A Note from the Editor

Abstract

A Note from the Editor Susanne Shawyer Every summer I take a break from my regular commitments to reflect on the past academic year and to anticipate the months to come. My summer rest provides a welcome opportunity to assess my contributions as a theatre scholar, artist, and educator, and to consider the ways I would like to grow in the future. This year, my annual reflection feels more urgent than ever. The global pandemic persists. The climate crisis grows with frequent wildfires and record heat. In the United States, gun violence continues. Colleagues are burnt out. Students are anxious. Why do we continue to make theatre? How can performance scholarship benefit our communities? What is the value of art in times of crisis? This year I find answers to those questions not in the studio or on stage, but in the natural world. I watch with fascination as a spider busily spins its web outside my window. I hearken to the shrill song of cicadas, the gentle chirping of songbirds. I touch the rough bark of an oak tree and inhale its warm scent. Action. Music. Spectacle. As I connect to the natural performances around me, I am comforted. Bright blooms offer hope and a promise of renewal. Sticky summer air recalls other compelling outdoor performances. A Shakespeare in the Park interrupted by a sudden thunderstorm. A jingle dress dance at a powwow under bright blue sky. A giant puppet parade. A block party. These examples remind me of what I value most in performance: community, surprise, joy. What you value may differ. You may find your answers elsewhere, perhaps in a fresh cup of coffee, a lunch with friends, a new book, or a darkened auditorium. I hope that you can take some time while reading this issue of Theatre Topics to reflect on what you value and how you would like to grow in the year ahead. How can your theatre scholarship, artistry, or pedagogy reflect what matters most to you, your students, and your community? The articles and notes in this issue take up this question. They offer detailed and specific examples of how theatre-makers respond to the urgent demands of their communities while at the same time engaging with what they treasure most about performance. They reflect on what we have learned from the past few years, consider what we should keep, and advocate for what we can change. Each piece in this issue is a thoughtful meditation on the value of theatre in times of crisis. First, Mary Anderson and Richard Haley explore the "circumstantial aesthetics" of Michigan Opera Theatre's pandemic production of Twilight: Gods in a parking garage. They argue that the literal and metaphorical pandemic "bubbles" at play in this drive-through opera created a new mode of audience engagement, as drivers became co-producers in the autopoietic process of performance. As they reflect on the pleasure and pain that participatory theatre arouses in spectators, Anderson and Haley contend that innovative aesthetic experiments like this drive-through production can usefully reconfigure "our sense of time, space, and place." Using Michigan Opera Theatre's creative staging as a case study for pandemic ingenuity, the authors ask the reader to consider the aesthetic possibilities that crisis circumstances can inspire. In "Effective Dreaming in the Time of Zoom Theatre: Reflections on Directing The Lathe of Heaven," Isaiah Matthew Wooden explores insights gained from a pandemic pivot to Zoom theatre. Using a case study of a performance at Brandeis University in 2021, his article outlines how the pandemic demanded creative thinking that yielded rich discoveries about the production process. Questioning each step—from season selection to rehearsal norms, from technical decisions to finding [End Page vii] opportunities to collaborate—allowed Wooden to reconnect to his theatrical and pedagogical values and find fresh approaches to his artistic process. These new insights not only transformed his artistry and pedagogy during a time of crisis, but also offer the reader new ways of making theatre in our transforming world. In her note from the field, Ayshia Mackiestephenson describes her pedagogical One Love Method, created to empower students, encourage antiracist allyship, and resist white supremacy in higher education...