The theatre and performance sophomores will be hosting an interactive theatre experience on social media.
Lauren Leppke, theatre and performance sophomore, said the event will be a devised theater experience produced through the Festival of New Works.
“For our BA degree, we have to take this class called sophomore juries where basically we create this devised show. Our class works together and creates a new piece of theater,” Leppke said. “Our theme for this semester was ‘The Yellow Wallpaper,’ so we kind of created this story mystery adventure thing where this woman in modern times is trying to figure out what happened to ‘Jane,’ the main character in ‘The Yellow Wallpaper.’”
BA theatre and performance will begin their portion of the Festival of New Works at 7 p.m. on April 28.
Information can be found on their Instagram, @batapocu.
Leppke said the production was originally conceived as an on-stage experience but transformed into a virtual experience when the university went online.
“The week we started classes online, we just dove in and started talking about different ways we could do it. We initially thought we would just live stream it all, but then we realized we wanted it to be more interactive so it was a lot of just trial and error of figuring out what works and what doesn’t and what we have the ability to do,” Leppke said.
Leppke said the production will be an online choose-your-own-adventure that spans across several social media platforms such as Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. Leppke said the event will start with an introduction over Zoom at 7 p.m. and will end roughly an hour later with a closing live-stream.
“The first livestream should only be about 5-10 minutes, and then the livestream will end, and everyone can go to Instagram and click links to follow the story through different platforms,” Leppke said. “The audience will be on their own to have their own adventure and pick and choose what they want to see and hear and read. The final live-stream will happen to check in with everyone and make sure they didn’t miss anything.”
Leppke said the premise will be built around a woman in modern times who has already solved the mystery of what happened to Jane, the main character of Charlotte Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper.” She needs the audience to double check what she has discovered.
Olivia Allen, theatre and performance/education sophomore, said one of the advantages in developing this project was the collaborative nature of devising companies.
“Due to the nature of devising, we didn’t have strictly defined roles in the creation process,” Allen said. “Originally, I was the head of development and the costume designer, as well as an author and collaborator. Now, especially with our platform shift, we have all abandoned traditional roles and tried our best to spread the work evenly between all of us.”
Leppke said her role has altered greatly since the shift to online.
“I would say 90% of it is collaborative and we just jump in where we need to, but we technically have designated areas. I would be designated as the stage manager I guess, but I also play Jane. She has a little cameo in the story,” Leppke said. “If we were doing it onstage, we would have more defined roles but because of us all being separated, it’s just based on who has the resources to get it done.”
Leppke said this process has taught her the value of clarity in storytelling.
“In theater you are going to put something on the stage, and you know what you’re telling your audience. This way, you have to make sure everything is crystal clear because you aren’t with your audience,” Leppke said. “If they have questions, they have nowhere else to go other than what you’ve already posted. You have to think about all aspects.”
Allen said she learned the importance of healthy competition and disagreements during collaboration.
“At the beginning of this semester, I was so afraid of disagreeing with my classmates. Now, I see that our differing viewpoints and opinions have fostered our best ideas and constantly questioning and constructively criticizing each other makes our work stronger,” Allen said.
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