Directing Theatre on Zoom: The Challenges and Opportunities
The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde, Jose De La Rua as Gwendolen Fairfax, Renae Raymond as Cecily Cardew, Katelyn Elliot as Algernon Moncrieff, Marley Mathias as Lady Bracknell, Paige Nicole Belcher as John Worthing, dir. Caitlyn McCain, technical dir. Zeynep Akca.
Theatre as we know it has been largely at a halt since March 2020. Artists everywhere have turned to the virtual medium to continue to practice their art, and to mourn the loss of productions and jobs. Our industry has been hit hard, with arts industry unemployment claims rising 3,880 percent, based on a New York Department of Labor report from April.
In the midst of this, Co-Artistic Director Ben Natan founded No Exit Theatre Collective (NETC), a democratic, artist-led digital theatre space where we explore classic and new works throNo Exit Theatre Collectiveugh the lens of Zoom, with a mission to create anti-racist theatre. We started with our Fortnightly Reading Series, which runs every other week, usually on Fridays, streamed via Facebook live. These readings are free to the public, and under 90 minutes. We ask for donations on Venmo to pay all the folks that work with us in making the collective possible.
This has been a learning experience for all of us. The most important thing we’re doing is providing a respite from all that’s scary right now. We’re creating a positive community space for artists to flex their muscles a bit and feel good about the work they do. As the quarantine continues, we are building towards commissioning new works such as our upcoming production Wildfire: Before the Bloom. With each production, directors write a note about their process and the plays, these can be accessed on our Substack.
Iphigenia In Aulis by Euripides, Ben Pratt as Menelaos/Chorus, Noah Barson as Achilles/Chorus, Heidi Tolson as Klytaimestra/Chorus, Daniel Cabrera as Old Man/Chorus, Nicole Pelini as Iphigenia/Chorus, RJ Christian as Agamemnon/Chorus, Claire Tumey as Messenger/Chorus, dir. Ben Natan, technical dir. Daisy Philips
For NETC Co-Artistic Director, Zeynep Akca, (The Argentinian Prostitute Play, An Apology...by Doctor Faustus) who’s primarily a director and producer, the transition was bittersweet. She was co-producing SCOWL: Laddermageddon with creator Ashley Lauren Rogers at The Tank in late March when the pandemic hit. The show was postponed indefinitely, pushing SCOWL to turn to digital, like so many other shows. Similarly, Co-Artistic Director Ben Natan (Macbeth,The Argentinian Prostitute Play, Gain), had recently lost his acting job at a Shakespeare company doing educational tours when the COVID-19 pandemic hit. The industry seemed to be all battling combinations of fear, dread and other feelings difficult to parse out, along with figuring out how to continue our craft in these uncertain times.
For Ben, who is primarily an actor and writer, NETC primarily came out of missing the feeling of community and collaboration that theatre provides. “I am a social person and on top of missing my art, desperately missed the people I’ve made it with. So I made a Facebook group and things moved quickly from there,” he said.
Very early on, Zeynep joined as she was exploring theatre-making on Zoom in graduate school, with the MA in Applied Theatre program at CUNY SPS. She introduced performance sharing methods that could help develop public performances. Our Facebook group started with about 40 members in April 2020 and has since reached over 200 members, with over 70 performers having participated in readings to date. So far we have done plays by Aristophanes, Shakespeare, Molière, and George Bernard Shaw. We’re looking to expand to doing more works by non-cis-white men, with both public domain and original works.
Of course, running an entirely digital theatre collective in the middle of a pandemic comes with many challenges. This medium is new to most of us and we still don’t have a definition for what makes Zoom theatre…theatre.
Maybe someone out there has an answer, but as a collective, we are figuring it out together. Zeynep said that “as a director and producer, I’m basically re-learning how to create pieces that can be compelling that are still distinctly theatrical rather than short films. But, where is the difference? Is it performing something live even if the audience can’t engage with it? Is it techniques and “staging” methods?”
The Misanthrope by Molière, Katelyn Elliot as Philinte, Daniel Cabrera as Clitandre, Colette Ambo as Célimène, Cameron Reese as Acaste, RJ Christian as Alceste, Isabella Weiss as Eliante, dir. Zeynep Akca, technical dir. Ellen McAlpine
Resident Director Caitlyn McCain had just finished playing Rosalind in a production of As You Like with Match:Lit theatre company and was actively auditioning to find her next gig when the pandemic hit. Caitlyn joined the collective as a performer and transitioned into working with us as a director with Twelfth Night. “An exciting challenge for me has been figuring out how to make physical storytelling translate over Zoom,” Caitlyn said. Further explaining her approach to this challenge Caitlyn writes “I learned that when you bring a wide range of voices, experiences, identities, training backgrounds, acting techniques, passions, ideals and brains into a rehearsal room and ask those voices to approach the work from their unique perspectives, you end up with a story that is far more nuanced, more human and more entertaining than any singular director could create” in the director’s note for The Importance of Being Earnest, concluding “my approach to all of my directing endeavors [would be]: get the right artists in the room and let them lead the work.”
Ben agrees that this is one of the biggest challenges of Zoom theatre in saying, “It is always a fun challenge to communicate such grand stories in such a ‘small’ medium. I am a new director myself and have tried to find the strengths within my own direction while also looking for the ways the story can be uniquely told through this form. I try to lean as much as I can into the text of these beautiful plays and make the experience as much a listening one as a watching one.” He also believes that collaboration is the key to the success of these readings writing “as a director, I am disinterested by my singular experience of a text or characters when it comes to telling a story with others” in retelling his experience during George Bernard Shaw’s Arms and the Man.
Zeynep finds this the most intimidating part of the transition from directing on stage to directing on Zoom, as she is most interested in the physical aspects of storytelling. Theatrical pieces are written to be seen and experienced, as opposed to just read. And not only that, they are meant to be related to the times they are being produced in. In describing how she approaches works like Molière’s The Misanthrope, she writes, “[Classic] works have been performed and interpreted in ways that were acceptable to white-bourgeois audiences for centuries. It’s our job [as collaborators] to dissect them, and find the truth within.” This can be seen in many of our readings as through collaboration we look into finding what rings true to us within the week of rehearsals that we can present to an audience.
Caitlyn describes her experience with staging difficulties through our reading of Romeo and Juliet as “we had to figure out how to show moments of intimacy between two actors who were not only in different rooms, but in different countries! The most important part of Romeo and Juliet is the manifestation of their deep love for each other. So it took the whole cast collaborating, playing, and experimenting to create something that was truly beautiful and perhaps even more powerful than a traditional on stage kiss. As the lovers approached each other for a tentative first kiss, our actors slowly reached out their hands toward the camera until they seemingly met through the screen. Then, after a moment of black screens and anticipation, the lovers slowly pulled their hands back to reveal the magical aftermath of a first kiss that was painted across their faces. I knew we had found the perfect solution when the cast responded with audible `aaawwwws`.”
Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare, Emma Josephine Rucci as Romeo, Myka Cue as Juliet, dir. Caitlyn McCain, technical dir. Daisy Philips
Ben said that it is also challenging to direct large group scenes because there is so much in theatre of acting “off line” that is hard to communicate in Zoom when you can’t direct the gaze of your audience. This challenge tends to produce some extremely unique work from actors trying to keep a scene alive even when they’re not speaking.
It is difficult to draw out audiences which is stressful as a director and producer of digital productions. Not many people want to use their free time or any remaining screen time energy to experience Zoom theatre. Along with this, as artists we are consistently discouraged by friends and family who feign support but never really show up in person or digitally. Regardless of the challenges attached to this, our editorial director Ryanne Salzano does an incredible job with our Substack newsletters and social media bringing in about 30-40 audience members consistently with new people attending each event.
There is hope and excitement along with the challenges, starting with low cost platforms to perform and the many possibilities the platforms bring forth. The above mentioned and many other challenges of digital theatre tend to bring out some truly incredible, innovative approaches from us the directors, tech directors, Daisy Philips and Ellen McAlpine, script manager, Caity MacNeill, editorial director, Ryanne Salzano, and all performers. Ben says “I have seen actors do things I’ve never seen on stage but now I will strive for whenever the stage returns beneath our feet.” We’ve found that leaning into the medium, connecting with the camera, and giving actors reign over how they carry themselves has been crucial in making exciting pieces. Zeynep thinks one of the key components of working in this medium is to “keep being excited about possibilities, about learning, and about growing along with the industry.”
Directing over Zoom has given us the opportunity to work with artists we may have never crossed paths with otherwise and that is a beautiful thing. Caitlyn even says, “Zoom theatre has given me a new appreciation for the power of theatre to resonate and connect across infinite distance. But more than anything, directing on Zoom has left me longing for the day when we can create together in a physical space. Oh what magic that day will be…”