DEC
2

Directing Theatre Virtually?  Totally Possible!

By Katie Rich 

Katie Rich is the Union High School theatre teacher and director in Vancouver, Washington.  She has been directing high school theatre programs for 16 years in the Pacific Northwest. 

I’ll be honest and up front:  directing virtual theatre is not my first choice.

I love the experience of sitting in a dark auditorium watching rehearsals take place.  I love seeing, up-close and personal, the pitfalls and successes of my students in their character development within a play.  I miss yelling “stop” when the need to correct a technical issue is halting the run-through.

But then, what’s the point of educational theatre?  Isn’t it to provide opportunities and experiences for youth?  And while my personal comfort zone is with traditional stage theatre and those elements described above, it’s also my job as a theatre educator to adapt and provide opportunities for students...  no matter what.

Still, I grumbled at first.  I’m not trained as a software editor.  I don’t have the perfect lighting or microphones to get a good video and audio.  How in the world do I get costumes or props to kids?  Besides, I have no money for anything because the spring production of 2020 was canceled!  There were many thoughts running through my head but at the forefront was this:  I need to save my theatre students and our theatre program.

But...  how?  Between Wi-Fi and connection issues, background noises from students’ homes, terrible backdrops for filming, and a general lack of resources, virtual theatre is definitely an adjustment.  But here’s some advice that helped us be successful as a program in producing and releasing our first (but not last!)  virtual play.

Throw out old “ways of doing things.”  For me, this meant changing the way I held rehearsals.  I was accustomed to run-throughs and thinking of the production as a whole.  But virtual theatre worked best for me in very small, tight rehearsals, instead.  The small practices helped limit connection interruptions and delay, enhance sound quality, and ensured that each student had the space they needed to perform.

Our first virtual performance was the Pioneer Drama play Christmas Shorts Online, by Lucy Williams.  The play has 12 scenes with one to 12 students in each.  I rehearsed only one scene at a time during live sessions.  Different from the norm of full run-throughs, the point was to let students perform and have that exciting theatre experience.  This shift in approach to rehearsals allowed for that.

Be creative with props, backdrops, and costume sharing.  I had about $500 for this show for production costs.  After buying the materials and the rights, I spent what was left on little additions for each student.  I managed to purchase 12 photography backdrops online that were black, red, or glitter.  I even got a North Pole “elf” village!  I had a total cast of 35 students, so I made a three-week rotation of pick-ups/drop-offs of “filming packages.”  Though I teach online like so many others right now, I teach from my classroom.  So, I created a drive-up pick-up/drop-off station outside the Performing Arts Complex where students would get their packages, which included the backdrops plus elf hats, reindeer ears, a Scrooge hat, boas and/or top hats, and nearly anything else I could find that was budget-friendly and helped add to the characters.

Create a filming schedule.  Because of the limitations of props, backdrops, and costumes, this meant that not all students would have the backdrop or prop they needed at the same time.  So, once I made a spreadsheet of who would have what and when, I created a film schedule to create 12 separately filmed scenes that could be edited together and posted on our website.  Some students performed monologues for their scenes, and it was easier for them, once they had their items, to film their respective scene at home, on their own time.  For each of these monologue scenes, I gave a three- to four-day window for them to film their scene and upload to the cloud.  However, scenes involving two or more students required me to film the scene on Zoom.  The reason I use Zoom over Google Classroom (which we use at school for classes) or another video conferencing app is that Zoom allows students to change their names to their character names.  It also gives them the ability to highlight/pin/turn off videos.  And — quite honestly — the quality of the connection is better.

Over three weeks, all videos were filmed and uploaded to the cloud, ready for editing!

Engage those tech kids!  The need for some hands-on tech kids was evident.  I found that just reaching out to my truly excellent technical theatre students was a lifesaver and alleviated my previous tech concerns and shortcomings.  In fact, our normally thriving technical program is currently idle with the exception of online learning and a few tech projects.  So, when I asked for tech help, they jumped right in, helping with logos, editing issues, video training, and compiling scenes.  Let students be involved — they know more than we do!

Keep all the same show traditions in place.  Senior speeches, rose ceremonies, motivational launches, Secret Friend, and more are all the elements of theatre that kids love.  Keep those in place!  Figure out how to still offer them.  Be creative in the ways in which your program can continue to grow.  Students need it.  Teachers need it.  Parents need it.  Theatre, at large, needs it.

Virtual theatre is not my favorite.  But it is a way to keep educational theatre experiences and opportunities alive for students.  And in a time of miscommunication, stress, loss of stability, and fear of the unknown, educational theatre is essential.  Theatre is nothing if not storytelling.  So keep theatre alive and let your students tell their stories.