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Online Production
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Can you please give me an overview of how the cast "rehearsals" are facilitated online, as well as how they and the "audience" are connected during performance? What is the method? Thx
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Hi Jon!
What Is an Online Musical?
It is a way to approximate the experience of rehearsing and presenting a musical without physically being in the same room. The Zoom meeting platform seemed to be the most promising, although it may be possible to use other Internet-based platforms as well. Since these platforms were designed for meetings, not musicals, more than one person could not sing at the same time. We suggest using pre-recorded video for group numbers. Think of it like Disney’s The Little Mermaid Live!, except in an online musical the scene work and solo numbers are live, and the splashy production numbers are video.
For each video, students must record themselves singing their part of a song (along with the accompaniment track) and those recordings are
edited together to create an audio track with those vocals mixed as an ensemble. Then, that newly created recording is sent back to the students so
they can video themselves performing the number. Those videos are edited together to create exciting production numbers which are played back during the performance. This is a new medium for theatre, and there are challenges that we all discover as we go through the process. But the end result still feels very much like putting on a live musical. Watching actors, especially young people, overcome those challenges is not only exciting, it’s heartwarming.
All the information to successfully execute the online musical is in the Directors Guide. Hope this helps so you can "get on with the show!"