theconversation.com: When the UK went into lockdown in 2020, its multibillion-pound theatre industry could have ceased to exist. However, the vacuum caused by this physical shutdown served in many cases as a spurring force for increased creativity and resourcefulness. Productions did not stop completely, but instead went online, showcasing the potential of modern technology to bring theatre to wider audiences despite a lack of traditional performance spaces or funding.
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While the pandemic has definitely had negative impacts on the theatre industry, such as forcing theatres to shut down, putting artists out of work, the unfortunate deaths of some artists, I believe it also helped positively reshape our perception of performance. For a while, I have wrestled with the question of "what makes theatre, theatre?" I am someone who believes theatre depends on intent. I came to this conclusion in tenth grade, after a semester-long acting class that became dedicated to creating a show. Our emphasis was on exploring spaces, and while the production started on a proscenium stage, we branched off into performing in all areas of the school, bringing the audience around with us. Theatre can happen anywhere, as long as you create with intent. I believe the pandemic taught a lot of people this. While zoom theatre is not ideal, people were still able to create productions. There of course, is then the added question of, when performing virtually, when does theatre become film? I am not exactly sure what my answer is to this. To some extent, I think everything has to be live. But does this include acting? What if you are editing recordered clips together live? I don't know!
I think that it is so important to look at theatre in a different way. My biggest gripe with theatre sometimes is that it is too traditional as it is groundbreaking. Despite the pandemic being pretty detrimental to many productions around the world, it also gave reason for people to create something brand new. I admire these artists for taking up such a task, because I was in a similar situation during the pandemic as well. They are forced to truly think outside the box, as they are limited within the confines of a computer screen and health regulations. However, I believe that art exists in order to tell a story of the world around us, and even though the height of the pandemic was only about a year and a half, so many things happened that art must come out of it. I liked the bit where the article questioned the identity of theatre and its place in the “fabric of the community”. I think these are important questions to ask when moving forward from the pandemic and moving towards a greater future.
I agree with a lot of what this article had to say. I think that the theatre industry is struggling, honestly, it's the whole entertainment industry live or not. I think that the industry will eventually bounce back from the pandemic, I certainly hope it does for my sake. With that being said, there are absolutely advances that were made because we were all forced to challenge ourselves as artists in order to keep going. Even as a high schooler I was doing new things to get our productions up and running. The idea of what theatre can be was incredibly molded to what it needed to be in order to keep creating art. Devastation like this has always been a driving force in the advancement of any industry. I have already utilized plenty of my new knowledge at CMU so far. Although plenty of great innovation has come through the pandemic, I would in fact like it to be over.
“While these streaming served as a suitable stopgap, audiences arguably thrive on live entertainment, relishing the excitement and proximity offered by it. Theatre and Netflix are not interchangeable.” I am well aware the article was focusing on reflecting upon the “zoom/streamable theater” times, but this quote I think explains so much about why bootlegs should not be banned. Or rather, that productions would benefit and not be hurt by professionally recorded runs of their shows. The simple reason why theater didn’t die during the pandemic, and why it most likely is an art form that will outlast all of us, is because there is nothing like being live for something. As popular as recorded and streamed concerts are, people still would rather find a way to attend the event live than sitting at home to watch it. The magic of live experiences can not be substituted, and I wish that was something more producers and the big names behind the table could be aware of. People haven’t stopped buying tickets for Hamilton since it came out, in fact, I’d like to argue that more people want to watch it live now since the pro shot was released last year.
Reading this article, it's actually kind of astonishing to think about where theater was pre-2020, and how far we've come. For the local and student theater I was involved in, I think part of what changed was just our perception of what theater was and what theater does. It used to be that we'd almost exclusively only plan or execute shows that were at least a month in the making, and took a lot of people to put on. Being forced to go on zoom and "figure it out" meant that, coming back, a lot of us have a bigger willingness to try something new. This is especially in terms of minimalism, or even just putting on more, smaller shows. Being on zoom definitely made me realize just what mattered to me about theater, and the answer turned out to be telling stories that matter to the here and now (especially in contrast to reproducing old classics like Guys & Dolls, for example). I hope that commercial theater trends the same way, and that we can continue to lift new voices in theater in the future.
I have always loved the quote by John Steinbeck, “ The theater is the only institution in the world which has been dying for four thousand years and never succumbed. It requires tough and devoted people to keep it alive.” Theater is an ancient art that has been around since the first cavemen gathered around a fire to tell stories of the dangers that surrounded them and I am certain that it will live on far past where we are right now, stretching on until the end of human time on this mortal coil. I sincerely believe that if theatre made it through the bubonic plague, the yellow fever, the Spanish Flu, Polio, AIDS, Zika etc… then it will make it through this pandemic. It is one of the many reasons I did not like the apocalyptic rhetoric that was occurring around the beginning of shutdown, because at least here in America we are fairly technologically advanced and where there is better access to medicine and the basis for life there will be theater.
Before I ever got to Carnegie Mellon, one of the best pieces of advice I got was to not remember what theatre used to be, and look forward to what it has to be now, COVID isn't going to go away anytime soon and we all have to deal with it. So trying to find new and different ways to keep live entertainment around to just distract us from how shitty our lives are then maybe we can get through the rest of this stupid pandemic. Everyone's just trying to find some way to get through this so we can have some semblance of happiness and a stable income again. So the way the UK is trying to come up with ways to be safe and keep others safe is a step towards just accepting our lives as it is right now. I also don't know why more articles like this haven't come out earlier, like haven't we accepted this fact of life by now?
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