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Approaching the Creative Process through COVID and Beyond: Section Introduction
January-June 2021 Vol. VIII, Issue 1 ISSN: 2284-3310
PJ Escobio Approaching the Creative Process through Covid and Beyond: Section Introduction
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PJ Escobio Artistic Director, Shakespeare Frankfurt (Germany)
I believe the past contains a great deal of the secrets to the future; when we study what has been, we begin to understand how to approach what will be. This applies to Theatre as much as, say, geopolitics. We don’t often look to Ibsen, Goldoni, Chekov, Shakespeare or the Ancient Greeks to mold our views on the future, but we do tell their stories to discover our commonality and with that commonality how we can grow and evolve to be better citizens of the world. We look to the past to tell stories that reflect our very small and intimate community of over 8 billion inhabitants.
Shakespeare Frankfurt was born in 2017 to provide the city of Frankfurt am Main access to classical theatre from an ensemble that represented the city’s own international diversity. As
like most other producing entities, our season was altered, cancelled, postponed or put online. We made a movie, Spiritus Vitae – The Breath of Life, we tried online performances, we even did The Plague Project, a compilation of individual monologues from Shakespeare. This kept our ensemble creative but there was a sense of needing something more, a connection with our audiences and the world outside our own four walls. As the year of lockdowns unfolded, we saw a unique opportunity to gather artists to whom our ensemble and audiences would normally not have
access.
On March 27th 2021, in celebration of World Theatre Day, Shakespeare Frankfurt held our inaugural Online Symposium and fundraiser. Its purpose was to explore how we can, and indeed must, approach our craft once the dust of this global event has settled. The subjects and expertise of the panelist were wide and varied from playwrights and actors, to critics and intimacy/violence directors. The theme was: “Approaching the Creative Process through Covid and Beyond”. As theatre makers we are all at a crossroads; our industry has been profoundly affected by the events of the COVID-19 pandemic. We have all had to adapt and overcome. A
January-June 2021 Vol. VIII, Issue 1 ISSN: 2284-3310
PJ Escobio Approaching the Creative Process through Covid and Beyond: Section Introduction
pause button has been needed for most projects and plenty of producing entities have had to close their doors or transfer to an online presence, a presence which is incapable of replicating the essential component of Theatre, an environment of the here and now, a live experience with
no other filters than one’s imagination. It is however a rare opportunity to change how our industry works. From actionable points on diversity and inclusion to taking an already existing global phenomenon and breathing life into it in front of live audiences, we explored what is reasonably possible for a more robust Theatre. The following papers by John Freedman, Kristy Thomas and Brooke Haney are a reflection of that event and a deeper analysis of the topics by some of the artists who presented. My hope is that we are able to continue this kind of global online event so as to encourage the necessary dialogue that will bring sustainable change to the world of Theatre.
