Play Cancellation and Online Learning: How the SUNY New Paltz Theatre Department Is Dealing With The New Normal
The possibility of online classes continuing into the fall semester will cause some to give their future plans in the theatre department serious thought.
Posters of previous SUNY New Paltz productions hanging off of Parker Theatre. The poster for Spring Awakening got obscured by the wind. Photo by Nick Califra.
Senior college student Maddie Coffey’s day is consumed by theatre. As stage production manager on SUNY New Paltz’s production of Spring Awakening, she meticulously organizes everything and makes sure the cast and crew involved with the play knows where to be at what time. She makes and sends out schedules to the cast, and organizes meetings with set and costume designers as well as with the director of the play.
Six nights a week, she watches rehearsal from 6-11 p.m. and then sweeps and mops the stage, sets the props and makes sure everything is ready to repeat the same process the next day.
“Even when I’m not at rehearsal, I’m like always on the clock, answering emails and keeping everyone organized,” said Coffey. “The stage manager is kind of like the middleman that holds all the other aspects of the show together.”
However, there was nothing Coffey could do about the coronavirus pandemic completely shutting down schools, workplaces and any semblance of normal life, including the production of Spring Awakening.
“I lost it. I just broke down. I was so upset,” Coffey recalled when she found out about the school closures through the news. “Even though no one officially told me yet, I knew that the show wasn’t going to continue.”
Coffey immediately cancelled the production meeting set for 6:30 p.m. on March 11, and instead scheduled a mandatory meeting for the entire cast and crew.
Kaz Flood, the production’s female lead, walked into McKenna Theater that night with a couple of friends to find everyone sitting and not prepping for rehearsal. She knew the inevitable had happened.
“It was really sad because the night before we had literally just finished the show,” said Flood, who recalled performing the whole production in rehearsal. “We could have done a really rough run through the next day, but instead [it] got cancelled.”
“Somebody said the other day that the year 2020 was kind of like you looked both ways to cross the street, and you start to cross and you get hit by an airplane,”
The pandemic doesn't just affect New Paltz’s theatre department, but also New York City’s Broadway as all shows are postponed until at least Sept. 6. According to NPR, the 2018-19 Broadway season brought in $1.8 billion in gross revenue and contributed $14.7 billion to the city’s economy.
Due to the closures caused by COVID-19, Broadway could lose anywhere from $250 to $500 million, according to Variety.
For Flood, a junior majoring in theatre performance, the disappointing cancellation is not as upsetting as she will have another year of roles to perform at New Paltz.
For the seniors involved, their final collegic performance may have already happened.
Kaz Flood standing in a mask outside of Parker Theatre. Photo by Nick Califra.
Spring Awakening was supposed to be William Hennessey’s first mainstage production and senior show. He was set to portray multiple characters, including Herr Stiefel.
Acting in a mainstage play is a goal that every actor at New Paltz sets their sights on. So much so, that Hennessey would reconsider his future if he did not get there.
“I kind of made a bet with myself that if I didn't get into a mainstage then maybe this wasn't for me,” Hennessey recalled.
There are different tiers of shows at New Paltz, but everyone auditions for the mainstage. The people who are not cast in the primary production are put in either the practice shows or stage readings.
“Faculty always insist that practice and stage readings are just as big a part of the theatre department as the mainstages are,” said Hennessey. “But among the students, emotionally, I don't think it's treated as such because the mainstages are such big parts of the season.”
Due to the coronavirus, the theatre department has moved online just like every other school in the United States. Only now, students find themselves performing to web cameras and writing essays instead of preparing and performing in front of an in-person audience of people.
For Catherine Doherty, the director of Spring Awakening and theatre professor at New Paltz, the whole online curriculum has been challenging.
“I think it's challenging for both the faculty member, and for the student,” said Doherty. “Somebody said the other day that the year 2020 was kind of like you looked both ways to cross the street, and you start to cross and you get hit by an airplane.”
Doherty feels COVID-19 could not have come at a worse time in the semester. For instance, her Period Styles acting class, which relies heavily on ensemble cooperation, and focuses on culture and theatre from the Middle Ages to the 20th century, was just starting to get to a productive place.
Her students, Doherty says, were just getting comfortable in critiquing and giving critical feedback on each others monologues from the Greek and Roman period. That class chemistry takes some time to develop and can be difficult to replicate through video chat.
For all the confusion and newness the online curriculum has brought, it has also produced some surprising results as students have found ways to perform to a web camera in some innovative presentations that a classroom would not allow.
For example, one student performed a monologue as Death from the play EveryMan with red fabric over his face which turned into his hood and a humidifier running to give the effect of smoke in the room.
“It was a really impactful, imaginative piece of theatre,” said Doherty. “And now they're finding ways to theatricalize a two dimensional presentation, which would normally be three dimensional...the creativity and the focus and the diligence with which a lot of this work is coming in is inspiring.”
Hennessey has been able to appreciate the camera practice that comes with acting through a computer. “If you're planning on also translating into television and film and in short films, it's very integral that you know how to work with a camera.”
Some students have even started to participate in a Virtual Theatre Collaboration Facebook group where students create, act in and edit productions completely online in quarantine.
Hennessey is one of the video editors for the group and thinks it’s a good creative outlet. Although it comes with uncertainty, the final products have proved that the risk can pay off and the process can be fun.
Virtual Theatre Collaboration’s Facebook group logo.
But for all the silver linings and different approaches the online medium has brought to the theatre department, it just doesn’t seem to substitute for the in-person experience.
“I probably won’t continue going to school,”
Hennessey says that theatre doesn’t really work the same online as there is no receptive audience to see if the performance is working.
The online medium has been especially challenging for Coffey’s Scene Design course, where she would have to make a model box of a theatre set.
“It's hard not being in class and seeing what other people are doing,” said Coffey. “You could see someone's project and be like, ‘that's a great idea’ and it could spark an idea for you.”
Before coronavirus, Flood would take vocal lessons in her Musical Theatre course where professor Katya Stanislavskaya would work on songs with her to bring into auditions. The sessions allowed for helpful one-on-one time with Stanislavskaya along with constructive criticism and feedback from her peers.
Now, Flood has to send recordings of her vocals to her professor and work on the songs by herself due to the lag and poor audio quality that online video chat provides.
“It's difficult, it's a challenge to teach yourself a song,” said Flood. “It's technology that is the problem...learning a song is just slower when you can’t be there with the person.”
The possibility of online classes continuing into the fall semester will cause some to give their future plans in the theatre department serious thought.
“I probably won't continue going to school,” said Flood.
“So much of the theatre department is being in person,” agreed Michael Risio, who has only one semester to go before graduation. “I’d really have to think about it like maybe I take a semester off and come back in the spring and finish strong.”
Doherty acknowledges the frustration students are experiencing with the online format, but realizes that classes needed to continue in some way.
“I believe it was imperative that we found a way to continue as best we could to move forward and keep working in any way we could and can,” said Doherty in an email. “Theatre has faced throughout history shutdowns and challenges...and it came back in new, fresh and inventive ways.”
The lasting impact from the virus on the theatre industry as a whole is yet to be seen, but Doherty anticipates there will be a ripple effect.
“I think that there’s going to be, in general at New Paltz, a bit of a dip in enrollment in the fall,” said Doherty. “But we’ve been very pleased with the individuals that have reached out to us. They’re proceeding business as usual, reframed.”
As of right now, the theatre department plans to put on Spring Awakening in the fall with everyone who was previously involved to be welcomed back in the roles they were originally cast in.
Promotional poster for the 2019-2020 mainstage productions. Photo by Nick Califra.
“If it means that we have to disinfect the theater after every show or before every show, then let's get a team of people in there and get that theater, as safe as we can,” said Doherty, of precautions that might be necessary. “We want to see what we can do because that's the whole premise of the live theater experience, the operative word being ‘live.’”
For the seniors, who are about to enter the workforce into an industry that is completely shutdown, their future is uncertain.
“I’ll probably try to find a job at a Starbucks because they’re always open. They’re even open right now,” said Coffey if her internship set for the fall at Disney World in Florida ends up being cancelled.
“There’s not much to be done,” said Hennessey, of trying to audition and work in the current state of the theatre industry. “I mean you can't hold live theatre with an audience at a time like this, it's just too risky. Other than producing content online there isn't really much you can do.”