CMU School of Drama


Tuesday, April 14, 2020

Behind the scenes, creatives are still pretty busy

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: If your job is to create new worlds, what happens when the real one comes to a stop? Here are a few Pittsburgh creatives and what they are doing at home in a time of pandemic.

3 comments:

Annika Evens said...

I really liked this article because I feel like it is so easy to distance the work form the people. And everything seems to be a statistic these days so I really appreciated that this article took the effort and the time to write an article about people. Of course I also really enjoyed the fact that I got to read about what Susan and Sean are doing during this time. But even the people on this list that I did not know, I loved hearing about all of the different ways theatre artists are staying busy during this. This article really shows that everyone is coping with this differently and everyone has different thoughts about what the next steps are and I found that really interesting. I am very sad for everyone especially those in the arts industry who have lost jobs because of this, but it was nice to hear about how some people are still being paid and supported by their company and still getting to show their work somehow.

natalie eslami said...

The first line of this article sent chills down my spine. The world stops, how do we keep creating new ones? That’s the exact thought that i’ve been unable to fathom into words to describe how I feel given the current situation—I’m glad this article helped me gather that thought. I’m very appreciative of this article and how real the accounts from working professionals are. In particular, Britton Mauk’s words were the most honest and really resonated with me in this confusing time. He described being in mourning because of all that’s being lost right now, especially work opportunities and cool projects—I feel the same way. it’s a very real emotion to be experiencing, and makes me feel a lot better to hear a design professional express it too. And I agree that things are, by no means, going to pick up where they left off. Artists are going to have to backtrack, I think, in order to keep moving forward. The industry is going to have to heal from what has happened to be able to progress after this is all over. It’s sad to see all of these designers having cancelled work, that they had already put so much effort into. But I feel like that’s a common thread in every article I read nowadays.

Jillian Warner said...

I really enjoyed reading this article! I think it’s nice because we can all relate to what these designers or creatives are working on right now. Everyone’s stuck at home and all of our shows have been canceled and yet we’re still designing them anyway in the hopes that maybe one day they will come to fruition. In Basic Design class we are still designing our Imaginarium installations even though we won’t actually be physically making them. Although who knows, there’s always Playground next year. As frustrating as it is to work on projects that probably won’t ever happen I think that the glimmer of hope that they will is good because it gives us something to work towards and some sense of purpose in our life which we all desperately need right now. Being busy is good! It’s a good distraction from what is going on outside the comfort of our homes.