Student Blog: Returning to In-Person College Theatre

Putting on shoes for class felt strange yesterday. I am accustomed to rolling out of bed ten minutes before my first class and eating my breakfast while listening to a Zoom lecture. Attending an in-person class required me to think of normal things that had become atypical over the past 2 years. For instance, waking up an hour before I have to be somewhere, putting thought into my outfit, and ensuring I have a meal packed or a designated time to grab food. Beyond the strangeness of preparing for in-person classes, I have to prepare for in-person auditions and rehearsals.

This semester I am excited to jump back into in-person theatre by performing in one of my group's musicals and co-directing a play for another group of mine. However, performing and auditioning with masks will be a new challenge. How can I rely more on my voice to express emotions? How can I determine whether an actor will be the best fit for a character when I can only hear their voice and see their eyes? I am excited to see how the actors who audition for me rely on their voice and body language more than their facial expressions. The theatre community is used to focusing on facial expressions before molding voice and movement, but the process of becoming a character will need to be redeveloped.

Of course, for performances my theatre groups can invest in clear masks, yet it cannot be assumed that auditionees have the money to acquire their own clear mask. Nor can it be assumed that performers will have access to these clear masks early in the rehearsal process since it requires multiple board meetings to ensure it fits into a budget. Therefore, the college theatre community must accept that traditional audition methods may not be the best option during the pandemic. I aim to provide actors opportunities to audition with masks in-person, but also options to submit a video without a mask. This ensures that everyone participates in a safe audition process that allows for performers to show off all their talents. While it will be more important to see how actors perform with a mask, it is still essential to see how actors interpret emotions with their faces in case clear masks will be used or public health guidelines do not require masks indoors by the time of performances.

Nevertheless, directors should invest more time in guiding the movements of their actors and providing vocal tips for delivering lines. For instance, blocking should be a little more dynamic than normal to account for the loss in facial expressions to emphasize actions and emotions. Additionally, rehearsals should be spent focusing on the speed of line delivery as well as the inflection and volume of the voice. All these speaking qualities can drastically change how a sentence is interpreted which influences how audiences envision characters. I am anxious to see how my fellow actors and creative team innovate new ways to pursue our passions while creating excellent theatrical experiences.