SHINING A VIRTUAL

Shining a virtual light on the arts

BY LANCE SCHWARTZDIRECTOR OF INSTITUTIONAL COMMUNICATION

Shows Must Go On

Nothing about the Spring 2020 Semester was normal or easy in the shadow of a worldwide pandemic. When the campus closed in late March, and classes moved to online format, other aspects of learning needed to be adapted and revised. During a normal Spring Semester at Bethany, many students will participate in a wide variety of end-of-year shows and events. These events include things such as the Music Honors Recital, Spring Play, and Senior and All-Student art and theatre capstone events. With the campus shut down, the natural question was— What would become of these time-honored events and traditions?

In the case of the Music Department’s Honors Recital, the performances took on a very different look in a variety of venues. Chosen by the faculty, the Honors Recital participants represent the best work being done in private studio lessons on the Bethany campus. Private lessons are available to any student at BLC, regardless of major, and there are many majors represented among those taking lessons.

The Honors Recital normally takes place in Bethany’s beautiful Trinity Chapel where the entire campus is invited to enjoy the music these talented performers make. Before closing the campus, the students taking lessons had been working as hard as ever, and the faculty felt it was important to give these musicians an opportunity to perform. The answer was to host a virtual Honors Recital. All of the performances were submitted via video recording by the students. Some performers were accompanied by family members, others utilized pre-recorded accompaniments, and some just did without. The ingenuity, creativity, and musicianship of the performers was evident in all of the performances.

Professor Ann Frederickson contributed to this article.

VIEW THE 2020 SPRING VIRTUAL HONORS RECITAL: BIT.LY/2020SPRINGHONORS

Video stills from students participating in the virtual Spring Honors Recital from top: Mizha Overn, Noah Gernander, and Kathryn Matzke.

Theatre Improvises

Theatre Professors Peter Bloedel and Benji Inniger didn’t let the lack of live performances during the Spring 2020 semester keep students from expressing their creativity. Three theatre classes: Directing I and Sound Design (taught by Inniger) and Vocal Interpretation (taught by Bloedel) collaborated to reproduce episodes of the original 1940s radio show The Lone Ranger.

Inniger explained more about how the collaboration was formed.

“When social distancing began, we were sad for the loss of spring performance opportunities like the Spring Play and the Directing Final Showcase. Those performances get a lot of students involved in various ways, and of course it was disheartening to see those opportunities evaporate."

The collaboration was a first for Bethany Theatre.

Inniger continued, “To my knowledge, we’ve never had a cross-course collaborative assignment like this before, so that was neat to see multiple courses fulfill their new curricular obligations while working together to make something interesting.”

Inniger said he contemplated a variety of content options before deciding on The Lone Ranger. The idea was to find a production from the golden age of radio that was now in the public domain so that production rights did not pose a problem. He ultimately chose the immediately recognizable Lone Ranger because it “would lend itself well to multiple dialects and character interpretations, had good potential for action and comedy, and had lots of opportunity for sound design.”

The students produced two recordings of each episode. One features the “original audio” tracks from each participating student; while the other is called a “vintage audio” track, and has been processed to sound like period recordings. Inniger decided to add the vintage option because the students recorded their performances over Zoom, and all had different computer/microphone setups with varying levels of quality. The resulting vintage sound gave a consistent quality to the productions. Judging by the final results, the learning objectives of both instructors were achieved.

Bethany students faces were incorporated into old photos representing who worked on each radio production.

It seems the students were happy with the process as well.

“During the process, I heard from many of the students involved that they looked forward to rehearsals and were glad to have a practical creative platform. When we moved online, it seemed like one of the things our students were missing most was the opportunity to simply be together and make stuff together.” said Inniger.

The overall goal was to make sure Bethany students were receiving the best possible instruction in a virtual environment. And in the end, this untested collaboration in a virtual context actually mirrored the collaborative efforts that are a hallmark of a Bethany education.

Inniger explained, “In the liberal arts and the theatre major in particular, we constantly preach creative problem solving so despite the adverse circumstances, it was a unique chance to put that mantra into practice. My hope was this little project would help them stay connected, laugh, and find some joy and satisfaction of making something together while still completing their course objectives. And I find it satisfying that despite everything, we can still present some kind of ‘performance’ this semester.”