What's Up - Your guide to what's happening in Fayetteville, AR this week!
Issue link: http://www.epageflip.net/i/1322770
12 WHAT'S UP! DECEMBER 27, 2020-JANUARY 2, 2021 TOP 5 company, first class theater — it's like when you do really well on a test, but you don't really know you did really well until you see the letter grade on the paper. "It feels as though we've been doing really well on the test for 15 years, and we would hear from all the people that mattered most to us, our audience members, our artists, that this was a magical experience. 'It's a singular experience.' 'This is not like the other things.' And we believed that, Miller continues. "And yet it was really wonderful to see that grade, if you will — given by someone coming in from the outside who is respected by others across the country. And the same thing with The New York Times article. I think back to all of the artists who have been on our stages, all the people who have been on our staff and no longer are, our board members who are no longer with us and have even passed away — I think it's affirming to all of those people, too." That T2 would have this spectacular end to the year was surely unpredictable back in March. Starting with their production of "Ann," which was in an extended run, T2's scheduled shows fell like dominoes — including the large-scale production of the musical "Matilda" whose ensemble of dozens of actors had already been cast. "I think uncertainty was the rule of every morning waking up, early on in the pandemic era," says Miller. "Not that that has changed, but we've gotten used to it a little bit — this is the craziness we live in. But one of the things that was very uncertain was just how long this would last, and that remains uncertain. So we needed to come up with a strategy that would fit, regardless of when it ended or how long it went." That strategy, says Miller, was, essentially, "the show must go on" — and that meant some good old fashioned ingenuity. A flurry of activity followed the initial shutdown in the T2 offices: New tech was ordered, and the staff utilized personal contacts — one T2 team member had a friend whose position as the head of the live broadcast division of a Texas news channel made him a valuable advisor — as they also discovered previously hidden skills of those that they had worked beside every day. "I've got to sing Joanna's praises as a camera director in that room, calling which camera to use," says Ford. "She is turning out to be a great camera director behind the scenes," agrees Miller. It's a good example of how every team member had to shift to learning new skills or reviving ones that might have faded. "It has definitely tested my abilities," says Jones. Jones has served as stage manager with T2 since 2014, and, in August was promoted to the position of Associate General Manager, similar to her stage management position in that she needs to turn her laser- sharp focus to many aspects of the organization's functions. "The pandemic has definitely thrown [us] into a tailspin, but I will say also that, as a stage manager, we do thrive on chaos — at least some of us thrive on chaos, myself included. We do our best work under pressure, because it kind of pushes you to the challenge and forces you to think outside of that box. Moving into my new position as an associate general manager kind of helped me to take all of those skillsets and bring them into the company at large. I think everyone at TheatreSquared loves to rise to a challenge and loves to push ourselves. We want to continue making art because this is our passion — so bring on the challenges, bring on the pandemic, and we'll get through it." The summer brought experimentation with Zoom theater during the Arkansas New Play Fest. Playwright Sarah Gancher was already scheduled to participate in the fest with a play that was not "Russian Troll Farm" — but when Zoom theater became an inevitability, she had a hunch that that play could be re-written with a digital performance in mind. "From the get go, we understood that at least half of the process in the workshop with this play was going to be working out how the medium of Zoom could help kind of really blow this play up," says Ford. "We've also discovered that there's a slew of people who don't go to the theater, haven't even thought about going to the theater, but will happily watch something online," says Robert Ford (right), seen here with Martin Miller at the beginning of March. "So this is is an added tool to expand our mission." (File photo/NWA Democrat-Gazette/J.T. Wampler) T2 Continued From Page 11 See T2 Page 38