Matt Grenier

With the shift to remote learning at the start of the fall 2020 semester, the SUNY Oneonta Theatre Department embarked on two fully remote shows. The first was Medea, a Greek tragedy directed by Kiara Pipino that was intended to be recorded in-person on the Goodrich Theater stage. The second was My Father’s Dragon, a children’s story adapted and directed by John McCaslin-Doyle to be done remotely. To enable these remote shows, the Theatre Department developed a computer system which could capture the actor performances from their homes, edit them together, and broadcast them to an audience. Two shows… eighteen actors… 2-1/2 months… and only one computer system.

Following the shows, a 4-part series of educational videos were created to document the experience and share valuable information with others who may be pursuing their own remote performances. The presentation is organized by project phases: Goals, Research, Implementation, Testing, Utilization, Performance, and Reflections. The full series is available in a playlist on YouTube. The first video in the playlist is an “abridged” version of the presentation. This video (embedded below) is more suitable to those less versed in theatre, or who are not developing their own remote performance systems.

The PowerPoint slides and other documents are available for download at https://bit.ly/37CyP7m

Final Performances

The final performances of the shows are available below.