For Theatre Students, COVID-19 Prompts a Semester Without Applause
Kenneth Fremer
HOST: For students across the country, Coronavirus precautions have resulted in a shift towards online schoolwork. Homework assignments are moving online, and classes are being held through video conferencing services like Zoom as most states issue shelter-in-place notices to their residents. But what about students in the arts, who now find themselves cut off from their peers, essential materials, and mentors? Kenneth Fremer spoke to students at Arizona State University about adjusting their hands-on course of study during a time in which physical contact is essentially forbidden.
AMBI: Lucy’s backyard in Arizona. Wind chimes in the distant, and birds are heard in the distance
KENNY: Most students are having trouble living with their families every day while working and studying from home. Speaking to me through video chat from Arizona, Lucy Primiano has found refuge in her backyard from the commotion of her family indoors.
NAT: Wind chimes close-up.
LUCY: “Working from home has been interesting, I can’t say it’s been the most productive. Not just because I’ve got eight cats and four dogs who also want to participate in all of my work. For instance in lighting design, we were supposed to go into the lighting lab and create these lighting cues for a podcast we were listening to. And so we had to shift to an online software called vectorworks, and we were able to create these lighting cues but it’s really no substitute for learning how to use the board and seeing how the lighting hits a person.”
KENNY: At Arizona State University, home of the state’s largest theater, the Gammage, theatrical productions have been completely halted and campus facilities shut down. Lucy has found herself without a job, and without access to the resources at ASU’s sprawling campus, or the inspiration she receives from fellow creatives.
LUCY: “I’m limited in that I can’t actually apply any of these concepts, and a lot of it is muscle memory. And again, even if I’m not in a traditional classroom setting, I’m learning through my job. So right now, I mean every theater across the country is shut down. Not being able to continue that learning once the classroom setting is out of the question during the summer, with what we’re learning hands on through our jobs, that’s another element that’s up in the air right now.”
KENNY: As productions are cancelled, students are missing out on vital hands-on work and the satisfaction of seeing shows through to completion. The biggest disappointment for Lucy and her classmates came with the cancellation of the school’s production of the Crucible, which would have premiered on March 20th.
LUCY: “We should have been going into tech week, and actually this past Friday would have been opening night. And so missing everything that is being learned as we all watch it come together, and then missing that celebratory mark of seeing the show open and everything we’ve done, and all the tech and design elements that we’ve combined, right now we can’t do that.”
KENNY: Phoebe Leisinger, another student who worked in Arizona State’s theater department on the cancelled Crucible production, has had to move back home because of an outbreak at her apartment building near campus.
AMBI: Phoebe’s room noise
PHOEBE: “And so, like I called my parents and was like ‘there’s an outbreak at my apartment’ and they were like, you have to come home and you have 24 hours to pack your stuff and get home now. I didn’t have time to pack everything, I could just grab the essentials and got out of there because it’s just not – it’s so close quarters, it’s not worth it.”
KENNY: Phoebe’s also hosting her roommate, Oliver, who won’t be able to drive back to his home in Kansas due to safety precautions
PHOEBE: “One of my roommates is at my parents’ house with me, ‘cause he needs to go back to Kansas because that’s where he’s from. But like, all the hotels are closed between here and there and he can’t do a two day drive in one go, and it’s below freezing at night so he can’t sleep in his car. And it’s just this situation where everyone is trapped and there’s nothing to do, y’know? It’s scary.”
KENNY: Phoebe isn’t sure what her work will look like after the Coronavirus pandemic. She’s graduating this semester, and won’t be able to find theater work this summer. Right now, theater students at ASU don’t have much of an idea of what their future will look like. Nobody knows for sure when students might be able to return to campus. When they do return, though, students will have lost an essential part of their college experience.
LUCY: “We’re gonna have to come I think first come together and acknowledge what we lost during these past few weeks, and however many months we have to come, and really rally around rebuilding our sense of community… we’re gonna have to let each other have our little dumb and forgetful moments, and then just remind each other that it’s all understandable, we just have to keep moving forward and pick up the pace.”
KENNY: For Baruch College, this is Kenneth Fremer from a basement in Staten Island, New York.