We’re getting somewhere. Not sure where yet, but it feels like we’re moving towards  something real. This has been the great fear all along. What if the work is a dead end? What if  the only real pivot under the pandemic is online? What if it was a false premise all along? I  wrote a while back, either here in the journal or in my pitches for the PTP, my disdain for online  theatre. Now, I haven’t changed my mind completely, but I have had an experience that  changed my tune. A friend of mine put together an online event of spoken word that spoke to  the black experience today and it worked even when the technology didn’t. There was an  intimacy in the event that I hadn’t felt in the theatre in a while. There was also an immediacy  of the material and a feeling that the creators looked at the box and decided what was possible  instead of looking at what we used to have and jamming that into the box. It’s much like what  we’ve been doing and I’m encouraged that the online pivot is starting to approach the medium  in this way. All that said, I’m still committed to figuring out how to tell stories in person, which I  also say while prepping to pivot my company’s Christmas show online. But that’s an entirely  different journal.  

Monday. We were almost entirely in person with one member in the Zoom room, which is  certainly a win. This got me thinking. With the world upside down, attendance in my regular  classes has been much spottier than a typical college course, which is understandable. I  remember my many undergraduate absences (though I should point out I never missed a  theatre class). My point, though, is that we have not had one unexcused absence in six weeks  and that is a huge win. The energy in the room ebbs and flows, but they are always there and  for that, I’m grateful. I gave the pitch teams the first bit of time to get back on the same page,  but everyone was quicker to it than I had imagined. Since our daylight was waning along with  our energy, we took a field trip around the university with our Scenic/Audience team for their  pitches. Our first stop was the main quad out in front of the library. While the team spoke  about what the space afforded them both logistically and technically, what I appreciated the  most was their focus on what the space actual meant to the student body. They spoke of the  space as the heart of a fractured campus, we noticed the American Flag at half mast, as well as  the Black Lives Matters signs scattered about. It was an exciting space. It is also the space that  has the most potential bureaucracy attached to it, so other options are essential. Next up was  the Governor’s Courtyard. At this point in the tour, I began to feel ashamed how little of the  campus I was familiar with. Outside of the theatre, the mini-quad it is on, and the building  where the acting lab is, I think I’ve made two trips to the student union and that’s the extent of  my knowledge of campus. And this is my third year here. Ah well, back to the Courtyard.  Again, the group pointed out the location’s spacial meaning to campus, which is in the middle  of a cluster of dorms and therefore a literal community center. Among the advantages this site  holds is it’s more dynamic in architecture than the main quad, with a hill for the audience, and  certainly less bureaucracy. Good option. Finally, we ended up at Highsmith, or the student  union, not that I’ve heard any of the students call it that; that may just be a throwback from my  own college days. In any case, this was an indoor option, which I initially balked at in my head,  but realized that of course we should attempt at having an indoor experiment. We ended up in  the Grotto, which is a small stage with a cabaret-like seating. I asked the students what type of  events were held here and as they began listing them, I cut them off with, “Let me guess,  everything but theatre.” Yep, a stage, an actual stage with no history of theatre performed on 

PTP ~ WEEK 6 SNOOK 

it. Its small size took me back to my Chicago days, but the way we treat this space would  obviously be nothing like that. Again, the site’s relationship to the students led, as it’s where  they are nourished, where they come after classes, and a space where all groups on campus  visit. The drawbacks were obvious being indoors with an extremely limited capacity, but the  advantages were there too, as it would provide superior acoustics and the opportunity to more  easily achieve any kinds of shadow puppetry or projections. Then another interesting idea  arose: make the play episodic. If we performed, recorded, and streamed the play in 20-30  minute sections once a week and made it more of a rolling event that could build interest.  Potential audience members could catch up on what they missed through streaming and then  show up the third week for it live, or whenever it fit better in their schedule. This would need a  lot more figuring, but it’s a super fun idea. At this point, something came up that was becoming  a recurring theme. Outside of the theatre department, students are painfully unaware that we  exist. Jack, an ensemble member, joked that every year, he would tell his new roommates that  indeed there are shows that he is involved in and that they are expected to attend. Most  students don’t even know that there is a theatre on campus as so few attend anything on the  mini-quad. It’s the total reverse of my own experience of not knowing the rest of the campus.  So then, the PTP is a real opportunity to do what I’ve been attempting with my own theatre;  bring the shows to the audience instead of asking them to find you. It’s not their fault they  don’t know; students have busy lives and theatre has never been the most inclusive of  institutions no matter where you are. This thought invigorates the walk back to our corner of  campus.  

Next up was Character Design and they seemed to break down into relatively realistic,  dreamlike, and historical. In both the relatively realistic pitch and the historical pitch, there  seemed to be a focus about being historically accurate with their choices. I couldn’t help but  put my own artistic tendencies into the conversation. One pitch was concerned with the origins  of the suburbs not being in the Midwest where they want to set it, while another was focused  on designing the show based on Pennsylvania in the 1800’s as they believed that told the origin  story of America. I shared them that what was most important to me as a director and  audience member, is understanding the story that I’m being told. There is a shared idea of  what the “American suburbs” look and feel like and achieving that story is far more important  than being tied to historical accuracy. As to Pennsylvania in the 1800’s, what is it that needs to  be communicated because most of your audience won’t recognize the place and time, let along  understand the historical significance attached to it. Will, who was pitching it, then arrived at  an “Americana aesthetic’ which immediately made the idea more accessible. Early in my  theatre making in Chicago, I dramaturged a few of my company’s plays and was a real hard ass  on historical accuracy. In retrospect, it helped here and there, but most of the time it would get  in the way of the story. We’re not historians. We’re theatre artists, who can bend time and  space for the sake of story. Speaking of bending time and space, that was very much the  impression the dreamlike pitch gave. It spoke of masks inspired by Commedia and Greek, but  with our own American Stock Characters, a brighter than normal color palette in costumes with  equally brighter use of lights and using the modernity of character to dictate time period of  costume. An acid dream. As with all of these pitches, there’s a ways to go in creating cohesion  and specificity of choices, but this one certainly plays to my own obsession with the relationship between theatre and dreams. To me, using theatre to communicate stories in a dream logic is  a natural pairing; dreams make more sense to me on stage then they do in my own mind.  

Finally, we arrived at the Stagecraft portion of the evening, but anything I would write here  would be a repetition of the most recent post, since I was in the room for the creation of the  pitch. We took a break as I tried to figure out the next teams. Now, we had site options (well  balanced, I might add) and it was time to develop the true rough draft for each pitch. In putting  together the teams, I wanted to play to each ensemble member’s chosen specialty, but I also  had to pay attention to personalities. When it comes to collaboration, this balance is of the  utmost importance. After assigning the new teams, I instructed them to begin with the  assigned site and let go of any relationships to specific pitches. Everything was in play now. If  groups use the same choices in certain areas, that is more than okay. These next pitches will  intersect but will also undoubtedly be different in many ways as well. They had about 30  minutes left, and the conversations were still animated when we had to bring them back; a  good sign. We’ll finish up the collaborative pitches next time and see what they’ve come up  with. I’m genuinely excited.  

Thursday. Originally, we had thought that all rehearsals would take place outside and, if it  rained, that would drive us into the Zoom room. I’ve written enough about how that evolved,  but then it also didn’t; just not for the reasons we thought. The last couple Thursdays were  long days of North Carolina rain. Back when I was a kid in Chapel Hill, I loved these days. It  meant inside coziness, probably a movie, and that relaxing sound of a slow and steady pitter  patter of droplets. But those were simpler days. With the world upside down, exacerbating  every anxiety, depressive thought, and daily conflict, the rain seems to be having the opposite  effect. Speaking for myself, these days of rain have made me want to turn right back around  from the day, curl into a ball under a big fuzzy blanket, and say, “No thank you, Thursday. I’m  good.” It seems as though I am not alone in this. As the day ticked along and the drops  continued to fall, we had more and more members pivoting into the Zoom room. I don’t know  why because we don’t ask, but it turns out that when it rains, we pivot into the Zoom. Luckily  the work was adaptable online. Around the corner it won’t be, so I’m hoping for a dry spell in  the weeks to come. 

I sent them back into their pitch teams to continue the conversation that was left off from  Monday, but this time I gave them a document to fill out. It was a simplified version of all three  previous team prompts that made sure they look at their pitch from every angle. In addition to  repeating my direction from before, I encouraged them to be curious and not be satisfied with  simple answers; to really interrogate their work. Easier said than done, of course. After  debriefing with Mikayla, I hopped around the breakout rooms to see if anyone needed  anything. The conversations seemed animated and rare was the question or need, so I just left  them to it. After about an hour, they began wrapping up but not quite at the same time, so I  went to each group and had them pitch me. Because we will get to these individually in this  journal, I don’t feel the need to share them all now, but a couple of observations are worthy.  Separating voice and body resonated with these groups, but not in the ones I figured. The Main  Quad team embraced it, which was expected, but the Grotto team did as well. We’ll do the 

Grotto experiment last, so it will be interesting to see how our experience with it in the Quad  will affect how the Grotto wants to handle it. The Courtyard team had some unexpected  choices, which I questioned at the time, but woke up the next morning questioning my own  questioning. I shot them a note, encouraging their initial instincts as I didn’t want my  skepticism to inhibit their choices. I will say, you could tell there were varying degrees of  success in collaboration, which is entirely expected, but I do like to clock it. I’ve said repeatedly  it’s the hardest and most essential part of our art and, at the end of the night, everyone did  really nice work.  

The plan ahead is to move into the rehearsal room by Thursday, which is exciting, but will take  a different level of concentration and commitment. Mikayla and I spoke tonight about making  the transition as transparent and smooth as possible. I really do believe in this group, so I’m  not losing any sleep about it. My plan to get us there is constantly evolving, so instead of  speculating, I’ll just wait to see what happens next.