TRU to Present 'Thinking In Zoom: Adjusting To (and Conquering) A Hybrid Medium'

A dependable haven for artists in isolation, Theater Resources Unlimited (TRU) is now into its second year of non-stop weekly Community Gatherings this Friday, having offered to date over 100 conversations and unlimited camaraderie since April 17, 2020. TRU hosts their Community Gatherings every Friday at 5pm ET via Zoom, to explore the creation of art and theater in the time of COVID-19. These crucial conversations will continue going forward as theater reopens. Ask questions, bring answers, be part of a community - it's an opportunity to network with theater professionals and talk about keeping theater alive during shutdown, and what we are doing now, going forward. To receive the Zoom invitation for future meetings, email TRUnltd@aol.com with "Zoom Me" in the subject header. These gatherings are free for TRU members, non-members are asked to make a tax-deductible donation - or consider joining TRU - to support the organization during these challenging times.

Friday 4/29 - Thinking in Zoom: Adjusting to (and Conquering) a Hybrid Medium

In the room: writer David Beardsley (Every Creeping Thing), writer John Busser (Obstacle), writer James McLindon (The First Anti-Vaxxers), writer Kristy Thomas (Only Black), writer Ian Patrick Williams (Slave Trade). A zoom reading can be as simple as talking heads in frames, but what do you do when you need to generate the sense of a real production with interaction and production values, and still adhere to the restrictions of shutdown? Though we're coming back to live performance, in order to use the Theatre Authority Benefit Agreement, TRUSpeak still needed to be shot virtually with actors in isolation. What happens to a play conceived for stage when it has to be rethought for virtual presentation? What did the writers learn, and what might they take with them into the future? What was it like having to think in film terms? What was lost, what was gained? Click here to register and receive the zoom link: https://truonline.org/events/thinking-in-zoom-2022/.

UPCOMING:

Friday 5/6 - Has an Increase in Diverse Shows Attracted a More Diverse Audience?In the room: Marcia Pendelton, founder and president of Walk Tall Girl Productions, a boutique marketing, audience development and group sales agency for the performing arts with a special emphasis placed on the theater. Recent credits: MJ, Thoughts of a Colored Man, Love & Southern Discomfort, Blue. In addition her company provided marketing services for Choir Boy, Saint Joan, August Wilson's Jitney, and Sweat as well as providing significant group sales support for Tina: The Tina Turner Musicaland Ain't Too Proud: The Life and Times of The Temptations. The good news: the current season has shown a significant increase in works by black writers produced by more diverse teams. The bad news: this long-awated uptick happened during the reluctant post-pandemic reopening of theater. Will this conscious effort to bring more diverse voices to the stage nevertheless have a lasting effect? Has it changed the makeup of the commercial Broadway audience? Click here to register and receive the zoom link: https://truonline.org/events/diverse-shows-diverse-audience/.

Check back at their web page for the 2022 schedule: https://truonline.org/tru-community-gathering/ Videos of past Community Gatherings may be viewed on TRU's YouTube channel atyoutube.com/channel/UC43rsChi4fA23dNLeloaF_A/.

Theater Resources Unlimited (TRU) is the leading network for developing theater professionals, a twenty-nine-year-old 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization created to help producers produce, emerging theater companies to emerge healthily and all theater professionals to understand and navigate the business of the arts. Membership includes self-Producing Artists as well as career producers and theater companies. TRU publishes an email community newsletter of services, goods and productions; presents weekly Community Gatherings; offers a Producer Development & Mentorship Program taught by prominent producers and general managers in New York theater, and also presents Producer Boot Camp workshops to help aspirants develop business skills. TRU serves writers through the TRU Voices Play Reading Series, Writer-Producer Speed Date, a Practical Playwriting Workshop, How to Write a Musical That Works and a Director-Writer Communications Lab. Programs of Theater Resources Unlimited are supported in part by the Montage Foundation, The Storyline Project and the Leibowitz Greenway Foundation. For more information about TRU membership and programs, visit www.truonline.org.