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If Pauline Pauwels could talk to her younger self last March, the Syracuse University senior would say “Hey, it’s OK. You’re going to be fine.”

For Pauwels and her fellow acting majors, the pandemic has brought the frustrations of Zoom classes, a canceled New York City showcase and shows that were either fully virtual or performed without an audience. But they have also experienced a year of growth and unexpected opportunities.

Students and instructors alike have developed ways of working in an art form that has hallmarks of intimacy and the exchange of energy between audience and artist. It underscores massive shifts in the entertainment industry, where virtual auditioning has become the norm, film productions must adhere to new COVID-19 guidelines and the move back to live, in-person performances is proving to be a cautious process.

At SU’s Department of Drama, the restrictions of social distancing and the introduction of hybrid instruction has been met with creativity and innovation. In classes such as assistant professor Christine Albright-Tufts’ acting course “Characters in Isolation,” students learned how to act while facing complications — such as having one actor be in person as the other performs from home over Zoom.

In plays originally written for the stage, including Caryl Churchill’s “Love and Information,” a Zoom production allowed the cast to dress up their apartments to serve as sets for their scenes.

“During this moment of isolation, the need we still have to connect and find love is really strong in the play,” Albright-Tufts said. “What our students right now in the university are learning is everything that the folks on the outside are not.”

For Pauwels, who performed in a traditionally staged streaming production of Thornton Wilder’s “The Matchmaker,” watching her peers work on the virtual “Love and Information” was eye-opening. The production exposed her to newer ways of thinking and how adaptable storytelling can be, she said.

“The pandemic has revealed a lot of creativity within the art world and the theater world,” Pauwels said. “Like, what can we do if we can’t bring an audience into a space?”

For senior Phoebe Rose Black-Toby, the lack of in-person classes has been frustrating. When SU transitioned online in March 2020, Black-Toby was in an acting class that focused on Shakespeare, and she found it challenging to perform the material over Zoom. And it didn’t help that she was forced to return home to Chicago, where she finished the rest of the semester.

Black-Toby recalled an “intense” transition to online learning, doing monologues over Zoom in her childhood bedroom while her mother worked next door.

“I was so over it,” she said.

In a normal year, senior drama students spend their final months in New York City as part of the Tepper Semester. Because most of those classes were still conducted online, Pauwels decided to stay in Syracuse, opt out of the Tepper Semester and finish her degree as a part-time student.

Black-Toby chose to study the Tepper Semester in New York City, living in Harlem, which has proved to be an overall positive experience for her. In one class, she practiced virtual auditioning, which she had very little experience with before.

Yiwei He | Design Editor

“I didn’t have experience with it, and it’s good that I have practice with that,” Black-Toby said. “I wish that we could be 20 years ago, standing in line and waiting for auditions in person. But at the same time, I’m glad to have the experience.”

However, it’s still hard to perform certain material over Zoom. For Black-Toby, doing a comedic monologue has become more difficult without laughter from an audience. But she’s glad to have learned skills such as self-taping, as in-person auditioning won’t be returning for the foreseeable future.

Black-Toby plans on staying in New York City after graduation. Being in the city has allowed her to witness how theater professionals are responding to the pandemic and navigating the return to in-person performance.

With her classmates, Black-Toby attended a performance of “Blindness,” an off-Broadway production where audience members are distanced from each other and required to wear masks while listening to recorded dialogue through a headset.

Phoebe Black-Toby (Left) said the lack of in-person classes has been frustrating, while assistant professor Christine Albright-Tufts saw students adjust to complications in her acting classes. Meghan Hendricks | Staff Photographer

“That’s one of the craziest experiences I’ve ever had,” she said. “So theater is coming back. I’m scared, but I think a normal amount, honestly.”

As for Pauwels, who is looking for jobs in the Los Angeles film industry, things seem to be heading toward normalcy sooner rather than later.

In a world where so much work is still remote, Pauwels has encountered a strange irony: employers have passed on her for interviews because they need someone to start immediately, and in-person.

“It seems like I’m going to need to move first, and then get the job,” Pauwels said. “But knowing now that things are going to be OK, I’m actually feeling positive for the future.”

Published on May 9, 2021 at 9:09 pm