” Zietsman said.

Here’s some of what’s happening in and around the corridor in March:

THEATER

At the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts, three new series of in-person performances use the great outdoors for safe, theatrical fun. Two of the mainstays of the Arsht performing family, City Theatre and Zoetic Stage, have original offerings. Another producing group is presenting an interactive theater experience that starts at the Arsht and uses areas around the center and downtown as its stage.

City Theatre, producers of South Florida’s “Summer Shorts” play festivals, has created an original program, “Shorts Outside the Box.” The setup is a casual theater experience of short plays in intimate readings performed by local actors. Meanwhile, the Arsht’s in-resident theater company, Zoetic Stage, has put together an original improv troupe, “Zoetic Schmoetic,” which director Stuart Meltzer describes as “80 minutes of high energy comedy improv.” The troupe is made up of local actors Clay Cartland, Elena Maria Garcia, Jeni Hacker, Daryl Patrice, Fergie L. Philippe and Gabriell Salgado.

“We wanted to figure out ways that we could use our outdoor space to get people back to downtown and back to seeing live theater,” Meltzer said.

The third offering at the Arsht is “Art Heist Experience,” produced by a company of the same name, where a group of 35 socially distanced audience members interview suspects as they move through five walkable locations in downtown Miami to gather clues to solve a true-crime art caper. The cast is composed of South Florida actors who play career criminals, con men, gentle psychopaths and the self-proclaimed “greatest art thief of all time.” Through conversation and scenes, clues are revealed to lead the sleuths on their way to solving the mystery.

With the success of its holiday offering, “Madeline’s Christmas,” children’s theater is staying active inside the Actors’ Playhouse at the Miracle Theatre. A musical version of “The Wizard of Oz” is on stage inside the 600-seat venue, where only 30% of seats will be sold.

IF YOU GO

“Shorts Outside the Box” March 11, April 8 and May 13 at 7:30 p.m.; $10.

“Zoetic Schmoetic: A Hysterically Safe & Socially- Distanced Improv Comedy Experience” March 27 and April 24 at 5 and 9 p.m.; $15.

“Art Heist Experience” March 16 through April 4; $43 and $48.

All shows at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts, 1300 Biscayne Blvd., Miami; arschtcenter.org and 305.949.6722.

“The Wizard of Oz” Through March 14; Saturday 2 p.m. and Sunday 3 p.m.; $25; Actors’ Playhouse at the Miracle Theatre, 280 Miracle Mile, Coral Gables; actorsplayhouse.org and 305.4449293.

Other precautions include mask-wearing and closure of the front row, so performers are not in close contact with the audience. Specific rows are marked to indicate one-way entrance and exits to and from the theater.

FILM

Miami Dade College’s Miami Film Festival closed last March midway through its run, after screening multifilms indoors became quickly off limits when the pandemic swept through. This year, the festival is doing a hybrid of online screenings along with in-person showings at the Silverspot Cinema, using safety protocols that include reduced audience size and mask requirements.

“In this year like no other, we all long for stability and a sense of continuity,” said Jaie Laplante, the festival’s executive director and co-director of programming.

The event opens with an in-person screening of Haitian American Miami filmmaker Edson Jean’s movie “Ludi,” which follows a private-care service worker in Miami as she tries to send money to family in Haiti. It holds a special place as a debut film, as it is the first to emerge from Miami’s Oolite Arts Cinematic Arts Residency program, which began in 2019.

IF YOU GO

Miami Dade College Miami Film Festival March 5-14, in-theater and virtual screenings; in-person screenings will be shown at Silverspot Cinema, 300 SE Third St. Miami; for a schedule of screenings, events and ticket prices, visit MiamiFilmFestival.com.

ART

Following Mette Tommerup’s “Made by Dusk” installation, which opened in November and closed mid-February at Locust Projects, the Miami Design District space opens its next solo show using the same in-person admittance structure that was previously enjoyed by hundreds of guests. This includes strict adherence to COVID-19 safety protocols along with staggered appointments for viewing. Miami/ Berlin-based artist and curator GeoVanna Gonzalez’s solo show “HOW TO: Oh, look at me” will be in the main space, while in the Project Room, “Disembodied,” a new video exhibition curated by Dennis Scholl, features the works of six female artists, which continues Locust Projects’ yearlong focus on women.

Rosie Gordon-Wallace, founder and curator of Diaspora Vibe Cultural Arts Incubator (DVCAI) and one of Miami’s curatorial gems, presents “Inter|Sectionality: Diaspora Art from the Creole City.” Spanning two floors at Moore 200 and Moore Atrium, the show celebrates DVCAI’s 25th anniversary as Miami’s Afro-Diasporic incubator. Organized in Miami and featuring 27 artists from 18 countries, it was on exhibit at the Corcoran School of the Arts & Design in Washington, D.C, before making its way to the Miami Design District. Its next stop is New Orleans.

IF YOU GO

“HOW TO: Oh, look at me” and “Disembodied” March 6 through May 22; 11 a.m. – 5 p.m.; by appointment and walk-in by capacity; Locust Projects, 3852 North Miami Ave., Miami; locustprojects.org and 305.576.8570.

“Inter|Sectionality: Diaspora Art from the Creole City” Through May 31; Monday – Saturday 11 a.m. – 7 p.m., Sunday noon – 6 p.m.; admission is free; Moore 200, 4040 NE Second Ave., Miami; for appointments and questions, call 786.306.0191.

MUSIC

Olympia Theater’s “Street Stages” takes entertainment to downtown Miami’s Flagler Street on Friday and Saturday nights through March 2021. Street stage performers, including jazz musicians, dancers, vocalists, jugglers and magicians bring their energy to two stages in front of select storefronts that have been transformed into art activations.

There are a total of nine locations along downtown Miami’s historic Flagler Street that have featured the artist activations, where visitors are encouraged to stroll and check out the art during performances.

While Florida Grand Opera is unable to stage its large-scale productions at the Arsht Center, the company continues to present smaller, in-person performances.

For March, it’s a double bill of 20th-century works. “Trouble In Tahiti” is a one-act opera by Leonard Bernstein, which was first performed in 1952. He was on his honeymoon in 1951 when he first began writing the composition about the troubled marriage of a young suburban couple. “Signor Deluso” by Thomas Pasatieri is an over-the-top, one-act opera about a series of misunderstandings that cause questions about infidelity. Social distancing protocols in effect and masks are required.

Susan T. Danis, general director and CEO for Florida Grand Opera, said that doing smaller contemporary works on a double bill gives the organization an opportunity to present music it might not have been able to do if it were in a full, regular season.

“We are going outside of our box and locations are going outside of their box,” she said. “What’s going to come out of all this, I believe, is that people will experience art that they normally do not.”

IF YOU GO

“Street Stages” Friday and Saturday through March; 4-8 p.m.; admission is free; 132 E Flagler St. and 159 E Flagler St. with storefront activations along SE 1st and 2nd Avenues at Flagler Street; OlympiaTheater.org and 305.374.2444.

“Trouble In Tahiti” and “Signor Deluso” March 20 at 8 p.m. and March 21 at 3 p.m.; $65; Miami Theater Center, 9806 NE 2nd Ave., Miami Shores; FGO.org.

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