The Brock Dramatic Arts department’s fourth year students have been working hard on their final production of this academic year. Ouroboros is a piece of pre-recorded devised theatre that will be streamed April 17-18, with a matinee and an evening show on each day. Tickets are free (here’s a link) with a recommended do…
Rick Roberts’ Orestes, directed by Richard Rose, confronts the progressively blurring lines between real life and virtual life in a heightened version of the bloodthirsty frenzy of online existence — an experience amplified by quarantines and self isolation. Running from February 3-14 at Tarragon Theatre, it satirized…
Every year the University of Windsor School of Dramatic Art produces multiple plays featuring its fourth-year students. This year, under the circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic, the department had to adapt. In collaboration with the Toronto theatre company Outside the March, the school commissioned playwrights and d…
Pre-recorded digital theatre can reduce performers to ghosts. The moment of ephemerality has passed; a recording hopes to capture its spirit for the viewer. I am going to examine this effect in two productions of the musical Ghost Quartet, specifically the 2015 production filmed at the McKittrick Hotel in New York, sta…
Scenes from an Execution has opened, and even as someone working on it I was floored by how well the ambitious design turned out and how far the actors have come since the first rehearsal. As the dramaturg I have been watching the production night after night from the comfort of my living room. Though some performers a…
In the week before Scenes from an Execution opens, everyone I talked to has wanted to know how it works. We are staging the production online, a convention in theatre that has become necessary in the COVID-19 pandemic. There is no precedent for how to rehearse and perform theatre live online; the team has been adapting…
As the first online Mainstage, Scenes from an Execution has the whole team live-streaming in from their homes. There is one cast member who is bridging an exceptional distance through his participation in the Mainstage: Diego Blanco (pictured above) is performing and rehearsing from Querétaro, Mexico. Diego’s experienc…
Rehearsals for Scenes from an Execution are underway and the show is beginning to take shape. This process is not without its speed bumps, from actors with older computers to internet issues to loud roommates. The list goes on. Already the creative and production teams are devising strategies to handle online rehearsal…
It is another school year, but a school year like no other. DART is online, the Mainstage is online, and there are new DARTcritics. The Mainstage is a play produced by the department in the fall and winter each year, typically in the main theatre space. DARTcritics is a website for Brock students to get hands-on experi…
