CMU School of Drama


Thursday, September 17, 2020

Studio Theatre?s virtual ?salons? offer a cultural gathering place during the pandemic

The Washington Post: Before he began hosting Psalm’s Salons for Studio Theatre, playwright and director Psalmayene 24 didn’t yearn to interview fellow artists in public — with or without his preferred soft drink (ginger beer) in hand.

1 comment:

Alexander Friedland said...

I love how Studio Theatre is creating a cultural gathering place. As other articles on the blog have said and many of my peers have said, the biggest thing that doesn’t translate virtually is community. I think theatres currently need to focus on community building rather than creating digital theatre. This can be done in an artistic way like how Studio Theatre does it but I think this will help keep community members and stakeholders engaged with the company and have something that they are missing even if it isn’t the “Live Virtual Theatre” experience. The biggest problem with LVT is that it tries to do theatre virtually and yes story telling can be done virtually but at the heart of theatre is community and new creative ways need to be put in place to foster community rather than recreating a in person medium virtually. This article really brings me joy when it talks about re-creating the Facebook Live experience. It is great to hear that Psalm borrowed from the Music world’s rap battles because this is a thing we all in theatre need to do (borrow from other industries that are getting virtual right). We in this industry need be redefining everything we do with a clear purpose and reason because we can’t be going back to what we did. Theatre will not survive.