BWW Blog: Navigating My Theatre Department in an Online Semester

As I enter my senior year, the campus I've returned to is completely unrecognizable from a year ago. This time last year, I was going to parties with friends, performing as part of the marching band, and reveling in the lively atmosphere of campus at the beginning of a new school year. Now, the campus population is reduced, events are cancelled, and those who do go out have masks and excess bottles of hand sanitizer. The atmosphere is one of anxiety, paranoia, and melancholy.

That being said, it really is nice to be back on-campus. Walking across the quad, being back in my apartment, and being back at my second home with my friends is truly wonderful. However, as someone who has always been involved with the theatre department at my university, this semester promises to be an interesting one. Our department, as expected, is doing completely virtual productions this semester. In some ways, it'll be great. The shows will be free to view and can be watched at any time after they premiere. This saves time and money for students who are required to see department shows for their theatre classes. The accessibility of online theatre is great for college students, especially those who haven't really experienced it before. Still, it's not the senior year that my peers in the theatre department were expecting. Dressing rooms, rehearsal spaces, tech week, and cast parties are a thing of the past. For some, this is their last semester as a theatre student. The only thing we can do is make this season as immersive and inclusive as possible.

The first show is Lovers & Lunatics, a choose-your-own-adventure Shakespeare production which requires audience interaction across the course of three "episodes." It's designed to be online, and encourages audiences to tune in live so they can interact and have a say in how the show ends. The second fall production features two student-written plays. They were performed in Spring 2019 as staged readings, and are now going to be performed in a virtual setting. This gives the chance for more students to be involved as playwrights.

There's no other way to say it - being a college student right now, especially a theatre student, really sucks. Taking performance and discussion-based classes online is not really ideal for anyone. However, I think it's important to find the silver lining. In a lot of ways, this may be my university theatre department's most collaborative, student-centric season yet. It won't feel "normal," no, but lately nothing has. If anything, years from now, my peers and I can say, we made theatre in a time when live theatre didn't exist. We performed plays online for the first time ever. And I think that that is something that will be worth talking about, years after this is all (hopefully) over. Until then, happy Zooming!

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