From web series to podcasts, Studio 58’s going digital
Studio 58 has announced a digital fall season that spans everything from livestreaming to podcasts and a radio play. The professional theatre training program at Langara College has announced a series of five shows for autumn 2020, all of which will be free online to the public.
The season kicks off with a strippeddown ensemble production of Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House directed by Laara Sadiq, October 4 to 11. It livestreams on Facebook and YouTube.
A Risky Nights installment called fort then runs live on Zoom from October 22 to 25. Described as an interactive digital experience, it invites audience members at home to participate in a communal construction of personal fortified spaces, using household objects around them. Celebrating it’s 20th year, the reimagined-for- COVID-times Risky Nights series has fourth-term students creating and performing every aspect of an original theatre piece with professional directors. Angelica Schwartz and Stephanie Wong (from theatre collective happy/accidents) return to direct.
In November, the students launch a web series pilot called The Watch on YouTube. It’s written by and filmed with recent graduates of Langara’s filmarts program. The mockumentary- style comedy has a group of rag-tag citizens putting together a neighbourhood watch program.
A podcast showcase happens on November 20. Created by Colin Murdock, Aaron Bushkowsky, and Josué Menjivar, it involves students in the scriptwriting.
Finally, Theatre: The Play, written and directed by Ryan Beil and Mark Chavez, livestreams on Facebook and YouTube from November 24 to 29. The cheeky ode to the theatre world takes place at the Nearlake Theatre Festival & Bar & Grill, which may have to shut down if the troupe can’t produce a hit show.