Devising New Theatre in the Online Age, or, Communicating Across the Ether, or How to Drive Yourself Totally Insane for a While but Have Something Really Spectacular to Show for It.
We’re chronicling the process of our next devised theatre piece, NIGHT SWEATS, over the next month and I can’t think of a better way to dive into our process of creating with so many different artists at once than discussing communication and collaborating digitally a little!
Since our humble beginnings oh-so-long ago (November 2009), we’ve taken the challenge of not only working with many different artists to create a new, singular theatre piece, but also the challenge of communicating with everyone involved during the creation process despite any silly logistical barriers like, oh say, being in a different city or having completely different schedules/three different jobs and projects to attend to at the same time. When we started out, we literally just contacted everyone we knew telling them about a project (WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE!) we wanted to work on and asking them if they were game to play. I had just moved to the area and knew absolutely no one other than a couple of friends from college who moved to the area a year or two prior. Given the limited local social circle, this meant our contributors were coming from all sides: Baltimore, DC, Kentucky, California, Georgia, Florida, Chicago, New York, Texas…all friends and artists we respected and had collaborated on one thing or another during our time at school and wanted to work with again despite everyone’s disparate locations. Until about two and a half weeks out, most of us hadn’t sat in a room together yet during the whole process.
So we’ve been fine-tuning the process of collaboration and online communication in creating art ever since then and figuring out the best mode of attack when trying to keep everyone in the loop (while not overwhelming inboxes at the same time). Our local base grew steadily over the next year and a half but we still didn’t have a set physical space to meet (and argue and create and scheme) until a mere two months ago (and even then, only half of our internal staff is Baltimore-based while the others reside in DC) so the bulk is still online.
It’s a long road and we’ve had many hitches along the way (Miscommunication over email? You don’t say!) but there is so much value in having forums where people can work and edit and devise together even when there is no mutual time or physical space to do so in. It is also invaluable when sharing visual inspiration for shows so that directors and designers can not only be inspired by each other but eventually share a cohesive vision for the show.
What we use religiously for NIGHT SWEATS: GoogleDocs (especially in creating the outline and flow for the show with multiple users), Google+ Hangout (kicks Skype’s ass and allows multiple video chat windows at once!), DropBox (permanent filing and access for the central-server-less among us), Facebook Groups (a quick and dirty way to privately share and comment on images, videos, sketches, and inspiration for shows among the production team and other artists), and, of course, Gmail (we’re a little Google-centric here).
That being said! Nothing replaces physical, in-the-room collaboration! These are tools that help us set up the framework of the show we’re devising so that we can all get in a room and go nuts. We’re creating physical experiences that can’t be shared or re-blogged passively (God help me, have you SEEN a filmed stage performance before? Bleck). The whole point is to get people out of the house and into a room themselves to experience something new and exciting, have a good time, and interact with new people in their own city. It’s what we strive for on the daily with our constant programming at our new space, EMP, in downtown Baltimore and what we hope to bring to a new level with this immersive theatre show. Here we go!
-Carly J Bales, Artistic Director, NIGHT SWEATS