Hi all -
I read with great interest this American Theatre article about how college & university theatre programs are taking their training online in the midst of the current situation: https://www.americantheatre.org/2020/03/23/the-zoom-where-it-happens/
What have your organizations been doing to continue educational programming even when your physical locations are closed? We'd love to hear about some of your creative ideas!
Best,
Patrick SchleyTessitura Network
We're giving it a whirl! We have downloaded Zoom for a handful of teachers and are already sold out of our first 6 classes. Since we primarily do improv, we've had to get more "specialty" in the style of classes so that they are interactive, but not quite as hands on as an improv class. We've had to reduce class size for it to be more conducive to something on a screen though. Many of them will be working on more nuanced but related topics, like character development, audition techniques, looking at point of view and how to get specific in scenes, and a bunch of writing classes. We are hoping this will be successful for a time, so we can still stay connected to our students!
That sounds awesome, Carrie! Are the reservations handled through zoom or are you able to sell these online classes on your website?
We sell the classes online as usual! We send out an email from the teacher a couple days before it starts with the Zoom login info. We've added using a pin and a waiting room to avoid any "zoom bombing" from weirdos. You can have your teachers use a unique room code for each meeting (which is higher maintenance) or their personal zoom room with the same login link every time. We've added a bunch more classes, it's going great! We're also now reaching students from all over the country, which was not something we were able to tap into before.