In light of its recently cancelled run of Catch As Catch Can, along with the annual Lip Sink Fundraiser and of the growing threat the novel coronavirus poses to public health and safety, Kitchen Theatre Company (KTC) is putting plans in place to ensure the future stability of the theatre while continuing its engagement with the Ithaca community. As part of this effort, KTC has begun making difficult choices to mitigate financial losses.

On Friday, March 20th, the Kitchen Theatre furloughed much of its workforce in response to the immediate and sudden loss of revenue resulting from the COVID-19 crisis. The decision was very difficult, made harder by there being no foreseeable end date in sight. A small core of staff remains to continue to provide customer service to our patrons, to keep planning for next season moving ahead and to find innovative ways to keep our mission alive virtually.

The current special exhibit at the Museum of the Earth in Ithaca, New York, is "Bees! Diversity, Evolution, Conservation", and while the Museum has made the decision to keep the physical building closed until further notice, it announced yesterday that an engaging and informative online version of the exhibit is now available.

This online version of the exhibit takes you through the fascinating world of bees and reveals amazing facts and new insights into an insect which is vital to the cultivation of the food we eat. Discover the diversity of the over 20,000 species of bees from all over the world. Learn about their co-evolution with the flowers they pollinate. Explore bee biology and behaviors. Find out what threats bees currently face, and what you can do to help.

The Cherry Artists' Collective announced the commission of a new work of live streaming theater exploring life under pandemic quarantine, co-written by seven brilliant collaborating writers from around the world. The as-yet-untitled work will première in early May and will plumb the ways interactions and relationships happen on global screens in a time of danger.

For the past five years, the Ithaca-based Cherry Artists' Collective, has created theater that is "Radically Global, Radically Local, and Formally Innovative". They have created productions with playwrights from Serbia, France, Germany, Argentina, El Salvador, and Quebec, as well as experimental new works inscribed in their local community. Now for the first time the Cherry Collective brings together writers they have worked with from around the world to collectively create a new piece for an extreme time.