Theatre during the Pandemic

Sarah Thermond is an educator and actor who grew up in Saratoga, and taught Drama and English at Saratoga High School for eight years before moving to teach Theatre full-time at Palo Alto High School this past school year.  She also teaches a CTE-certified Stage Tech class that is a dual-enrollment program between Palo Alto and Foothill College.  Passionate about the arts throughout her school years, Sarah majored in Theatre and Comparative Literature (with an emphasis in Comparative Media Studies) at the University of Southern California.  After graduating, she worked briefly as a professional actor before becoming a teacher and completing her Masters in Teaching at the University of San Francisco.  When she isn't teaching and directing productions with her students, she still performs with Bay Area theatre companies, most recently Silicon Valley Shakespeare, South Bay Musical Theatre, and Hillbarn Theatre.

 

Talk Description: For decades, the live performing arts have been working to identify their place and purpose in a world inundated with new ways to consume media and entertainment; throw in a pandemic that restricts audiences from attending live events for a year, and you get perhaps the greatest challenge most performing arts companies have ever faced.  In the true spirit of theatre, however, "the show must go on," and performers and technicians at every level - from schools to nationally recognized theatre companies - found creative ways to produce new content and connect with their audiences like never before.  Sarah will be discussing the different types of digital and remote performances that schools and companies developed, the tools and skills required to create these works, and also the potential benefits of supplementing live performances with virtual content in the future.  This talk will include examples from Palo Alto High School's entirely virtual nine-show season!