MAGIC OF WEXFORD THEATRE BROUGHT TO LIFE VIA ZOOM
SPORT, cinema, pubs, restuarants, theatre. We have lost many things since lockdown began, however, the students of one Wexford drama group have proved you don’t necessarily need a stage to put on a performance.
Led by Director Olga Conway, the teenagers of Discovering Drama have enacted an entire play via Zoom, performing each individual role from their respective homes.
Olga explains how it came about: ‘Theatre is not something which is usually suitable to do online, so much of it is about working together. But we had to start thinking outside the box.
‘I’d just sent out some videos to the students about working from home when a play dropped into my inbox.’
Written by Lindsay Price, that play was called Scenes from a Quarantine, a 25-minute vignette designed to be performed online which features characters like the ‘person who thinks quarantine is going to be easy. The person whose life changed overnight. The person who thinks hairdressers are an essential service. The person who just wants to use class meetings to talk.’
Having read the premise for the play, Olga gauged interest from some of her older students.
‘I put the feelers out to the students and the response was great. They were all very keen to do it, I think they just wanted something different to do with their time,’ she says.
Scenes from a Quarantine was performed by Discovering Drama’s 16-18 group last weekend, it was recorded, edited, and is now available to watch on the group’s Facebook page.
And it proved a valuable outlet for both students and teacher during this difficult time.
‘The students really enjoyed it, and personally, I felt very fulfilled afterwards, it was the first time since after the lockdown that I’d had that feeling,’ says Olga.
‘It was very much like doing theatre, they were nervous beforehand. Obviously though it can’t replace the real thing, the students are craving that interaction, to be with each other, in one another’s company, to do what they love doing.’
With classes not expected to resume until September, Olga now hopes to have some of her younger students perform the play, and further down the line she wants to see her Sixth Year students receive a proper send-off.
‘We’re going to do a performance in the Jerome Hynes Theatre in the National Opera House in November, we’ ll only have two or three people on stage at the same time and the audience may have to socially distance themselves.
‘But my Sixth Years needed that news, there are so many other things which aren’t happening at the moment. They needed something, that closure, that last performance. A lot of them have been doing this since they were five years old. Their show was initially supposed to be on March 22 so it was cancelled very late on.’