Online Production: Collaboration
ing from. We had people tuning in from
Across the Continents
all across the world! The chat transcript
When Christie
became a second layer of performance as
Connolly, program
audience members shared their feelings
director and assis-
about the characters they loved and hated.
tant professor of
In theatre, we’ve always researched audi-
theatre at Union
ence response, whether it’s studying physi-
College in Ken-
ological responses or measuring attitudes
tucky, set out to
through surveys. The live chat allowed
p ro d u c e a p l a y
me to see exactly which moments spurred
with students during COVID-19,
44 x Southern Theatre x Winter 2021
Christie Connolly Union College
certain reactions from the audience.” Connolly’s experience with audience
she faced unusual
interaction highlights a unique advantage
circumstances: cast and crew members
of performing online. Rather than solicit-
participating from three continents.
ing audience members for feedback after
“At Union College, we have a large
a performance, she was able to engage
international student population,” she said.
her audience during the show. Audience
“Due to COVID, many of them were either
members had the opportunity to utilize
delayed flying back to the States or were
the chat feature or not, so their engagement
not able to return at all. Being involved
experience was customizable in that sense.
in the production helped them feel con-
Design: Fighting ‘Screen Fatigue’
nected to the school and their peers. Two
For Dahlia Al-Habieli, an assistant
actresses auditioned while they were still
professor of theatrical design at Albright
in Brazil. One actor was in Dublin, Ireland.
College in Pennsylvania, the key to keep-
One of our sound crew was in Israel, and
ing students engaged has been find-
our marketing manager was in Colombia.”
ing ways to move
Connolly chose to produce an online
beyond the screen
play written specifically for Zoom, Time
to make learning
Zones Apart, written by this author and
more active and
Lauren Lynch.
interactive.
“When I was searching for a play to pro-
“Screen fatigue
duce, I knew I wanted to do something that
is real,” she said.
fit the format of a digital space – something
“My students and I
that was written to be performed via video
had constant head-
chat,” Connolly said. “Ignoring the digital
aches by the third
element felt inauthentic and forced.”
week of remote
Dahlia Al-Habieli Albright College
With an international cast and crew
learning. Audio and podcast content as
came an international audience. To reach
well as tactile, hands-on assignments and
them virtually, Connolly said, “We used
assignments designed to get everyone up
OnTheStage [onthestage.com], a live-
and moving broke up the relentlessness of
stream specifically for virtual theatre. This
Zoom University.”
was fabulous because patrons didn’t need
Al-Habieli utilizes a number of engaging
a Zoom account to log in. They received a
resources in her classroom: demo videos,
link to a web page where our Zoom show
interactive teaching/learning tools, and
was livestreaming. I enjoyed the live chat
sharing of 2-D and 3-D work. She found
feature. During the performance, audi-
that a multi-modal approach to content
ence members could create a user name
delivery helped keep students engaged
and respond to the show. In pre-show
in online learning, and so each element of
announcements we asked the audience to
her course content was offered in at least
type in the chat where they were watch-
two modes. For example, all play texts also