Although the lifting of COVID-19-related restrictions has led many Golden businesses to reopen their doors with new precautions in place, Miners Alley Playhouse will not be among them—at least not this year.

Instead, the Golden theater announced on June 8 that it will cancelling the remainder of its 2020 season.

“After months of back-and-forth regarding how to handle the rest of our season, and given the latest info coming from the state of Colorado, we are faced with the cold hard fact that people will not be able to come back to the theater in sufficient enough numbers before the fall, and that we won't be able to enforce sufficient distancing to keep our audience and our artists safe,” Leslie Rutherford, the theater's director of marketing and development, said in a press release.

The cancellation, which will likely close the theater for performances through the end of January, means that five of the theater's scheduled main stage shows and four scheduled children's shows will not be performed. However, Rutherford said in the release it is possible the theater will perform something for the holidays if safety permits.

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But while the theater itself will be closed, Rutherford said that the theater will be offering an increasing number of online and outdoor offerings for the rest of the year. Earlier this spring, the theater made a video of last year's performance of the child's play “The Frog Prince” available to watch online. Viewers were encouraged to make a donation after watching the video performance.

According to the release, all Miners Alley Playhouse staff will continue to be paid during the closure. At least some of that staff's time will be devoted toward planning for the theater's post-pandemic future, when in-theater performances will likely start out look different than they have in the past.

“We will be back in full force in January with a new, exciting and safe season of shows with small casts, designed to keep everyone safe.,” Rutherford said in the release. “We also plan on providing live-streaming viewing options, so that even if you don't feel comfortable coming into the theater, there will be a way for everyone to participate.”

Theaters are among the businesses that are still required to remain closed under Colorado's current Safer-at-Home rules. In April, Miners Alley conducted an audience survey of some of its theatergoers that asked them when they thought they would return to theater once it was allowed to reopen. 166 respondents said they would want to return “right away” while 249 say they would not return right away but probably in the next few months. 108 said they would not return until there is a vaccine in place while 116 indicated they were not sure when they would return.

Those with tickets to any of the season's canceled shows will have the option of donating their tickets to the theater, converting the tickets to a credit to be used for a future show once the theater reopens or receiving a refund. Those wanting to donate their ticket are asked to email donations@minersalley.com, while conversion of tickets to credits can be requested at credit@minersalley.com. Refunds can be requested at refunds@minersalley.com.

When the theater announced that it was initially postponing Moon over Buffalo, which was scheduled to begin its run in March just as the pandemic hit, 60% of ticket holders requested to donate their ticket while 25% requested a credit and 15% asked for a refund.