How can students produce a production during a pandemic? Just ask the Fieldston Theater Company. On May 5th 6th, a group of eight seniors performed their monologues via a live stream.
The Theater Company, TCo, is an art major at Fieldston. The students in the class, which is only available to seniors, spend the year studying writing, acting, directing and producing. Using all of these techniques, they created solo performances. They incorporated themes, values and ideals that are important to them into these performances.
However, COVID-19 provided a formidable challenge to the existence of the performances themselves. Normally, students perform to a live audience from the Alex Cohn Theater. A few years ago, they were even able to perform in a theater in Manhattan. But this year was different. “We had no idea if we were going to be on campus or if we were going to be at home so all of our pieces were kind of written in a setting that we knew might change,” described TCo member Alison Rogers (‘21), whose piece “Closed” took place in a hallway as the actress tried to have a conversation with her estranged sister, who remained behind a closed door. Ultimately, the actors ended up performing at a place of their choice inside the Fieldston school buildings. Actors chose to perform in hallways, classrooms, on stage and more places.
COVID-19 also prevented the performances from being live. The actors had to find and implement technology to set up their live streams. Zachary Cohn (‘21) spearheaded this effort, setting up Open Broadcaster Software (OBS). OBS, a software used for video recording and live streaming, allowed the actors to put filters on the live videos and broadcast the videos to the live stream.
The live stream presented challenges of its own for the actors. “There’s obviously downsides to not performing live in front of an audience. One of the things that we were talking about was how little humor there is in all of the plays. I think part of that is because it’s really tough when you’re not getting reactions from anyone,” said Thomas Grant (‘21). Thomas performed the piece “Spaceman,” about a man stranded in space during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Nevertheless, the actors found the silver lining in the situation. They found not having to perform on a stage creatively freeing, as it allowed them to perform in an environment that suited their story.
Additionally, the actors were able to use OBS to enhance their performances and get the audiences more engaged. Students used features such as filters, switching cameras and even cut screens, things they would not have been able to normally do. Ben Markowitz (‘21) describes how OBS helped him perform smoother flashbacks, an integral part of his performance, “If I was on stage I would just do a light turn 90 degrees and that’s it. But because of this, I was able to work with the people running the technical aspects and have (the screen) go to blackout… That’s something I was very excited to do that I never would’ve done if it wasn’t a live stream format. There’s a lot you can get away with.” These blackouts helped Ben smoothly change his outfit and location from scene to scene in his piece “Training Wheels.”
But hindrances from COVID-19 weren’t the only problems actors faced. Creating an entire performance singlehandedly is no easy feat. Thomas explained these challenges; “For this project you have to put on so many different hats. You are the writer, the director, the designer, the actor. You’re basically everything.”
There were many ways actors were able to overcome these challenges. They found inspiration for their ideas from their classmates, their classes, social media, news and current events and more. They helped each other out, with actors lending a hand to each other when facing technological challenges.
And perhaps nothing was more helpful to the actors than their previous Fieldston theater experiences. Ben Markowitz described his theater experiences here at Fieldston, remarking, “If I’m thinking about where I was as a tiny freshman to where I am now, being able to just work my way up the totem pole of theater was a super rewarding experience.” Thomas Grant expressed a similar sentiment, “From tech to directing a show in the fall, I feel like slowly I’ve been building up more and more knowledge about different areas of theater and for this final project I was really able to put it all together.”
This experience would not be possible without the incredible teachers who supported the actors through their whole Fieldston Theater process. Thomas describes this too, remarking, “I was able to start thinking, okay if I have this script that I’ve written how can I look at it from my director brain using the experience I’ve learned from Clare (Mottola) and from directing a show. And what do I want this to visually look like, and then instead of having to turn to a designer I could go, okay I’ve had experience doing sound design for a show that I’ve learned from William (Norman).”
During the Theater Company performances on May 5th and 6th, all of the knowledge the actors acquired, all of the adversity they overcame and all of their hard work paid off in the two hour shows. The actors displayed their skills while initiating conversations about acknowledging your mistakes, loneliness, the importance of teachers, LGBTQ+ pride and more.
Currently, all of the actors are preparing to leave Fieldston and head off to college. For those who choose to continue focusing on theater, there is no doubt that their time in Fieldston theater will help them out. For those who choose to spend their time on other subjects, there is no doubt that the difficulties they fought through and the teamwork and public speaking skills they practiced will benefit them in their futures.
