Digital theatre

Frances Johnson graduated from the Department of Dramatic Arts in 2020 and was about to begin an internship at the Shaw Festival when the Covid-19 pandemic halted live theatrical activity. Her internship in stage management is now happening this spring and early summer, as the Shaw Festival continues to navigate pandem…

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…

The fourth-year Brock Dramatic Arts course DART 4F56 involves an ensemble of students, led by a faculty director, staging two fully-produced shows in the course of the academic year. In this time like no other, DART 4F56 expertly pivoted in Fall 2020 to stage Jordan Tannahill’s play Concord Floral completely online (th…

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…

How do we keep theatre alive during a global pandemic? This question arose nearly a year ago, motivating theatremakers to develop Zoom theatre. Whether it be live or pre-recorded performances, it’s being done over Zoom. Since this exploration began, my work inside some such productions and my viewing of others has prom…

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…