Well. Almost . . . The Value of Zoom Readings

Zoom readings have allowed many theatres to hang on during the pandemic. Although they did not replace the experience of live theatre, they brought many theatre-creators and theatre-lovers together in a time of need. And, to some degree, these Zoom readings added something spectacular to the theatrical experience–which live tsome:

A few weeks ago, I received a call on about a script that a customer was trying to download. He was having problems finding the downloadable version. It was about 7 in the evening my time and it was COVID-19 sequestration. Everyone was working from home. 

I offered to help and happened to be at my computer.

The script he was looking for was The Pinch Hitter, a short comedy. And I had written it. And he happened to ask who the playwright was.  Thus, a conversation ensued. He was representing a play-reading group that met online to read plays “around the table.” And they had found mine. And had called because of a problem downloading.

Well!  It turned out that the promised downloadable file had disappeared from the site, so I went back and replaced it–and chatted with him as I did so.

the reading group he was representing was not a result of COVID-19 and isolation. They had begun to meet to read plays online prior that because they were friends, they were looking for something they could do together–and they were located internationally! And someone decided it would be fun to read plays together!

And then it struck me where the heart of theatre really is. Like the “home churches” of the early Roman Catholic churches, good theatre, like religion, reaches us where we live, struggle, work, laugh, and love.

To top it all off, they were delighted to meet me! Me? Someone still struggling in the trenches of writerdom? Writing was always something I just did—had to do. Writing for the stage was more of a choice (probably detailed somewhere in my therapist’s notebook). 

But connecting with this small group and hearing them honor what I did by reading it aloud and talking about it, I began to understand the importance of being a journeyman writer, of learning the craft, of telling the stories that need to be told and retold. Whether or not fame and fortune followed. IT’s a task that we as a community need to have done by those of us whose brains are wired to tell our stories.

Theatre is not a rare elixir reserved for the high priests who can afford $200 a ticket on a Saturday night. It is also drunk around dining room tables, in living rooms, and on Zoom. Or Google Meet. Or wherever people can connect.

This group started because one woman reached out across continents to another and then another until they had a enough to form a cast to meet regularly to read and share play with each other. And so, they began to meet and read–across the globe: Phyllis in Buenos Aires; Maritxu in Mexico; Vania, Mexican but living in South Bend, Indiana; Rebecca, American living on a farm in Illinois; and Paulina living in Mexico City.

And, in some blink of the universe, they had chosen my play and called about the download and we had connected the globe through a short comedy about a woman steering a family through daily crises with a beleaguered husband, a self-centered married daughter, and an intellectually challenged son. In other words–most of us in some fashion or another.

Reading and talking about plays is one way we can communally enrich each other’s lives. Performance groups are easy to organize in these days of telecommunications.

• Pick up the phone or type on the keyboard. Find a cast.
• Google or sort through play catalogues for topics of interest.
• Look for a play with approximately the same number of characters as you have actors.
• Find comedies for your first few readings.
• Try reading a play more than once, assigning different group members to the roles. Does that make a difference in how you hear the play?
• Look for downloadable, printable scripts rather than hard copies—it’s cheaper.

If anyone has experience in starting or participating in a reading group, please let us know. We’d love to share your observations here. We’d like to start a list of groups that are looking for new participants. In the meantime, check this list for scripts that lend themselves to reading around the table.

Is it better than Broadway? Well, maybe not better but equally as exciting.