What Is This Project?
Romeo and Juliet centers adolescents and young adults in a world transformed by both plague and civil strife. In lieu of a traditional live theatre production, students at Albright College Theatre worked to create a video storybook adaptation- a Romeo and Juliet as seen through the diverse perspectives of our greater community, narrated by Albright student actors.
A group of 50 illustrators of all ages, from as nearby as just down the street at Reading High School to as far away as Japan, have brought the visual elements of the story to life. This is a communal piece of storytelling with many different perspectives and interpretations- one that counters the division and intolerance that is the great tragedy of Romeo and Juliet. It will premiere online as a series of four 30-minute episodes in April 2021.
Romeo and Juliet centers adolescents and young adults in a world transformed by both plague and civil strife. In lieu of a traditional live theatre production, students at Albright College Theatre worked to create a video storybook adaptation- a Romeo and Juliet as seen through the diverse perspectives of our greater community, narrated by Albright student actors.
A group of 50 illustrators of all ages, from as nearby as just down the street at Reading High School to as far away as Japan, have brought the visual elements of the story to life. This is a communal piece of storytelling with many different perspectives and interpretations- one that counters the division and intolerance that is the great tragedy of Romeo and Juliet. It will premiere online as a series of four 30-minute episodes in April 2021.
The Process: Crowd-Sourced Production Conception
The pandemic has had devastating consequences for both the study and practice of Theatre, and has created a tremendous sense of disconnection. As we have all been screaming into the Zoom void on shaky internet connections- “CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW?”- Romeo and Juliet resonates in ways it never has before. Like Verona, the United States is a country divided and where empathy seems in short supply. As I explored the play with students over September and October, we realized that we wanted to use this production as an opportunity to build community and welcome new storytellers and kinds of storytelling into our process, prioritizing accessibility, multi-modal collaboration, and transparency.
September 2020
In the theatre, we usually use the phrase “production value” in reference to the perceived quality of the finished product we present to an audience. Here we used the phrase more literally, in reference to the values guiding the creation of our Spring production.
We slowly and deliberately unpacked Shakespeare's original text with these values in mind. Anyone that wanted to participate could join our Sunday afternoon Zoom Listening Parties, with annotated text screen-shared as an audio performance recording played. You can read about the conversations that came out of these listening parties below:
Zoom Listening Party & Discussion 1- Act 1
Zoom Listening Party & Discussion 2- Act 2
Zoom Listening Party & Discussion 3- Act 3
Zoom Listening Party & Discussion4- Acts 4&5
October 2020
Turning a dramatic text into a full sensory theatrical experience is a likewise multi-modal process. Albright Theatre students got together on an October Sunday morning to dive into visual Mood Board Making. Then, after letting the play percolate for a bit, the students offered their responses to the big question at the heart of every theatrical production: What Is This Play ABOUT?
November - December 2020
Over the months of November and December, I worked with students to review all of the conversations we had had about not only the play, but the students' larger goals for the department, and the learning objectives that had been made challenging because of the pandemic: connecting with scene partners, building a psychologically complex character, and engaging both body and voice- using one to access the other. The students also deeply missed feeling like a connected ensemble.
It takes more than actors to put on a production. It takes a whole production army, with a shared sense of purpose and clear goals both as a group and as individuals. We had to create our production model and calendar from the ground up, and clearly communicate it to our all-remote cohort.
January & February 2021
The pandemic has had devastating consequences for both the study and practice of Theatre, and has created a tremendous sense of disconnection. As we have all been screaming into the Zoom void on shaky internet connections- “CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW?”- Romeo and Juliet resonates in ways it never has before. Like Verona, the United States is a country divided and where empathy seems in short supply. As I explored the play with students over September and October, we realized that we wanted to use this production as an opportunity to build community and welcome new storytellers and kinds of storytelling into our process, prioritizing accessibility, multi-modal collaboration, and transparency.
September 2020
In the theatre, we usually use the phrase “production value” in reference to the perceived quality of the finished product we present to an audience. Here we used the phrase more literally, in reference to the values guiding the creation of our Spring production.
We slowly and deliberately unpacked Shakespeare's original text with these values in mind. Anyone that wanted to participate could join our Sunday afternoon Zoom Listening Parties, with annotated text screen-shared as an audio performance recording played. You can read about the conversations that came out of these listening parties below:
Zoom Listening Party & Discussion 1- Act 1
Zoom Listening Party & Discussion 2- Act 2
Zoom Listening Party & Discussion 3- Act 3
Zoom Listening Party & Discussion4- Acts 4&5
October 2020
Turning a dramatic text into a full sensory theatrical experience is a likewise multi-modal process. Albright Theatre students got together on an October Sunday morning to dive into visual Mood Board Making. Then, after letting the play percolate for a bit, the students offered their responses to the big question at the heart of every theatrical production: What Is This Play ABOUT?
November - December 2020
Over the months of November and December, I worked with students to review all of the conversations we had had about not only the play, but the students' larger goals for the department, and the learning objectives that had been made challenging because of the pandemic: connecting with scene partners, building a psychologically complex character, and engaging both body and voice- using one to access the other. The students also deeply missed feeling like a connected ensemble.
It takes more than actors to put on a production. It takes a whole production army, with a shared sense of purpose and clear goals both as a group and as individuals. We had to create our production model and calendar from the ground up, and clearly communicate it to our all-remote cohort.
January & February 2021
Acting and production students at Albright College recorded a "radio" adaptation of Romeo & Juliet. We rehearsed the entire production over Zoom, working to engage the actors physically as well as vocally. We also recorded the entire show over Zoom using laptops, earbuds, phones, and lot of trial and error. None of the actors (with the exception of two pairs of roommates!) have ever been in the same physical space.
Our radio adaptation is in four parts, each about thirty minutes long. In order to make the most of the considerable talent in our 15-person acting company, many actors took on different roles across the four parts, and we had a company of three Juliets, two Benvolios, two Mercutios, two Tybalts... the list goes on. This was certainly a challenge for the student actors, but it created opportunities for pairs or trios of actors to discuss their shared character in more deep and meaningful ways than might have been possible in a traditionally cast production. We also engaged with the play as a full company during Zoom workshops that equipped students with tools for text analysis. This meant that no matter what experience level an actor had coming into the process that the company as a whole had shared tools and vocabulary to communicate and collaborate with each other.
While the actors were hard at work, a call for Community Artists went out; interested artists signed up online by answering a brief survey and uploading a sample of their 2D artwork in any medium. This survey was not an "application"- anyone and everyone was welcome to participate. To facilitate this, we created roles on the production team specifically aimed at liaising with community artists. The goal of the signup survey was to match artist styles to content. For example, if an artist loves whimsical watercolor, that might be suitable for parts of the balcony scene. If a student leans towards an action-comic style, that might work wonderfully for any of the fight scenes... you get the idea!
The question of how to create a collaborative framework for our artists that would give them the greatest creative freedom possible while still producing a coherent visual story was one that Albright senior Katsuto Sakogashira and I tackled together. We received an Albright Creative Research Grant to undertake this work. Sako- who serves as Assistant Art Director on this production- summarizes the solutions we arrived at after weeks of exploration and discovery in the video above.
Our radio adaptation is in four parts, each about thirty minutes long. In order to make the most of the considerable talent in our 15-person acting company, many actors took on different roles across the four parts, and we had a company of three Juliets, two Benvolios, two Mercutios, two Tybalts... the list goes on. This was certainly a challenge for the student actors, but it created opportunities for pairs or trios of actors to discuss their shared character in more deep and meaningful ways than might have been possible in a traditionally cast production. We also engaged with the play as a full company during Zoom workshops that equipped students with tools for text analysis. This meant that no matter what experience level an actor had coming into the process that the company as a whole had shared tools and vocabulary to communicate and collaborate with each other.
While the actors were hard at work, a call for Community Artists went out; interested artists signed up online by answering a brief survey and uploading a sample of their 2D artwork in any medium. This survey was not an "application"- anyone and everyone was welcome to participate. To facilitate this, we created roles on the production team specifically aimed at liaising with community artists. The goal of the signup survey was to match artist styles to content. For example, if an artist loves whimsical watercolor, that might be suitable for parts of the balcony scene. If a student leans towards an action-comic style, that might work wonderfully for any of the fight scenes... you get the idea!
The question of how to create a collaborative framework for our artists that would give them the greatest creative freedom possible while still producing a coherent visual story was one that Albright senior Katsuto Sakogashira and I tackled together. We received an Albright Creative Research Grant to undertake this work. Sako- who serves as Assistant Art Director on this production- summarizes the solutions we arrived at after weeks of exploration and discovery in the video above.
March 2021
On March 1st, each artist received a short audio clip from our “radio” Romeo and Juliet, and guidelines for the 1-3 illustrations to contribute to our "video storybook". These guidelines include instructions for image size, file type etc, and possibly thumbnail sketches indicating a rough sense of the composition of the images. We will be putting all of these together to create our final online presentation to the public.
April 2021
The final film will go live beginning Thursday April 15th as a series of episodes premiering in sequence over the weekend. The full film will remain on Youtube afterwards, and the audio will be made available to download.
On March 1st, each artist received a short audio clip from our “radio” Romeo and Juliet, and guidelines for the 1-3 illustrations to contribute to our "video storybook". These guidelines include instructions for image size, file type etc, and possibly thumbnail sketches indicating a rough sense of the composition of the images. We will be putting all of these together to create our final online presentation to the public.
April 2021
The final film will go live beginning Thursday April 15th as a series of episodes premiering in sequence over the weekend. The full film will remain on Youtube afterwards, and the audio will be made available to download.