top of page

DIGITAL THEATRE

MOVEMENT

The voices that will matter the most right now will be the voices that are radical and that are finding a way to make their voice heard no matter what. So that they don’t need a building...They will do the play in a basement over Zoom. And somehow it will capture the people it’s supposed to capture because they might crack the actual way to do a play in that form...

"

JEREMY

O. HARRIS

Every audience will release something different to feel like they have been awoken to the beauty and the complexities of stagecraft. And so, that person or those young voices that really matter right now are going to throw away a lot of the things that have been done and successful for other people, five years, three years, a year for them and bring something utterly and unapologetically new and necessary.

"

When we are stripped of our normative methods of theatrical consumption and creation, what remains?

Try interacting with these clippings.

Consider: the word "performance".

What comes to mind? Is it nostalgia for a dark theatre, lit bodies possessing a stage, chills running down your spine as you lean back in a padded seat? Is it the rush of the fiscal transaction when you buy a ticket? Let us expand further. Is it the new digital theatre emerging in the form of Zoom Readings and interactive websites? Is it the theatre of protest? What about the doings and restorative behaviors that make up our existence as human beings?

​

I call the "doings" of our everyday lives "performance" not necessarily to undermine the acts or to label them as superficial but rather to uplift them. Theatre is meant to be seen. When we focus that lens on the performances of our everyday lives, what do we notice?

​

This website was created in the middle of the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic. This year we have seen wildfires rage in Australia, we have quarantined in our homes to protect ourselves from a pandemic (and watched while others haven't), and we have seen the Black Lives Matter movement enter hegemonic consciousness. When the performances and theatre of our everyday lives are forced to shift dramatically, we are defamiliarized to them and must adjust somehow. We become hyper-aware of our bodies, and the ways we are using them. We become hyper-aware of the systems that police and enforce the performance that our bodies are "allowed" to give. We have the opportunity to imagine new modes of existence. 

​​

Screen Shot 2020-08-29 at 9.43.23 AM.png
bsp-static.playbill.jpg

Imagining

There has been a lot of cultural and theatrical imagining. Play readings over Zoom have become quite popular, with creators experimenting within the platform to make their content more interactive with polls and live performance feedback. Online Zoom classes are forcing teachers to learn and experiment. Social media is a theatre in and of itself - the ways in which we curate our pages create a rich digital stage with real consequences. The video app TikTok has boomed during the pandemic, creating controversy within the White House when teen content creators sabotaged a Trump rally. The ongoing Black Lives Matter movement has shifted to the forefront of digital and public space, with a street and digital theatre in defense of Black lives that has changed legislation and public consciousness nationwide. 

​

Playwright Jeremy O'Harris says to this: "But I think that a lot of the bemoaning of the ways in which people can’t go see their favorite musical in Times Square, [there are] people going to the very obvious theater that’s been happening all over social media and the sort of digital stage and literally in our streets." 

​

So the question is: how are we expanding beyond ourselves? When theatre-making, what are the new opportunities that present themselves to us rather than the limitations that hold us back? Do the limitations open up new opportunities, or shed light on something we wouldn't have seen before? 

​​

Screen Shot 2020-08-29 at 9.42.41 AM.png
BT_20200821_HYTHEATRE21_4207694.jpg
Social-Media-Activism-1-900x900.jpg
bottom of page