We talked to theatrical video guru Jim Glaub about the wild new world of online theatre to answer some of the most common questions and learn some best practices for producing theatre online.
Friday, September 04, 2020
8 Tips for How to Live Stream Theatre
We talked to theatrical video guru Jim Glaub about the wild new world of online theatre to answer some of the most common questions and learn some best practices for producing theatre online.
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The suggestion to do mostly pre recorded content makes a lot of sense to me, but I can see why many people would push back on this idea saying it is antithetical to what theater really is. To those people, I would say producing anything online is antithetical to what theater is. And I think this is the point that so many people are missing right now when looking to perform theater online: which is that this is not theater. There is no way to produce theater in the conventional sense online in a remote format. It is just not what we do. But that is not to say this new wave of online content is lesser than theater. It has the potential to be just as impactful and powerful as the work we have been doing, we just have to reframe our mindsets. We are no longer producing theater. We are producing live video theater which is in itself a new genre that we are all desperately trying to figure out right now. We have to move away from this idea of just doing theater on zoom, because that is doomed to fail. We have to completely reinvent the kind of work we are doing now, and for our entire careers honestly, because this genre is not going to disappear with the virus.
To jump off of what Cooper was talking about, I think an important realization that everyone needs to come to as theatre artists right now is that we have to let go of the definitions of all of the concepts, structures, and job descriptions in this rapidly growing world of online “theatre”. This has been the hardest part for me, as someone who aspires to work in live theatrical production as either someone who constructs or as a technician, because right now, neither of those things exist. They aren’t being replaced or reinvented in a way that I can also participate because they are being downsized and given as a subset of another person’s role – Glaub mentions how the students are now their own individual production houses. I guess I’m really thinking about this as a TD in the context of CMU, because in the case of last semester, every other discipline was kind of able to pivot to digital production in a paper project format, but that wasn't really possible in a productive way for us TDs. In the discussions that happen about what to let the TD’s do now, it seems to keep circling the idea of needing to be relevant to what the curriculum is teaching us and doing things that fit our job description. But is it worth our time to tread water in territory that is no longer relevant to the ways theatre is growing into this digital platform? Should we maybe take the time to think about what production people could be that is adjacent to our skill set and then build new roles for ourselves? Is it even worth taking the time to explore a new frontier if we think we know live theatre will one day return? Is it time to reconstruct how production is structured and managed and interacts with our more creative counterparts? Will live theatre ever return or will be stuck in our home forever? These are the questions that keep me up at night. My apologies that this strayed from the core topic of this article. Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk.
Though I believe there’s no replacement to live theater, zoom theater is an interesting media, especially for experimental productions. The part of this article that really stood out to me, though, was the downside of live zooms being the pause between lines that may occur because of one or more performers’ internet connection. While this is an issue with plays that have multiple actors, I believe zooms can become a great home for monologues. One example of a live monologue I saw was Michael Urie in Jonathan Tolins’ “Buyer & Cellar”. It is a one-man show consisting of a gay man’s experience working in the fake mall in Barbra Streisand’s basement. It is set up like Urie is telling the audience an outrageous story, and in zoom form, it became for intimate seeming. Other plays I believe would benefit from this in a similar way are Fleabag and Seawall, both being intimate-feeling monologues as well.
I believe that the transition of the entertainment world to an online format gives such a wide variety of possibility to the kinds of things that are possible and may even bring about new types of theatre as we know it. However, this article is great because it's necessary to "relearn" what we're already familiar with and apply it to shows we know before developing a new type of theatre. Specifically, I feel that the first six points create a sort of prerequisite situation, where Glaub is saying "these are the things that you need to even succeed in the first place." The last two points delve more into the sentiment of pushing the forefront of online entertainment. He states specifically that this is a new genre, one that we've never seen before and one that I don't think we'll see anywhere else, even as live theatre opens back up. I, for one, am very excited about this new prospect.
The most difficult thing about creating digital theater will not be the editing, the technical difficulties, or the isolation. It will be having to rise to the expectations of what theater was before. I agree with all the previous comments that argue that we are no longer producing theater, but in fact an entirely new art form. But I wonder if this new digital media will ever be able to “outgrow” or differentiate itself from live theater enough so that the two are no longer compared. In my opinion, digital “theater” will never be able to do the same things as well as an in person live performance. But I also believe it might be able to do different things better. If we keep looking at digital performances through a lens, comparing them to live theater instead of appreciating them for what they are, this art form will never grow. But If we lean in to the film-like aspects of this new digital media, we might be able to unlock its potential. I appreciate that this article didn’t try to teach theater makers how to make theater online, rather how to adapt their skills and develop new ones to suit a completely new art.
The major sticking point is one that I have seen pop up in a few of these comments, and that is if “pre-recorded theatre” isn’t actually theater. Believe me, I am all about pursuing alternative options, and not giving up on creating art, but I wonder if maybe it is time to let go of the idea that we have to still be making something that we call theatre, and that is okay! I think it is very important however that a lot of these principles be applied to theatrical education. A lot about having the right equipment, offering grace, and pivoting into something within entertainment that isn’t exactly theatre, still applies. There is still so much that we have the capacity to do and work towards, particularly in an educational and exploratory sense. Alongside what Katie said however, there are a lot of elements of how theatre is being reimagined that kind of excludes my place in theatre in many ways, and that is a difficult thing to stomach at the moment.
To bounce off some of the other comments I think the most important thing we need to consider and think about is that we aren’t simply live streaming theatre. Theatre as we know it or want it to be simply can’t or doesn’t translate to a digital format. For over a century digital formats have been going alongside theatre and they have created their own world with TV, movies, and now streaming. Theatre is in a mad dash right now to find its place and stake claim in the world. Problem is I think a lot of theatrical creators are struggling to figure out just what this new form of live-streamed theatre is and what it looks like in 2020. This article and the conversations that come with it and with those like it are vital to the theatre community. No one seems to know what to do or what to try and we can only learn from our own experiences and from those around us. We are in an art form centuries old having to adapt in the blink of an eye and the only way we can do so is by relying on our strength in numbers.
This article was helpful, especially for someone like me who has been struggling with the concept of how we can successfully stream meaningful performances without live audiences. Majority of my theater experiences so far have been in the realm of high school theater so it's always interesting to hear a perspective about what teachers might have to do, since I worked so closely with my high school director and was always thinking about the work we had to designate to all of different students but also how much work she herself would have to head. To think that could all be almost completely designated to the students', in the comfort of their homes, gives me hope for a different type of creativity that could come out of these virtual shows. The freedom of not being in the same physical space as a director scares me a little bit, because it could be detrimental to a show because of all of the miscommunications in design that would occur, but the idea that it could create new avenues for those who didn't know if they could make the commute back home after school or those who wanted more creative space than their director would let them have excites me!
To bring up a similar point that a lot of the previous comments have also brought up, I do think pre-recorded theatre is not the "true" form of theatre we all know of. It may be fair to not claim this new form as live theatre but a new art form that can thrive now during the pandemic and after the pandemic is over. It could be possible that all of live theatre will also have to modify on the chance that the pandemic will never recover. This new form of theatre can actually allow theatre to become more accessible to lower income families and allow stories to be shared with everyone. During the pandemic it also allows for an avenue for creative people to express what they are feeling while being pushed to adapt to a new form. I do believe there will not be a huge amount of support for pre-recorded shows as that takes part of the humanity out of theatre. The pre-recorded shows will just be similar to movies and tv and not offer anything new to those two industries. I believe the only way for this pre-recorded form to be successful is to add that sense of humanity that you feel when it is live some other way.
The first tip is interesting as it points out the ability students and younger people now can innovate in theater more visibly than before, with the guidance of those teaching them. Virtual theater truly is a collaborative effort between those who are more comfortable with the medium, and those who are not, but have skill sets in other areas. It is exciting, despite the drastic cons of the situation, to have a completely new way to experiment in performing arts. I wonder what technologies and techniques will come out of this period, and if new theatrical staples will emerge. As said in the article, with virtual performances, audiences now have the ability to clearly see nuances and subtle tone and volume changes that might not translate to a typical stage. This opens the door for something as expressive and loud as theater to explore a new element of subtlety that has never been seen before.
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