Save the arts… without leaving your couch. Innovations and alternatives arts organizations created during the COVID-19 pandemic have increased accessibility and opened up new worlds for people who might not otherwise get to experience theater.
TLDR:
Theaters need to keep streaming their shows, even after the pandemic ends. Streaming creates incredible equity and access and provides an alternative funding source. Investing in video production benefits everyone. You need to watch the BROS Puppet Six Pack and QUEENS GIRL: BLACK IN THE GREEN MOUNTAINS immediately. I’m not kidding. You can actually watch all three in the trilogy, before February 1st. DO IT. DO IT NOW.
stream QUEENS GIRL, BLACK IN THE GREEN MOUNTAINS (or the entire trilogy)
stream The Baltimore Rock Opera Society Puppet Six Pack
Nearly everything about how we live our lives has turned upside down over the last year. We’re staying home, revolutionizing the stock market, hosting call after call on Zoom… and consuming content. Lots. And lots. Of content.
Bridgerton! RuPaul! All your favorite shows you’ve been watching on loop for a decade! HuluandNetflixandAmazonandPeacockandPlexandHBOandDisneyPlusandRokuandTwitchandYouTubeTVandShowtimeandESPNnowandandandandand. So much content. Too much to watch. And so much of it… is crap. Just terrible. Capitalism is not great at creativity.
Necessity is the mother of invention, and it’s been fascinating to watch how companies have adapted to serve their customers. My favorite innovation of all, however, is being able to access arts performances - and connect with fellow performers - from all over the world.
Gigantic arts organizations like The Met, Kennedy Center, and even Public Theater are veterans in video producing their shows. But the pandemic unleashed the power of creatives to produce art like never before.
I’ve been an improviser in Baltimore for almost three years. Last March, I watched two dear friends perform their silly set, never realizing it’d be the last time I’d set foot in a theater for months. The beauty of improv is its malleability. When you don’t have sets, costumes, or props, it’s a lot easier to adapt to a new medium. Within a week, the Baltimore Improv Group was up and running on Zoom, and had figured out the basics of what we now know as Zoomprov before the end of the month.
Critter Time is a kids show where we pretend to channel the thoughts of an animal. It’s great.
Was it the same as creating magic on stage, exchanging energy with fellow performers and the audience? No. But it was something new, and helped scratch the itch that can only be relieved by acting like a goofball in front of (sometimes!) dozens of people. Flash forward 9 months, and I’ve seen and performed in incredible sets utilizing tricks we’d never be able to use on stage. Whether it’s camera angles, different backgrounds for every scene, or utilizing real objects instead of miming, actors all over the world are creating things together in a way that’s keeping us sane and connected.
I’ve met and played with people all over the world, once participating in a Saturday morning jam with folks from Germany and India. I’ve taken classes from theaters in New York and Austin - opportunities I’d never be afforded in real life. Digital streaming has created equity and access that we’ve never seen before.
Two local theaters dipped their toes into the streaming world, to incredible success. Everyman Theatre’s premiere of QUEENS GIRL: BLACK IN THE GREEN MOUNTAINS occurred a week before lockdown, and though the theater stayed dark, the Everyman team was able to share this momentous conclusion to one of the most stunning works I’ve ever witnessed.
(Full disclosure - I worked for Everyman during the premiere of the first two plays in the QUEENS GIRL trilogy, so might be a bit biased). When I was working to share the news and get the story out about these plays, it was challenging to describe the works well enough to do them justice. These one-woman shows that weren’t corny or campy; minimal sets accentuated with light and sound to transport the audience across time and space; a single actress performing the work of a 12 - 20 person cast, channeling disparate characters so seamlessly you forget they aren’t real.
“It’s the real life story of one woman who lives through Civil Rights history and she plays all these characters and her parents know famous people and it’s really funny and heartwarming and oh, I see your eyes have glazed over. Okay.” Outside of a live performance, video was the only way to truly capture the essence of the shows.
Though the majority of the season was stymied, QUEENS GIRL offered a glimmer of hope. With only one actor, the show could go on! Near the end of December, they started selling access to view the streaming version of the play.
Not only was Felicia Curry breathtaking and hilarious in her role as the nearly grown version of Jacqueline Marie Butler, but my viewing experience was fantastic. I didn’t have to leave the couch. I could pause and go get a snack. I was on my phone and slurping udon noodles while watching Jacquie smoke her first joint, break up with her charming boyfriend, and discover how hard it is to be a Black person in the theater world.
There were moments, of course, when I acutely felt the absence of sharing a common experience - a one time only performance with a group of strangers, engaging in the magical dance of attention and appreciation that happens between audiences and performers during every show. Pauses where cackles of laughter, hooting and hollering, and pin-drop silences peppered with tears should have been, went unacknowledged by the empty stage. Curry was undeterred by it all, and the camera angles felt like I had my own front row seat.
I had access to the show for 48 hours. Naturally I watched it two more times - each was better than the last.
Last weekend I dropped in on a “live” performance of the Baltimore Rock Opera’s Puppet Six Pack. Though the performances were prerecorded, the audience all came together at the same time to watch online. The chat box stayed up during the entire show, and was filled with witty commentary, call-outs of particularly great moments, and emojis that substituted for a standing ovation. It was great - I could “talk” as much as I wanted and not disturb the show (or my fellow audience members!)
I’d venture that filming the Six Pack made for almost a better viewing experience - at the very least it was markedly different then what I might have seen on stage. In the best way possible. This hardy group of talented volunteers pushed the limits and married analog and digital through markedly different but equally fantastic mini-operettas, hosted with commentary by a talking trash can (oops - a TUBA!) and a sagely monk, gathered around a garbage fire in a vacant lot, socially distanced from the the directors they interviewed before premiering their work.
In some ways, the production value at BROS was much higher than Everyman’s. Having a team of talented digital artists and videographers meant that the shots, filming, and editing were high quality. As a smaller, younger organization, they didn’t have any hoops to jump through convincing donors or older higher ups that investing in camera equipment would pay off.
With any luck, we will see the return of live indoor performances later this year. There will always be a space and place for live, in-person theater - but it would be a colossal mistake for arts organizations to abandon live streaming once the doors re-open.
Gating access to streaming content opens doors and offers accessibility in ways theaters are suddenly being forced to consider but haven’t been able to fully implement. The low barriers to entry - affordable ticket prices and being able to watch at home - allow new audiences who, for various reasons, wouldn’t or couldn’t be able to make it to the theater.
As a performer, administrator, marketer, and crew member for over 20 years, I’ve watched and listened as older generations wrung their hands. “Why won’t the Millennials come to the theater/donate to the arts/be good audience members?” Sneering and scoffing at those brazen enough to have a coughing fit, come in late, forget to turn their phone off, or respond verbally during a performance, theaters (and music venues!) have simultaneously derided those unaccustomed to the WASPy upper class norms while begging them to attend.
Can’t afford a $50 ticket? No worries. Can’t make the performance because you’ve got plans, or live too far away? Hey, that’s okay! Don’t want to or can’t make it downtown, pay for parking, buy overpriced glasses of cheap wine, and sit in uncomfortable seats? We got u, fam. You can watch in pajamas while eating birthday cake with your bare hands and play on your phone THE ENTIRE SHOW. Go ahead - stop and take a bathroom break or a phone call! We’ll be waiting for you when you get back!
Giving patrons control over when, where, and how they consume content at an accessible price opens up a new world of possibilities for the performing arts. By offering streaming access show by show or with a subscription, new audiences are being exposed to work they otherwise wouldn’t have seen. With any luck, it will build a new base of support from people who may also someday attend in person.
The success of any show, of course, is the quality of the content - is it entertaining? Moving? Useful? Beautiful? To truly compete with the rest of the drivel out in the world today, there has to be a lot of investment, and quickly, into digital media and video production.
In a perfect world (ahem, Biden? Kamala? are you listening?) The NEA would be given funding to create its own streaming service where subscribers could access any performance they like, from anywhere in the country, whenever worked for them. Paying theaters for this access and sharing in the profits could generate enough money for people who work in the arts to make enough money to live comfortably. It would reduce the need to grovel and bend to the whims of rich donors. And it would open up new opportunities for talented folks in the video/TV world who are tired of making crappy movies.
The world does not need another Paul Blart, Mall Cop, or seventy different reality shows about various occupations. But as we saw on Inauguration Day, we all desperately need art. Theater has the power to move people, to change lives, and to heal. As Jackie Butler discovers at the end of QUEENS GIRL, there are so many stories waiting to be told. Creating a common source to access content that changes you could really change the discourse of this country.
As music and theater programs get shuttered in schools across the country, thousands of kids are missing out on the arts. Even if NEA-PBS On Demand never happens, if theaters want to truly live their mission of changing the world through art, producing videos of their productions would be a good start.