COVID-19

I got back from winter break, a great start to 2020. New Year’s in New Buffalo and my first trip to Israel with 45+ new American and Israeli friends. The first thing my professor said was “Coronavirus, coronavirus, coronavirus.” It seemed a distant concern then but it has completely changed my spring semester in ways I had never imagined. Over the past 8 weeks, there has been a LOT of work going on. This semester I’m taking 21 credit hours of all theatre classes, of which 7 credit hours are show assignments.

I was the Assistant Lighting Designer for The Wolves. I’d been in production meetings since January 2019. In February 2020, we hung the lights and I ran my first light focus calls, supporting the focus of 164 lighting instruments. We teched, had dress rehearsals, invited dress, opening, and closing. Every time I saw the show I cried for some reason or other. Every time I watched the show I saw something I had never seen before or something I hadn’t noticed since the first time I read the play over a year ago. I really appreciated being a part of this team, getting to know, work, and learn with my fellow artists.

Since The Wolves opened, I spent just about every day and night at Krannert Center, usually getting there at 8:30am and not leaving until the voice of Krannert Center spoke at 11:50pm: *bing bong* “Ladies and Gentlemen, may I have your attention, please? Krannert Center will be closing and locking doors in 10 minutes. Please finish up your work, lock up your spaces, and exit the building at this time. Krannert Center closes at midnight and reopens at 7am daily. Thank you for your cooperation.” I got home at midnight, went to sleep at 1am, woke up at 7:30am, and repeated. Many mornings I skipped breakfast just so I could get to work. The Drafting Studio became my second home. I spent more time in there than at my apartment. I stopped unpacking my bag at the end of my day. I didn’t charge my laptop or phone at night because I knew there’d be plenty of time to charge the next day in the Drafting Studio.

My classes this semester include THEA 223 Introduction to Stage Rigging, THEA 262 Literature of Modern Theatre, THEA 391 Individual Topics, THEA 425 (491) Advanced CAD for Lighting Designers, and last but certainly not least, THEA 222 Introduction to Scenic Design. I don’t think that things are hard. It’s just about working smarter, not harder, using the right tools, and taking the right shortcuts. I’m a perfectionist. I put a lot of care into everything I do. Things for me at this point just take time, which is what I keep track of more than anything. My daily calendar is planned down to the minute. I schedule my classes, work calls, production meetings, dedicated homework time, meals, and naps.

For THEA 222 Introduction to Scenic Design, we are to create three design packages (for Jabberwocky, Assassins, and True West) over the semester. I spent 87 hours over 22 days on my Jabberwocky design package. I spent 7½ hours on my collage, 9 hours on my paint elevation, 16½ hours drafting my ground plan, 10½ hours drafting my plates, 42½ hours building my ¼” scale model (cutting, gluing, 3D printing, and laser cutting), and 2 hours on research. My friends, classmates, colleagues, and faculty saw me in the Drafting Studio all the time. I heard that a professor told the freshman how hard I was working. People knew. They told me to go home, that I would be put on payroll as faculty since I was there so much. But I stayed. I worked hard. Was it all worth it? I don’t know. I’m really proud of my work. But at what cost? Blood, sweat, tears, time, money, sleeping 5½-7 hours each night, eating two meals per day (three on a good day), and only seeing my roommates I live with once a week.

At least I’m there at Krannert Center with really good people and really great friends. As Mrs. Hale from Trifles said, “We live close together and we live far apart. We all go through the same things—it's all just a different kind of the same thing...” (Glaspell 23). We decorated the Drafting Studio with string lights and fairy lights, turned off the fluorescents, turned our drafting table lamps upside down for warm uplighting, setting a gentle, relaxed, focused mood. We bought a new HDMI cable so we could watch Disney+, Netflix, and YouTube featuring: Gourmet Makes, Bob’s Burgers, Hercules, Ratatouille, The Incredibles, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, and more. We have yet to watch Monty Python and the Holy Grail. I’ve never seen it and I was assigned to watch it for Scenic Design weeks ago. There were a couple of parties, opening nights, heavy apps, Culver’s and McDonald’s runs, Manolo’s pizza, Merry Ann’s strawberry milkshakes, and liters of Mezzo water. When it was nice out, we walked on the roof of Krannert Center, threw snowballs as high and far as we could, climbed a tree, and found the Krannert Gym. We screamed into a cornfield (prairie reserve) at midnight and drove around talking and listening to happy and sad songs together. We took care of each other.

The week before spring break, we saw how other universities had responded to the pandemic. Their semesters ended early, students were sent home, students were advised not to go home, and/or their classes transitioned online. On Thursday, our theatre faculty had an emergency meeting. During Introduction to Scenic Design, it was announced that Illinois Theatre’s productions of PSHITTER! A Drinking Song for the Year of our Lord 2020 and Lysistrata had been canceled. It hit diff. It hit hard. For the past year, I’d been invested in these shows. I was the Assistant Lighting Designer for PSHITTER! and I was the Master Electrician for Lysistrata. I was also going to be the Lighting Designer for an Armory Free Theatre production of A Bright Room Called Day in April just after Lysistrata was scheduled to close but it got canceled as well. All of our hard work was cut off just like that. It was sad. It was sad sad. That night, instead of having Tech #1 for PSHITTER!, we had an invited run and on Friday night for Lysistrata, we had an invited run as well. All of the Illinois Theatre community came and saw all of the acting, blocking, fight choreography, costumes, set, props, sound, media, and lighting that we had. It was our 1st and only tech, dress rehearsal, opening, and closing all at once. It was really moving to have everyone come together, support each other, and make art for art’s sake. These productions deserved nothing less than what we were able to give them. I wish that we could have done them for real. I will really miss that but I will remember these productions forever.

So that’s it. All three of my remaining shows for the semester, canceled. I came to Illinois Theatre to work at Krannert Center for the Performing Arts, to learn, to try, to fail, to succeed, to network, and now it’s just going to be a bit different and difficult for the next seven weeks. I feel lucky that I am not a freshman. I’ve already spent a full year at Illinois and I know what that’s like. I feel lucky that I’m not a senior who’s last show at Illinois got canceled. I’m only a sophomore. I’m only a sophomore. Sometimes, a lot of the time, it feels like I’m doing graduate level work. For the rest of my semester, all of my classes will be taught online and all of our production meetings will be held online. We are Zoomers now. All of my classes (with the exception of THEA 222 Introduction to Scenic Design) will be fine in an online environment. Personally, I do better in a classroom setting. I was planning on returning after spring break to campus, to my apartment, to Krannert Center, to the Drafting Studio to Zoom into all of my classes from there. Most of my friends went home for break and were planning to return to campus as well. Some are staying on campus over break and a few people I know are staying home home for the rest of the semester. My thinking is that college students want to go to college. I know I do. I have a lot of independence at college but I don’t think I want to be there alone If my friends aren’t there since University Housing is asking all students who can safely do so return to their permanent home address to take their classes for the rest of the semester. I will miss not being in the same room as my colleagues, classmates, friends, and our excellent faculty. Some of them are graduating seniors and 3rd year grads who I didn’t get to say goodbye to and I don’t know when the next time I’ll see them will be. I’ll miss spring on campus. The clear, blue skies, warm weather, sunsets, taking a nap or two on the sunny quad, and seeing all of the students and dogs out and about.

Every day since last Wednesday, it has been one MASSMAIL, one hit after another. After working so hard for the past 7 weeks, I was in no mood to do anything productive. It felt like my work had been ripped away from me, like we had been cut. Saturday morning I woke up and within 1 hour, I folded my laundry, packed, zoomed to the bus without a ticket, paid in cash, and got on with one minute to spare. I spent all of Sunday writing my THEA 262 Literature of Modern Theatre midterm which I hadn’t really started before then. That night, I Zoomed with my friends. We worked on our midterms, gathered good quotes, talked stuff through, and made each other laugh. Over 11 hours, I wrote my 6.25 pages and we all submitted our papers just before the 11:59pm deadline. Then we invited more of our friends to our Zoom Meeting. We caught up, talked, and laughed some more in front of many virtual backgrounds. We just about fell asleep on Zoom together (or at least I did).

I’ve cried a lot. I’ve cried of happiness, sadness, laughter, and stress. It’s a lot. I’m feeling so many different emotions and things are changing every day. I’m conflicted. I want to work, I don’t want to work. I want to be home, I don’t want to be home. I want to go back, I don’t want to go back. I want things to be normal. I would rather be so stressed and busy with all of my classes and show assignments than be in this situation right now. On the other hand, this is a moment to breathe, to take a step back. I’m playing it safe. I’ve only seen my immediate family. I haven’t seen any of my high school friends yet in person and I don’t know if I will. I should take social distancing seriously to protect myself and others around me. I also feel like I could use this time and space to reset.

The world is forever changed. I will remember this forever. We will come out of this stronger and closer together. There are still bigger and better things to do ahead.

For fun, below are some quotes from this semester:

“There’s A LOT of work going on here”

“There’s not enough work going on here”

“Give it up Zack, you’ll never be a set designer.”

“Not with that attitude”

“You gotta want it”

“We’ll fix it in post”

“But at what cost?”

“Can I get a waffle? Can I please get a waffle?”

“Too many cooks”

“I am once again asking for your __________ support”

“In this economy?”