fbpx Digital Media and Technology | HowlRound Theatre Commons

Digital Media and Technology

Digital media and technology are ever-evolving, and so is their relationship to theatre. In this section, you can learn about how theatremakers are incorporating media and tech into their art-making and career-building, as well as read New Crit pieces about work created to be shared online. Two interesting series to explore for a sense of how quickly the conversations change are Gwydion Suilebhan’s Techne—essays written in 2013 and 2014—and Performing the Internet, curated by Kate Bergstrom in January 2021. Check out content from the 2019 Digital + Performance Convening for a multifaceted look at this topic!

The Latest

Five Ways to Maximize Your Theatre’s Social Media Presence
Essay
Five Ways to Maximize Your Theatre’s Social Media Presence
by Trevor Boffone
21 November 2023
How Stage Management Can Set the Stage for a Greener Theatre
Essay
How Stage Management Can Set the Stage for a Greener Theatre
by Macy E. Kunke
29 September 2023
Composting Queer Trauma through a Collaborative Process in SEAL
Essay
Composting Queer Trauma through a Collaborative Process in SEAL
by Rachel Pottern Nunn, Dante Fuoco, Clara Weist
24 August 2023
Trevor Boffone films an actress singing into a microphone onstage.
Five Ways to Maximize Your Theatre’s Social Media Presence
Essay

Five Ways to Maximize Your Theatre’s Social Media Presence

21 November 2023

When utilized fully, social media can function as a critical extension of work being done onstage. Trevor Boffone pulls from his experience as a content creator and social media manager to share concrete steps that theatremakers and theatre companies can use to leverage the unique potentials of social media. 

Macy Kunke wears a headset and attends to multiple screens at a stage management table.
How Stage Management Can Set the Stage for a Greener Theatre
Essay

How Stage Management Can Set the Stage for a Greener Theatre

29 September 2023

Macy E. Kunke shares the practical steps she took to cultivate more sustainable stage management practices for a recent production of Men on Boats. By utilizing a variety of digital tools instead of more traditional printed paper methods, the stage management team created only a fraction of typical paper waste and found that their work that was cheaper, simpler, and more collaborative than typical stage management processes.

A man stands on stage in the middle of a spotlight, with a projection behind him of him as a child.
Composting Queer Trauma through a Collaborative Process in SEAL
Essay

Composting Queer Trauma through a Collaborative Process in SEAL

24 August 2023

As writer-performer Dante Fuoco and director Clara Wiest came together to rework Dante’s autobiographical solo show SEAL, they developed a process that centered intentional care and trauma-informed practices. In this interview with Rachel Pottern Nunn, Clara and Dante reflect upon the production, discuss the relationship between writer/performer and director, and share insights from their generative process.

event poster for Responses to Climate Crisis and Emergencies with people planet and performance.
Responses to Climate Crisis and Emergencies
Video

Responses to Climate Crisis and Emergencies

Storytelling from the Performing Arts

Wednesday 26 July 2023
Kenya, Uganda

Different art forms (such as theatre, film, visual arts, and social media) have often been used to communicate, educate, and promote climate justice issues. This episode offers the opportunity to hear stories of practitioners using their art forms in this era of climate emergency. We focus on theatre practices and digital art forms and ask guests to share their work and that of others from the continent.

From the Ground Up Podcast Teaser image featuring guest profile image.
Ontroerend Goed’s Participatory Metaphors
Podcast

Ontroerend Goed’s Participatory Metaphors

24 May 2023

Artistic director of Belgian theatre company Ontroerend Goed, Alexander Devriendt talks through their process for imagining and developing participatory content. Alexander and Jeffrey Mosser also dig into financing art in Europe, the cost of touring internationally and how COVID has affected it, and sustaining family and art simultaneously.

Illustration of several different pairs of people holding hands with each other.
Our Trauma Twin Siblings: Building Creative Spaces for Queer and Trans Tamil Community as Teardrop Collective
Essay

Our Trauma Twin Siblings: Building Creative Spaces for Queer and Trans Tamil Community as Teardrop Collective

31 March 2023

Hari Somaskantha and Gitanjali exchange letters discussing their work with Teardrop Collective, a Toronto-based group that centers stories of queer, trans, Deaf, and hearing people of Tamil, Sri Lankan, and South Asian descent.

Illustration of various cushioned chairs.
Imagining Creative Fat Futures
Essay

Imagining Creative Fat Futures

29 March 2023

Morgan Davis and Jules Vodarek Hunter discuss the process of creating Fat Fables, a theatre program for fat LGBT2SQ+ artists who are twenty-nine and under.

An illustration of a clothesline with a film strip in front of it.
Making Then Is Now During a Pandemic with Our Chinese Canadian Feminist Elders
Essay

Making Then Is Now During a Pandemic with Our Chinese Canadian Feminist Elders

28 March 2023

Julia Hune-Brown and Keira Loughran discuss crafting Then Is Now, a concept album/video playlist they created through conversations with Chinese Canadian women who grew up in Toronto’s Chinatown during the era of the Chinese Exclusion Act.

A purple stage with a lit blue backdrop.
Inventing the “Flay” (Film/Play) with Campo Santo
Essay

Inventing the “Flay” (Film/Play) with Campo Santo

16 March 2023

When Campo Santo decided to film their production of Star Finch’s Side Effects early in the COVID-19 pandemic, they were embarking on a creative journey that felt entirely novel and a little overwhelming. In this conversation, the production’s directors discuss development of the production’s aesthetic and the generative process they embarked on at the intersection of “film” and “play.

A still from Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World.
How Javaad Alipoor’s Fourth World Trilogy Disrupts What We Think We Understand About History, Politics, and the Internet
Essay

How Javaad Alipoor’s Fourth World Trilogy Disrupts What We Think We Understand About History, Politics, and the Internet

14 March 2023

Joseph Dunne-Howrie examines the way that three of Javaad Alipoor’s plays infuse the internet into theatrical performance, creating intersecting narratives that interrogate identity formation in the age of global interconnectivity.

A performer in front of a virtual background with trees and bright sunlight.
Digital Theatre Is Here To Stay: Paula Vogel’s Bard at the Gate
Essay

Digital Theatre Is Here To Stay: Paula Vogel’s Bard at the Gate

13 March 2023

Theatre critic Jonathan Mandell discusses virtual playwriting series Bard at the Gate and looks at the impact and future of digital theatre.

Histories of the Avant-garde event poster.
Histories of the Avant-garde and Contemporary Disruptive Technologies
Video

Histories of the Avant-garde and Contemporary Disruptive Technologies

Cyber Attack: Digital Art and Activism Conference

Wednesday 16 November 2022
Berlin, Germany and international.

Cyber Attack: Digital Art and Activism is an online conference by NORDWIND in cooperation with FuturePerfect Studio (New York), Denis Semionov, Kampnagel (Hamburg), and Hellerau (Dresden). The opening session Histories of the Avant-garde and Contemporary Disruptive Technologies livestreamed on the global, commons-based, peer-produced HowlRound TV network on Wednesday 16 November 2022 at 9:30 a.m. PST (San Francisco, UTC -8) / 12:30 p.m. EST (New York, UTC -5) / 17:30 GMT (London, UTC +0) / 18:30 CET (Berlin, UTC +1) / 19:30 EET (Bucharest, UTC +2).

seven performers around large robotic arm in front of a backdrop of the cosmos.
Chekhov, Robots, and Holograms
Video

Chekhov, Robots, and Holograms

Experimentation with Emerging Technologies in The Orchard /an auction/, a Hybrid Theatre Production

Saturday 12 November 2022
Boston, Massachusetts, United States

Join artistic director Igor Golyak and his team of collaborators for a conversation about experimentation; unusual applications of emerging technologies; what they are learning about audience behavior and interactivity; and working with partners across cultures, platforms, and art forms to create live, in-person, hybrid, and virtual theatre. This conversation was livestreamed on the commons-based, peer produced HowlRound TV network on Saturday 12 November 2022 at 12:45 p.m. PST (San Francisco, UTC -8) / 2:45 p.m. CST (Austin, UTC -6) / 3:45 p.m. EST (Boston, UTC -5) / 20:45 GMT (London, UTC -0) / 21:45 CET (Berlin, UTC +1).

Concept art for a mostly red stage with a starry sky backdrop.
Practical Artificial Intelligence for Stage Design
Essay

Practical Artificial Intelligence for Stage Design

6 October 2022

Projection designer David Forsee, who brings artificial intelligence into his own design workflow, creates a toolkit for other designers interested in effectively and ethically integrating text-to-image models into their design processes.

A woman dancing on stage.
Shakespeare in Gdansk: A Vessel for Past, Present, and Future
Essay

Shakespeare in Gdansk: A Vessel for Past, Present, and Future

29 September 2022

Monica Payne recaps the 26th international Gdansk Shakespeare Festival, where artists from around the globe adapted, deconstructed, and celebrated Shakespeare’s plays through boldly contemporary productions.

PUHA Podcast Teaser.
Visual Arts
Podcast

Visual Arts

21 September 2022

In the third episode of PUHA podcast, co-hosts Zsófi and Bíborka talk to the interdisciplinary collective Hollow, the experimental scenographer Eszter Kálmán, and dancer-choreographer Beatrix Simkó. Together, they discuss how their work features across different media and mixes visual and digital art with performativity. Get ready for a journey across household noise choreographies, moving bodies in Vienna’s Leopold Museum, underground queer communities in Tbilisi, and stories of friendship and pregnancy in performance art!

A screenshot of 3 actors on Zoom performing a musical in costume.
The TikTok Revolution
Essay

The TikTok Revolution

9 August 2022

Katy Zapanta champions TikTok as a platform with the potential to revolutionize the theatre industry’s systemic issues.

An audience member being tucked into bed by an actor on stage.
Playable Plays: Toward a New Interactivity
Essay

Playable Plays: Toward a New Interactivity

18 July 2022

Theatremaker Drew Paryzer discusses the creative potential of interactive art and the impact that the “playability” of a show can have on audiences.

Full cast sit together for a picture.
Seeing Double: Double Consciousness as a Black Theatre Practitioner
Essay

Seeing Double: Double Consciousness as a Black Theatre Practitioner

14 July 2022

Ekemini Ekpo applies W.E.B. Dubois’ concept of “double consciousness” to the experience of performing Blackness for a predominantly white audience that may or may not be interested in disturbing the primacy of their own lived experience.

Audio file for a podcast.
How to Produce a Podcast Series: A Beginner-Friendly Guide to the Art of Podcasting
Essay

How to Produce a Podcast Series: A Beginner-Friendly Guide to the Art of Podcasting

7 June 2022

Tatiana Hernandez-Mitchell, a podcast consultant for HowlRound, offers a guide to the technical side of producing podcasts. This guide focuses on equipment, software, and best practices.

Cultural Mobility Forum event poster.
Cultural Mobility Forum 2022 on Digital Mobility
Video

Cultural Mobility Forum 2022 on Digital Mobility

Hosted by Nordic Culture Point in Helsinki, Finland and On the Move

Wednesday 25 May 2022
Helsinki, Finland

Cultural Mobility Forum 2022 hosted by Nordic Culture Point in Helsinki, Finland and On the Move livestreamed on the global, commons-based peer produced HowlRound TV network Wednesday 25 May 2022 at 07:00 BST (London, UTC +1) / 08:00 CEST (Brussels, UTC +2) / 09:00 EEST (Helsinki, UTC +3) / 14:00 SGT (Singapore, UTC +8) / 16:00 AEST (Sydney, UTC +10).

Kunafa and Shay Teaser Image.
Multihyphenate Artists
Podcast

Multihyphenate Artists

With Denmo Ibrahim and Sarah Fahmy

25 May 2022

Artistic identities can be complicated, and many theatremakers work equally within two or more disciplines simultaneously. The most interesting work is rarely created in a vacuum. These multidisciplinary artists create diverse projects in all senses of the word, broadening our idea of what theatre can and should be. Today, two such multihyphenate artists, Denmo Ibrahim and Sarah Fahmy, converse about their multiple identities, how they reconcile and manage their myriad expertise, and the role of multihyphenate artists in today’s theatre landscape.

digital collage of photos.
Re-Fest 2022
Video

Re-Fest 2022

Bringing artists, activists, and technologists together to explore our role in reshaping the future

Wednesday 16 March - Friday 25 March 2022
United States

CultureHub presented Re-Fest 2022 livestreaming on the commons-based peer produced HowlRound TV network from Wednesday 16 March to Friday 25 March 2022.

performer in a tilted white box.
Performance and Workshop by Theatre in Quarantine (TiQ)
Video

Performance and Workshop by Theatre in Quarantine (TiQ)

Symposium: Performing Arts in the Digital Age: Interactions and New Directions

Friday 11 March and Saturday 12 March 2022
College Park, Maryland, USA

University of Maryland's Maya Brin Institute for New Performance presented a performance and workshop by Theatre in Quarantine (TiQ) (Joshua William Gelb and Katie Rose McLaughlin) as part of the symposium Performing Arts in the Digital Age: Interactions and New Directions. Livestreaming on the commons-based peer produced HowlRound TV network Friday 11 March and Saturday 12 March 2022.

event poster for deaf woke with erin phillips.
#DeafWoke with Erin Phillips AKA DM3
Video

#DeafWoke with Erin Phillips AKA DM3

#DeafWoke is a Virtual Consciousness-raising, Engaging Online Talk Show, Led by Black and Native American Deaf Host Mr. Antoine Hunter PurpleFireCrow

Tuesday 15 February 2022
United States

Antoine Hunter presented #DeafWoke with Erin Phillips AKA DM3 livestreaming on the commons-based, peer-produced HowlRound TV network at howlround.tv Tuesday 15 February 2022 at 5 p.m. PST (San Francisco, UTC -8) / 7 p.m. CST (Chicago, UTC -6) / 8 p.m. EST (New York, UTC -5).