July 21 was a good day for JAG Productions, Vermont's only group known for producing exclusively Black theater and performance art. The White River Junction-based.
Thanks to our new pandemic reality, the ambitions, aspirations, and survival instincts of the arts profession have been tested in every way imaginable. Artists around the globe have risen to this challenge in multifarious ways, creating new and exciting innovations for an ancient artform.
From custom socially-distanced auditoriums to advancements in air filtration and disinfecting to strict protocols for audiences, actors, and staff, the return to traditional venues has been largely an experiment in trial and error, with numerous concepts deployed to varying degrees of success. With the present and future of theatre as we know and love it still largely uncertain, many artists are forging ahead in other ways, creating unique and impressive theatrical experiences via a multitude of mediums.
Actors in Flash Forward: Voices From the Future
(left to right) top: Ronni Lopez, Ro Boddie, Susan Palmer; center: John Nagle, Haley Rice, Gary Smith;
Among many other losses, the pandemic resulted in darkened stages and empty theater seats. But that, of course, is not the whole story: Thespians, like other performing artists, have found ways to keep on acting out. Even in the dead of winter, we have much theater news to report. So let the virtual curtain rise.
Middlebury Acting Company
, streaming Saturday, February 6, 7 p.m. Free. middleburyactors.org, townhalltheater.org
In addition to its monthly interactive play reading/discussion series, the American Dream Project,