It’s our civic responsibility.
The studio requires proper mask wearing at all times. Please read on for more COVID policies.
The Stella Adler Center for the Arts has decided to join hundreds of other educational institutions, including New York University with whom we partner, in mandating that our students are fully vaccinated from COVID-19 beginning in the fall (September 1st, 2021). Accommodations are offered for religious and health reasons. Non-vaccinated individuals may still participate in online courses.
Current Studio Status Regarding COVID-19
Students will benefit from the same world-class faculty as always, as well as the safety procedures we’ve been using for a year. In addition to requiring all in-person students, faculty and administration be vaccinated against COVID-19, the studio also requires a rapid or PCR test every two weeks. Free COVID-testing is available in dozens of locations across New York City. We monitor the current pandemic on a daily basis and our policies are constantly shifting to keep our community safe and artistically robust.
For NYU Tisch students, please refer to the NYU Policies and procedures for COVID-19-related matters.
Actions you will take…
Get Vaccinated: The Stella Adler Studio is embracing the science and is optimistic about the future. COVID-19 vaccines are mandated for all in-person classes at the Stella Adler Studio of Acting in New York and Art of Acting Studio in Los Angeles. Proof of an individual’s vaccination status must be submitted to the studio before a one can participate in any in-person courses. Accommodations are offered for serious religious and health reasons. Please visit NYC’s Department of Health Vaccine Information page at https://www1.nyc.gov/site/doh/covid/covid-19-vaccines.page.
Wear a Mask: The studio is a space where everyone is required to wear a mask. Masks must be worn properly – covering both the mouth and the nose – at all times while in the facility. This includes all common areas AND in the classroom. Fully vaccinated individuals will be allowed to remove their masks for specific scene or monologue work, if they maintain a distance of 6 feet from one another.
COVID-19 Testing Every Two Weeks: Everyone who comes to the facility – including faculty, staff, administrators, and students – must be tested every two weeks and submit test results (either Rapid or PCR) prior to being approved for entry to the studio. Testing is the responsibility of each individual. Staff has distributed resources with abundant information about New York Cit’s many testing sites. Please reach out to your program director if you need this information again.
Daily Health Screening: Daily Health Screenings are no longer required for fully vaccinated individuals. When arriving at the facility, any non-vaccinated individual must be cleared for entry at the reception desk before they advance through the space. A temperature check kiosk is also available if temperatures need to be re-checked.
Actions the studio has taken…
• PPE: Masks are required at all times and masks are provided for students/staff, if needed. Plexiglass partitions are in place in common reception/lounge areas. Signage directing where to sit or stand to maintain proper social distancing as mandated by NY State is used. There is additional signage throughout the spaces reminding all of social distancing, hand washing, and mask wearing.
• Hygiene, Cleaning and Disinfection: Signs throughout the studio spaces promote frequent and proper hand washing. All studios and spaces have disinfecting wipe dispensers in them (with trash cans), and hand sanitizer stations outside. Designated staff are tasked with wiping down high contact surfaces multiple times during each day
• HVAC Ionization Filters: The studio has made a significant upgrade to the HVAC system which includes: larger Merv-13 filters which catch 43% of all airborne particles, Bipolar Ionization Air Cleaners which work to neutralize virus particles in the air, and rebalancing to ensure maximum airflow in each studio.
• Social Distancing: Signage in common areas states clearly about social distancing practices. As stated prior, all classrooms are equipped with video suites which allow remote learning and in-person learning to continue hand in hand in the case of a student’s absence due to COVID.
• Operational Activity: Stella Adler Studio is ready to move to fully remote operations at any point. As we have already been working remotely, we have the protocols for both classes and all administrative duties in place. As stated prior, all of our classes will have the possibility of being blended (meaning some participants present in the physical space and other participating remotely) in the event of an escalated outbreak at the studio.
• Communication: An Administrative Covid-19 team meets daily to discuss updates and protocols. If any changes need to be made, based on new circumstances or NY State mandate changes, we will then send out all changes and updates to the community at large, via email.
Welcoming back audiences…
Safety protocol
This summer for the first time since the pandemic, the studio is welcoming audiences back into its theaters. The health and safety of the community is a top priority. We ask all audience members to review the following safety protocol in advance. Please note: these requirements will be strictly enforced in the interest of the health and safety of all. We reserve the right to deny admission to patrons who are not in compliance with COVID safety protocol.
Vaccine verification
All audience members must present verification of vaccination (CDC card, copy of card, or Excelsior pass) in advance AND at the entrance to the facility.
Feeling sick
If you are feeling sick, please stay at home. Your thoughtfulness will help to stop the community spread and allow us to continue to responsibly go back to the theater together.
Social distancing
Ample space will be provided for social distancing in the common spaces and hallways before the show AND inside the theaters. Please leave chairs where you find them as they have been placed with social distancing in mind in advance.
Mask compliance
All patrons must wear masks in common spaces, but may remove masks once seated in the theater.
Reserved audience members only
There will be absolutely no walk-up sales or last minute reservations.
Actors
Actors will either provide proof of vaccination or a negative COVID test result before each show.
No food or drinks
Please leave food and drinks at home.
Inside the facility
There are hand sanitizer stations in common areas throughout the facility. The studio has also recently upgraded its HVAC system for maximum air flow. Routine surface cleaning is practiced multiple times per day.
A Letter From Tom Oppenheim in 2020:
Over these past weeks I keep returning to Harold Clurman’s words from his book The Fervent Years. An extraordinary group of actors and artists – including Joanna Gleason, Donna Murphy, Kate Mulgrew, Stephen McKinley Henderson, Danny Glover, Stephen Adly Guirgis – have come together to speak these words and I want to share the video with you.
It’s amazing that these words, written by Harold Clurman in 1945, looking back to the winter of 1932-33, speak so vividly and with such relevance to our own troubled times. It’s equally amazing that Harold Clurman looked out at a world in 1929 of economic ruin, with millions of Americans out of work, and thought “this is the perfect time to build a theater company!”
We dedicate this video to the medical workers for whom we cheer every night at 7pm, who save lives while providing us all with an example of how to live a life and how to make art. May our theaters soon be filled with such life giving, life affirming work! We also dedicate it to all essential workers, the backbone of our country.
Finally I hope this video stimulates and inspires young people, by virtue of Harold’s words and the voices and example of the work and lives of the participating artists, to search, as the members of the Group Theater did way back when, for reasons to be! and ways to give!
We stand in solidarity with the heroic health care workers and essential workers and with each and every one of you.
Sincerely,
Tom Oppenheim
Artistic Director
SOUL SUSTENANCE
“The strength I drew from this period of apparently aimless ambling through the dark of depressed areas in place and spirit was crystalized for me one day when I was struck as if by a miracle of conversion with the feeling that no matter how bitter things became for me, personally, professionally, economically I would never allow myself to be destroyed from within; it would never get me down; I would sustain all kinds of disappointment and distress without ceasing to believe, to hope, to love. I would never yield to the temptation of pessimism, to the ease of despair or withdrawal. It was as if I took an inner vow
never to allow, gradually the traffic to smother
With noise and fog the flowing of the spirit.
I believed, as some ancient had said: ‘it is not within thy power to to finish the task, nor is it thy liberty to abandon it.’ From this inexorable maxim I drew an abiding joy. In this sense I swore fealty to myself.
Thus that historically cruel winter of 1932-33, which chilled so many of us like a world’s end, became for me a time of renewed faith, because I seemed to be withstanding a sort of test.”
HAROLD CLURMAN, The Fervent Years
