www.broadwayworld.com: When news broke that theaters across the country would need to shutdown amidst Covid-19 concerns, many shows were in the middle of rehearsals. What would become of these productions, that might not make it to the other side of the hiatus?
Cue the camera.
2 comments:
This entire situation is very sad. The entire reason why theater is a still such an important medium is because of the real- life experience that it provides its audiences. It enables the audience members to see the actions and reactions of the actors live; to feel what the characters are feeling without any physical intrusion breaking the moment like moving cameras, directors calling cut etc.
However the method that has been employed by all these theater companies seems to me the next best option in this entire fiasco. Even though it is not a live experience anymore, the video method ensures a few things: the effort that the actors and the designers have put in sees the light of the day; the end result of the production is still open for review so everyone is still capable of receiving these reviews for their performance.
This does seem like a viable option after all.
Its hard to talk about how exactly this pandemic is going to affect the future of our industry, in addition of course to how it has already put thousands out of work. However, I do think that even though we are in a tough spot there is a lot of productive and beneficial things that we can do at this time. In particular, the filming of performances and distribution online can open our eyes to new possibilities in our industry. We've had conversations about the inaccessibility of theatre, particularly Broadway, and how to overcome these obstacles. This was discussed when the presidents of both the American Theatre Wing and the Broadway League visited campus, and noted that they were looking into streaming performances into movie theatres the week leading up to the Tony's, so that everyone could see what was up for awards. While it can be hard to think about the good that can come out of this tragic situation, I think it can be helpful to look on the brighter side with some hope.
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