From Stage to Aural Streaming: Adaptation through a Slow Ethic of Care

Abstract:In November 2020, the LGBTQ Families Speak Out research team at the Ontario Institute of Studies in Education (OISE), University of Toronto, recorded our community-engaged verbatim play Out at School, about the experiences of LGBTQ2S+ families in Ontario public schools, as a digital audio play. The transition from stage to aural streaming raised new ethical tensions in a project that was already deeply engaged in relational, community-oriented work. The removal of visible bodies (queer bodies, trans bodies, racialized bodies, Indigenous bodies, disabled bodies) from the play, which, onstage, presented and celebrated the multiplicity of intersectional queer identities, altered the structure of the piece and the ethical relationships we had built with audience members. The practices we adopted to address the ethical tensions in our staged play had to be re-examined for aural streaming. Problems of vulnerability and trust emerged in different forms. This article examines and explores the questions that were raised by aural streaming and the team's responses to these questions.