BWW Blog: The Arts Over Zoom

Auditions, Rehearsal, Improv, and meetings are all on Zoom. Some classes are still in person, choir, and painting. Maybe we're the lucky ones, or maybe we're the unfortunate souls that had no real choice but to go back. It's confusing thinking about what's 'okay' to have in person- and what isn't. All the chairs and tables are set up in the cafeteria, but we aren't supposed to use them all. Outsiders shouldn't be on campus in order to protect the students, but the campus is within a neighborhood so how can anyone know who's a student and who isn't? We can't get together and play socially distant improv games, but we can socially distant sing together.

Something doesn't make sense here, but I don't know what it is, I don't know what part is wrong. It's hard to navigate these new settings. More so because it still appears to be unclear what is deemed okay and what is not. Having production meetings and organizational meetings over zoom that are meant to plan a season, but there is no season to plan. Everything is still up in the air- no one knows when it will be okay again.

Despite nothing being carved in stone, or even penciled in, we all feel that the stakes are still too high. The 'what if's' are still floating around our heads and the chances of things going wrong still haunt our dreams. The thought of letting people down or not doing our jobs to the best of our ability are all that we can think about.

The reality is that there is no way to 100% perfectly do any job right now. Being an Artistic Director, or Production manager, or a front of house manager is a big deal and a huge responsibility. Depending on the size of your school, the amount of shows you have each season, what your specific roles contain, and how much you care about your position will vary- and there is a new standard to which you should be held.

There is no standard! That's the new standard, zero. Everyone around you needs to understand that events cannot happen like they have for the past 100 years. Not everything is fair and you're not going to get all the answers you think you need. SGA is still going to expect certain things from you, your advisors are still going to expect certain things from your, and the people that look to and up to you are still going to expect certain things from you. All of those things are going to be different expectations and it's going to be a lot, but the roles have changed. You're not going to be able to plan that movie night, game night, short play festival, etc. What you can do though is open up conversations and allow safe places for people to talk and communicate. Create an online environment to remind people that they are not alone, even though they may be alone in their dorm. That's the new standard that you can develop as the semester goes ticks by.

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