Noelle Viñas Wins Jeffry Melnick New Playwright Award theatermania.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from theatermania.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
It s too soon for meta-Zoom.
Feel the Spirit, the latest production from Berkeley s ever-adventurous Shotgun Players is an agonizingly of-the-moment, tailored-for-teleconferencing commission by playwright Noelle Viñas, expressly written in the form of online video chats and gatherings. The three main chatters are the new young pastor, Gabrielle (Vero Maynez) and two senior board members (Jean Forman, Fred Pitts) of a small, long-established church which has moved its services to Zoom in light of the pandemic.
An overarching theme that the trio continually returns to and one of the few they all agree on is the inability of teleconferencing to replicate the meaningful nuances of in-person conversation, let alone mass congregation of the sort one finds in both church and theater.
Engaging new play, ‘Feel the Spirit,’ soars at Shotgun Players
In this inventive production, written by Noelle Viñas for Zoom, a young gay Latina pastor tries to hold her congregation together through the coronavirus and a racial uprising.
Actors in Zoom play “Feel the Spirit” by Shotgun Players. Photo: Leanna Keyes
Shotgun Player’s new Bridge Series begins with the creative and engaging world premiere, “Feel the Spirit.” The inventive play was written by Noelle Viñas expressly for Zoom. It is astutely directed by Elizabeth Carter, and is shown live. “Feel the Spirit” follows a young gay Latina pastor, Gabriella (terrific Vero Maynez), trying to hold her congregation together during the early days of the lockdown through the aftermath of George Floyd’s death.
Bay Area theater this spring aims to remind audiences what it is to be human sfchronicle.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from sfchronicle.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Shotgun Players Announces 30th Anniversary Season, Including the Tony-Winning Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812
Hopefully, if all continues on a positive path with the pandemic, each week ahead will come with small announcements about the Bay Area arts and culture scenes slowly coming back to life. This week, we learn that Berkeley s Shotgun Players is alive and well, and they re planning an ambitious 30th anniversary season that kicks off with four shows meant to bridge the transition between streaming-only and in-person theater.
Shotgun had the good fortune to be able to complete a long-planned renovation of its Ashby Stage headquarters over the past year. And as Berkeleyside reports, the pandemic shutdown enabled them to finish it faster and with less disruption to its production schedule than it otherwise would have caused.