oregonlive.com: The Oregon Shakespeare Festival is taking a new step into the digital world, hoping to connect with the millions of Oregonians stuck at home during the coronavirus pandemic.
The southern Oregon theater company launched its new digital platform, O!, on Wednesday, where it expects to begin streaming previously staged performances as well as documentaries, behind-the-scenes footage, interviews and educational videos.
5 comments:
It has been so inspiring to see the theatre community and the overall art community adapt to the changes that have been thrown at us in the past 2-3 months. There is really nothing for us to do besides cancel seasons, so it has been really interesting to watch theatre organizations create alternatives to in-person shows, whether that be through Zoom readings, or virtual musical performances or anything like that. O! seems like such a great way for the Oregon Shakespeare Festival to connect with people in a distant way. Once their shows are published on this platform, I think it is going to become a really popular service that people will take advantage of. Netflix has become the saving grace for literally all of us, but O! Will be free and will be a very nice break from your standard television shows and movies that are on Netflix and Hulu and such. I am very excited to see them roll this out, and I hope it helps pull in some revenue from donations for them.
I love the idea that the Oregon Shakespeare festival will be showcasing their performances in addition to additional content on their new digital platform. It is crazy to me that they were just starting their season and it was quickly cut short. It is fantastic that all of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival's online content will be free, that makes it much more accessible for people, especially in these trying times. I know I have definitely enjoyed watching recorded performances shared by National Theatre Live and Andrew Lloyd Weber's weekly showcasing of recordings of his musicals. I have not been exposed to a lot of professional theatre, so I am really glad to be spending this downtime learning more about this field and taking it all in. I think that there is much to be learned from the kind of content that will be released, especially the content that covers behind the scenes material.
We love Susan’s costumes in the header photo!!!! Iconic. Okay back to the article itself… I think this is so cool! I have always wanted to go to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, but the travel and costs and everything else have always been out of my means. I am excited that this resource will be (mostly) free and that so many people will have access to high quality theatre! I am really excited to see the behind the scenes videos. Those have always been my favorite to watch on YouTube. It is hard to know that behind all of this is the disappearance of jobs for 400 people. The loss of work for gig workers right now has had me incredibly sad, and I hope that out of this streaming will come some financial support going forward for those who are no longer going to get paychecks from the festival.
I love the Oregon Shakespeare Festival! I went to this festival a few times and I loved every show I saw there. I think that I am gonna use this service a lot, because there are some shows from last season I wasn't able to see that look really good. I love to see how theaters are dealing with the coronavirus, and I think that watching everyone switch to digital is really interesting, particularly because it means all of these resources existed before the virus even hit. All of theatre was so focused towards the in person experience, and trying to make sure that no information about the show gets released digitally. I remember when there was a time that people were so obsessed with keeping all theatre away from the internet, and now it is the complete opposite. I will definitely be watching all of OSF's content online though, and I am really excited.
I imagine we'll start seeing a lot more platforms and initiatives like this. I'm not quite sure how I feel about them. For now, of course, I think they're vital. They're both an important vector for income for struggling theaters right now, and I think they have an enormous educational and archival potential, offering easy access to young artists and students. The downside, I think, is that it starts to shoot for a middle ground between theatre and film that I'm not sure really exists. Theatre's main appeal over film is the community component, the shared experience of the live audience in the space. Except for those of us that work in theatre, that make theatre our livees, there seems to be a limited market and limited value in streaming recordings of live theatre. What would it really bring that Netflix doesn't, without that shared experienced? Maybe I'm a traitor to theatre for thinking so, but it seems that it strips theatre of it's one real superiority over film.
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