Last month, after Governor Hogan issued a stay-at-home order for Marylanders, theater companies had to cancel the live performances that are at the heart of their artform.
But many of the 40+ theater groups in our area are pivoting to digital technology to stream performances directly onto computers and tablets and TV screens, and they’re devising other imaginative ways to keep their audiences engaged.
Joining Tom on the line today is the award-winning Brooklyn-based actor and playwright Donnetta Lavinia Grays. She stars in the one-person play she wrote and video-produced with Baltimore Center Stage, called Where We Stand. The play is being streamed online to pay-what-you-can ticket buyers until April 26. Center Stage Artistic Director Stephanie Ybarraalso joins Tom to discuss the theater company's innovative response to the pandemic shutdown, and its quick pivot to virtual audience engagements, including its multi-theater collaboration on Play At Home, in which playwrights (including Ms. Grays) were commissioned to write short, ten-minute plays that house-bound audiences can download, for free, to read or perform in their homes.
Then, Tom talks with Genevieve de Mahy, founder and Artistic Director of Single Carrot Theatre, a company that intentionally left its theater home last year to seek novel venues and to engage in more educational and community-centered theater. Ms. DeMahy talks about the next installment in Single Carrot’s popular Flipside Series(which include its Cabarets and Drunk Classics), one-night-only events that de Mahy says "are fun...and embrace the unexpected." Tonight's event, called "Pajama Party! A Virtual Variety Show," takes place via Zoom at 8pm.
For more info on the Single Carrot theater event, click here.
