THE ART OF THE THEATRE-THEATRE 100

Theatre after the COVID-19 Pandemic

Theatre has always experienced drawbacks from different pandemics from the past like the Spanish flu and 9/11 but it has always recovered. From the article, it is clear that the creatives ignored all that was happening, and moved forward. An exception is found with Katherine Anne Porter, who wrote a novel memorizing her experience Pale horse, Pale rider. She believed theatre was a key indicator of the national situation (Cunning, 2021). According to chapter 1, “Theatre is a form of art that uses live performers, in most cases actors, to present an experience to a live audience in predetermined time and place, commonly a theatre.”  Performance communicates to the audience using physical movement, gestures, and speech and other art forms like music, dance, costumes, lighting, projection design, and scenic designs to induce the audience’s imagination (Cucuzza,2018). All this usually creates the theater’s current and actor-audience relationship.

The covid 19 pandemic has affected theatre in a lot of ways, positively and negatively. On the positive side, it catalyzed conversations on inclusivity and diversity among creatives. For example, the Theatre Centre Group had to work on its gender representation by giving women playwrights opportunities to present their work. This was pushed by the “Slave Play” Playwright Jeremy O. Haris, who threatened to remove his play from Theatre Centre Group. There was also a heated discussion on the representation of the BIPOC communities. Broadway had to do changes to specific plays that were not representing black people as they should. Changes in Alladin, Hamilton were a good step towards addressing the civic rights of black people. Theatre provides a reflection of what society is experiencing or had experienced in the past, this pandemic provided an opportunity for directors and producers to see if they are representing what they are preaching. On the negative side, a lot of creatives lost their source of income and directors were afraid they may venture into other things. According to the artistic director Joseph Haj, “Watching actors perform on screen is engaging and entertaining and it’s an art form in itself and we have a name for it, that’s what film is, that’s what TV is.” (Guthrie,2020). There can never be theatre without live performance and it doesn’t matter what pandemic the world is experiencing. The only things that will change in theatre are conversations on racism, inclusivity, and diversity.

Works Cited

Canning, C. (2021). Theatre and the Last Pandemic. AMERICAN THEATRE. Retrieved from https://www.americantheatre.org/2020/03/24/theatre-and-the-last-pandemic/.

Guthrie Theater,2020, A message from Artistic Director Joseph Haj https://youtu.be/eZ1b8XX0XZA

Cucuzza, Robet (2018). Immediacy of theatre 2nd edition. Great River Learning.