With physical distancing and remote learning now the norm for many, 表演艺术受到了巨大的影响. Even New York's Broadway theaters and many others nationwide remain closed. This posed the question, how were we at Solebury going to be able to bring theater to our community?
Theater Director Micki McMillan and Theater Tech Director Peter Martino began tackling this problem as soon as it became clear that "live and in-person" was not going to be possible any time soon. What resulted was a challenging but effective way to do live theater safely: a virtual performance. 虚拟的秋天游戏， 经典希区柯克:现场广播剧， 在10月24日进行了直播.
SoleSt年龄 productions are known for their detailed and compelling sets, transforming our BlackBox theater into a 19th-century 英语 manor, 1930年柏林, 或者是“某种魔法学校”.今年, 布景只是一系列的窗帘, 复杂的部分是他们周围发生的事情. The tech team had to research and experiment with a variety of live streaming software, ultimately landing on "Streamyard" as it gave them the ability to change video orientations and allowed them to fulfill Micki's vision of the show as closely as possible.
Technicians transformed various classrooms into mini television studios, 每天为第二天的课把它们分解, 确保照明, 相机, audio, 所有的固定部件都已就位并在工作. A new challenge presented was the sound effects that the tech crew needed to create live. They researched the sound effects needed and experimented with creating those sounds using everyday objects. Since they needed to be recreated live during the broadcast, it took a lot of timing and practice.
彼得共享, “在整个过程中, I was most proud of the students' ability to adapt and flourish under all of these new and unusual circumstances. I am also very proud of coming up with a way for us to safely perform together, 虽然在不同的房间. The fact that we were all on campus together still allowed us to share that live performance feeling that would have been missing if we were performing from our own individual homes."
The cast and crew were adapting and problem-solving right up until the show premiered. 彩排的时候, Micki realized that the audio in the classrooms automatically cut out when more than one sound overlaps, creating a problem for the sound effects and ad-libbing happening concurrently with spoken lines. 只需要两次彩排, the students were able to solve the problem by perfecting their timing and not overlapping so the audience could hear each aspect individually, 避免音频噩梦.
“这是学生们的专业精神和奉献精神的结果, as well as the ability to take direction and work together as a team. 作为一名导演，我不能要求更多了。. "I was most proud of the willingness of the students to enthusiastically embrace this 180 degree turn from the theater they were used to. T在这里 were so many obstacles—the masks; the internet; limitations of streaming platforms; our audio is meant for remote learning, not sophisticated filming; what space could we use effectively; how do we combine pre-filmed and live-stream successfully? 然而，学生们是积极的，完全投入."
恭喜演员和工作人员!