Theatre

Dear Students,

We anticipate you are wondering just what this coming year is going to look like. Honestly, so are we. While the university is still working out how the return to campus will happen and how classes can be held safely, we have made some decisions about the season.

These decisions are based on our desire to offer you opportunities to do the creative work you are here to learn how to do and, at the same time, not put you or our audiences at unnecessary risk.

For the fall we have made several changes to the season. At this point Spring will happen as planned, with the caveat that nothing in these times happens as planned so be prepared to adapt. We have been discussing several options for presenting your work, and would like to give a nod to the directing class for their great ideas this spring, which have informed our conversations.

The Fall semester will start with Wham! Bam! Play Slam! as normal on the first weekend after classes start, Friday, Aug. 21, & Saturday, Aug. 22. Instead of a live event, it will be a virtual 24-hour play creation and party. Theatre South will hold a socially distanced gathering at the sweetheart circle where groups will be assigned before creating readings of new plays designed to explore the possibilities of video conference style live performance.

On the Statesboro Campus Riders to the Sea will be performed Friday, Aug. 28; we will stream it live or record it and are looking at creating viewing parties.

Urban Rabbit Chronicles will be postponed until some future date. Nick will be directing Social Creatures by Jackie Sibblies Drury. Social Creatures is a dark comedy about a group of survivors hiding out in a theatre building from a pandemic which turns the infected into . . . Zombies. When someone (Who happens to be African American) enters the camp, he is placed into quarantine, and the survivors are forced to face who they really are and the things they have had to do to survive. We have worked out a deal with the playwright to record and present the play “Blair Witch” style with actors rehearsing and performing mostly in isolation against the backdrop of our own theatre building. It will go live Wednesday, Oct 7, and will run through Sunday, Oct. 11, as a streamed event.

Dancing at Lughnasa will also be postponed to some future season. Instead Lisa will be doing a devised piece centered around the idea of touch in a world where that is one of the things we can’t do. We will either do a live stream Zoom approach or will stream a rough edit of pre recorded material. Depending on what we create. This will be streamed Wednesday, Nov. 11, to Sunday, Nov. 15.

The directing class will be creating scenes on some kind of virtual platform.

On the Armstrong Campus, Cabaret will be postponed until some future date and Pam will be directing an adaptation of The Every 28 Hours Plays with additional student-written scenes. This will be curated, recorded and streamed Thursday, Nov. 5, through Sunday, Nov. 8. A student-directed, streamed performance will run Thursday, Oct. 1, through Sunday, Oct. 4, and the Last Laugh Improv troupe will have a streamed (and/or outdoor) performance during the 3rd or 4th week of October.

Information on auditions will be coming soon.

The faculty is working to create the best educational and creative opportunities for you in this uncertain environment. Your ideas, skills and engagement are so important, and we encourage you to continue to share them with us. We are all in this together; theatre requires collaboration and we welcome you as collaborators in this unprecedented time.

Please contact us at theatre@georgiasouthern.edu if you have any questions.

Your Faculty