The difference between a possibility and a reality feels limitless once the latter eclipses the former.  Two of our ensemble members stayed home last rehearsal because they had been exposed to a positive case and were going to get tested.  By this point in the semester, that, sadly, was not unusual or any tremendous call for alarm.  I had a similar experience with my son, who had been exposed to a positive case in day care.  This is the world we live in now.  However, the alarm began to show itself during my first class this week when one of those ensemble members zoomed in and was not looking good.  They were still awaiting the test result, so I compartmentalized my concern and continued the day.  A few hours later, the other ensemble member’s test result came back positive.  First was great concern for them, but what followed was disorienting confusion.  The gulf between the possibility and reality.  I spoke with my stage manager, who had her own personal health concern as she had been in close proximity with our positive case.  We tried to figure out our plan for the evening.  Under what we understand of university protocol, there was nothing that we as an ensemble had to do.  We had worn masks and socially distanced.  Could we go about business as usual?  I called the department chair and talked through it, arriving at the same conclusion that we could continue.  We all decided that we would send an email out to the group to “take their temperature” on how to proceed.  The email was sent, and it was soon clear that we would pivot to zoom.  It wasn’t caution this time.  It was fear.

Monday.  We began with a deep breath and a check in.  As we went around and shared ourselves, our community never seemed more important.  It’s a reminder that the underlying mission to every theatre endeavor is providing a space for likeminded folk to come together; to have a place we can go and check the world at the door.  I’m so grateful for this group.  In looking for something to do online for a week, I looked no further than my acting class and one of the wins I had a little earlier in the semester.  Acting is traditionally a lonely endeavor leading up to first rehearsal.  In looking for ways to teach this work online, I decided to use the breakout rooms to serve as collective brainstorms about character.  In other words, I cast more than one person as the same character and then gave those actors a chance to create their character lists, time and place, and relationships together.  Especially early in this work, it seems to be exceedingly helpful to have multiple points of view to build a deeper character.  With the PTP, we already have multiple actors playing the same role, as well as multiple actors voicing the same role.  Why not open it up and have the entire ensemble create the character work?  I’ve said often during the pandemic that I never thought I’d have to teach my six-year-old what silver linings are.  But here we are.  I was ready to get us on our feet but being forced to really deep dive into these characters collectively might just be what we need to do.  When talking about my own theatre company, I’ve often said that the minute I let go and started to follow it is the minute it became what it is supposed to be.  The best we can do is build a solid foundation and then step away.  I feel like that’s where we are as a group now.  It’s time for the Pandemic Theatre Project to reveal to us what it is.  So, we must let go.  The evening was nothing but constructive.  I lead them through prompts, curated the breakout rooms, and worked with the production staff on their strategy moving forward.  We could have cancelled the rehearsal, and no one would have faulted us for it.  Thank goodness we didn’t.
Thursday.   Back into the Zoom room as we await more testing for the ensemble.  The acting ensemble needed to finish up some work from last time, but I gave them the first chunk of breakout room all together to go through all of the characters as a group.  This was initially to give me time to touch base with the production team, but as I drafted the schedule I realized it was essential.  Each member of the acting ensemble must be responsible for all of the characters.  They may be called on to play them vocally at any moment and, if a body actor has to sit a rehearsal out (for testing or any other issue) then a voice actor can step into the role.  Having the freedom and flexibility within the ensemble is essential.  It’s one of those ideas that I couldn’t have guessed at prior to conducting this project, but one that has made itself excruciatingly clear this week.  Following that break out, I prompted them on the ideas of time, place, and relationship and divided them further to allow the maximum participation.  Finally, it was time for the character interviews.  I’ve been using this exercise from The Viewpoints Book by Tina Landau and Anne Bogart in my acting class.  It’s a fantastic way of putting all of this character work to use and bridging the actor from the page to the stage; that moment when an actor stops saying “he,” “she,” or “they” and starts saying “I.”  The first part is basically a mad lib worksheet that I give vocally and they jot down quickly with their answers (i.e. My worst fear is:______).  The second part then is creating actions with tempo and duration, as well as behavioral and expressive gestures.  While certainly more effective in person, it’s doable online where another tool I use, the Dream Pieces, isn’t.  I brought the production team back in the main room so that we could all enjoy the interviews; it’s so nice to have designers in the rehearsal process with us.  We went by character, so that two actors playing the same character would go back to back.  They were all just wonderful.  Even over Zoom, they created full performances of character.  It was so fulfilling to curate the creation of something instead of continued theory.  We’re so hungry for it.  I hope we get back to the real room on Monday, but time will tell and we will follow.