Process Piece

Reflecting on the concept of something being “of its place and of its time” has felt really applicable to my life and art right now, as Fiddler on the Roof ended and we are preparing for the on-campus run of As You Like It. One of my favorite things about live theatre is that immediacy—it is happening here and now, and a particular cast/crew/audience combination only ever happens once. Thus, I think authentic theatre should be of its place and time—applicable and relevant to the people and location of its creation and performance. This is one reason why I decided to document the process of setting up our As You Like It set! I decided to make a silent video and to use the Instagram Reel creator to make the video—I knew this would help me limit my video to one minute in length, it would be easy to crop videos and select what portions to use, and it’s a tool I’ve been wanting to experiment with. As I made this video, I found myself frustrated that I couldn’t use any sound, as I think it makes the video extremely ambiguous—what are we doing? Why are we doing it? How do we feel about what we’re doing? It’s difficult to tell. But that same ambiguity could also be what makes room for developing literacies for interpreting media as we analyze it. There wasn’t a ‘right’ process to document or a ‘right’ way to document it, and that ambiguity could be really engaging in a classroom as I help my students learn to access their creativity.