The discipline. The craft.

The thing about theatre is that you have to show up. Physically. In person. All of this "virtual-theatre" is really bad film. Theatre is its own medium and it requires immediate live presence. Otherwise, it's not theatre. It's something else. 

During these times of isolation, it's easy to want to grab for all kinds of substitutes to replace what's really missing. 

But maybe we need to experience the void before we go about trying to replace it with something else. Maybe we need to experience what is actually happening right now.

I just finished working with a group of girls who have been in isolation. They were finally able to be in a peer group. I imagine that for some of them this was a first-time experience. They were really glued to their devices. For some of them, headphones and electronic devices were their coping mechanisms. So, it wasn't so easy to just remove them.

That makes me wonder about the future of my business. 

First of all, flying droplets are a must if the actor is worth their weight. The last thing I want to see is a lavalier microphone on an actor 3 feet away. That will mark the death of vocal training.

Secondly, people must gather together to watch the theatre. That's what audiences do. They gather together in a group and have a shared experience.

And finally, no electronic devices should be welcome. I know we use projections and lights and sound are run through laptops these days, but when an audience holds their phone up to shoot video and take pictures of a show it's wrong in many ways.

Firstly, it's wrong because they are lighting their own face, likely making themselves the brightest thing in the room. Also, it's a copyright violation. Contrary to popular opinion, authors and performers have contracts that stipulate their rights. Finally, it completely undercuts the role of the audience which is to experience the show live. It puts an electronic buffer between an intentionally live experience. Why do we rehearse and work out every detail just to have our work transferred to a different medium none of us agreed to or intended.

The most critical aspect here is how we lose the now. We are projecting ahead about how this work of art is somehow now ours and we might be able to do this or that with it in the future. 

Theatre is the oldest art form. Trying to cut it up and turn it into something it isn't is a perfect representation of the culture at large. There is an assumption that whoever grabs the hardest and most aggressively will control the narrative. And whoever controls the narrative controls the world.

I'm here to say theatre is bigger than that. It's not going to be manipulated. It is here to convey the human experience in a way that is live and immediate. 

Whatever else is going on...that's not theatre.