Maboud Ebrahimzadeh is one of the lucky ones.

For the past seven weeks, Ebrahimzadeh, a professional stage actor and resident artist at Round House Theatre in Bethesda, has been getting paid—a rarity for many actors during the coronavirus pandemic. He’s co-starring in “Homebound,” a fictional web series about life under quarantine.

Round House created the show early on in the coronavirus pandemic as a way to employ some of the actors who were supposed to appear on its stage this year. It announced this week that all live performances would be cancelled through the end of 2020. D.C.’s Theater J and Virginia’s Center for the Arts at George Mason University made similar announcements, and more are expected from other Washington-area theaters in the coming weeks.

“We’re in full-on panic mode,” says Ebrahimzadeh of his fellow actors. “To suddenly have a year’s worth of work disappear with no end in sight—that’s a horrifying prospect.” The 10 weeks of pay he’s receiving for “Homebound” is far less than what he’d pull from a typical union acting contract. Still, he says, it’s something.

“I’m just focusing on creating income right now,” he says, “so that when theaters come calling next year, I can still afford to do it.”

Watching actors like Ebrahimzadeh struggle to cobble together a salary through virtual acting projects or teaching gigs is difficult for Ryan Rilette, Round House’s artistic director.

“It’s heartbreaking,” he says. “To be shut down this long takes an emotional toll and a financial toll on the artists.”

Still, Rilette felt the decision to cancel shows through the end of the year was the right one, both for the safety of patrons and staff as well as the theater’s economic future.

D.C., Maryland, and Virginia’s leaders are gradually lifting stay-at-home orders and allowing some businesses to reopen. However, venue capacity restrictions in the early phases would make it nearly impossible for theaters to turn a profit, according to Rilette and other artistic directors.

Theater J, a leading Jewish theater company, can normally seat 236 in its Goldman Theater at the Edlavitch DCJCC on 16th Street NW. Its artistic director, Adam Immerwahr, says he could only allow in 44 ticket holders under the city’s capacity regulations.

“The number of audience members who can actually fit while we’re maintaining social distancing is incredibly small,” he says. He credits “an extraordinary group of contributions” from private donors with ensuring the theater’s financial future until it can reopen in 2021.

Other theaters have furloughed or laid off staff in order to survive. Some have received loans from the federal Paycheck Protection Program, or benefitted from patrons who did not ask for refunds for tickets to cancelled shows.

Many are still mulling the decision to reopen sometime this year: Arena Stage, Olney Theatre, Shakespeare Theatre Company, Signature Theatre and Studio Theatre will announce their plans in the next few weeks. Ford’s Theater will do the same; it has the added complication of being a historic site co-managed by the National Park Service. The Keegan Theatre says it’s waiting “as long as possible” to make an announcement about its next season.

Meanwhile, the Kennedy Center is in something of a league of its own. For now, it has postponed all scheduled performances through Aug. 9, including its highly anticipated summer/fall run of Hamilton. The performing arts center received $25 million in federal aid but still had to lay off or furlough hundreds of workers.

Even if theaters reopen, some recent studies suggest that people aren’t ready to return to their seats just yet. An April study of 2,762 D.C.-area theatergoers by Shugoll Research, a national marketing research company based in Bethesda, found that around half of respondents (49%) say they will wait at least a few months before returning to the theater.

Actors have health concerns of their own. Actors Equity, one of the largest actors unions in the country, released preliminary guidance late last month on when and how actors could return to work safely, but official health guidance is still too murky to devise a clear plan and benchmarks. There are more than 1,100 working members of Actors Equity in the D.C. and Baltimore areas, according to a representative from the union.

Actors Equity’s executive director Mary McColl called on theaters to create comprehensive plans for protecting all employees before they reopen, but acknowledged that it is “unclear under the current circumstances how that can happen.”

Some theater directors say they’ll need more guidance from the unions in order to reopen their shops.

“Right now we’re in a holding pattern, waiting for the various theatrical unions to try to figure out what it is to safely perform, what it is to safely share dressing rooms, do quick changes, kiss or have stage combat,” said Immerwahr of Theater J. “We want to make sure that at no point we’re putting anyone at risk.”

Kachman says he’s trying to recreate a communal theater experience as much as possible under the circumstances. “Someone unwrapping candy next to you is part of the experience,” he says. “Otherwise, you just stay home.”

Mosaic Theater in the Atlas Performing Arts Center on H Street NE is also hoping to reopen this year. It plans to restart the comedy Inherit the Windbag, which had to be shut down when the pandemic began.

“It’s 50% likely that we can pull this off—and there is an audience that wants to come,” Ari Roth, Mosaic’s artistic director, told the Washington Post. Roth said they can afford to make the project work as long as they can sell 25% of their available tickets—about 46 seats.

Meanwhile, a half dozen D.C. theaters found a non-theatrical way to reconnect with the D.C. community in the past week: They opened their doors to protesters, offering space to escape the heat, restrooms, and free water and snacks.

“It’s a privilege these days to be working on something,” says Kachman, whose Woolly Mammoth Theatre was one of the spaces that opened up to protesters. “Because the alternative is zero.”