Collaborative performance during lockdown: combining devised drama with film concepts to present cyberdrama during the COVID lockdown in Australia

Abstract

ABSTRACT When face-to-face tuition was suspended due to COVID-19 health regulations, tertiary drama students engaged in devising and performing drama online. Inspired by Orson Welles’ radio play, ‘The War of the Worlds’, and working online with a film director, the students developed a three-episode livestream drama in response to the pandemic. Through the lens of Davis’ cyberdrama toolkit, this practitioner’s reflection relates the collaborative story development process in which the students devised, scripted and self-taped scenes for the three-episode livestream. The implications of this experience are that the eight-week project expanded the students’ understanding of performance and, increased their skillset to include ‘self-tape’ and manipulation of the audience perspective. The livestream reached a far larger audience than would have attended an onstage production at the regional campus. Enforced online learning during the pandemic has enlivened the way we perceive and teach drama.