Teaching in the Age of the Essential Online Classroom: Pandemic Playwriting and the Emancipated Spectator

Abstract

Unfortunately, the current state of emergency that has become the rule is not disappearing any time soon. [...]rather than treating the internet-based classroom as a temporary, bothersome detour, it might be time to embrace it as the place where we teach, as well as an opportunity to revamp how we teach, including within the physical classroom. Unsurprisingly, the online workshopping of plays through Zoom is not as effective as in-person workshopping, which is due not only to the lack of the physical presence of actors and spectators, but also to unreliable wi-fi connections, faulty laptops, and distracting cell phones. Students from the introductory Creative Writing course, however, were informally telling some of the more interesting personal stories during our Zoom sessions. [...]although the Creative Writing students had just begun studying writing for performance, I decided to utilize the assignment early in the course’s section on playwriting also. [...]many of my students, less privileged than me, had a keener sense of COVID-19’s dire impact on everyday life.