I get asked all the time, "how do you do a theatre school online?", and the answer to that is much like the answer to everything else right now: lots and lots of Zoom meetings. 

The other day, I asked some of my closest friends how they felt about having to go to our theatre arts school online. It struck me that I didn’t really know how they felt, besides the general consensus that we would all much rather be in person. And it's still so bizarre to us that we have yet to return.

All of my gen-ed courses have been reduced to a single, hour-long zoom session per week. It's a lot simpler listening to the one lecture from wherever we like, and then having our own time to study the course material. 

"I like the fact that I’m in my own space so I do feel more comfortable. Also that we don’t have to be on camera for certain classes is nice." is what my former-roommate, favorite cow-lover, and long-lost-Kardashian-sister Sierra Clickner had to say. Getting to keep our camera's off from time to time is a much needed benefit to Zoom University. It is an absolute blessing that I can get up and make another cup of coffee in the middle of an early morning lecture without anyone knowing.  

"I personally find that I’m struggling to separate work and home," said Jenna Pereira, my former Canadian roommate who's probably added 5 years to our planet’s lifespan thanks to her green lifestyle. "And I struggle with taking breaks because I can do all my work from my laptop, and whenever I break I feel guilty."

I think that may be one of the hidden factors about online school: online fatigue. It's deceiving how easy cranking out all of your assignments can appear when all you have to do is open a laptop and take a seat. But doing all the homework, the studying, the lectures, and the class performances on the same screen can burn you out. Fast. It seems simple because we've eliminated all forms of travel, even from classroom to classroom, but it's that very same reason that I feel tires us out much quicker. We live in the attention-deficit, instant-satisfaction age. Remaining stationary for the better part of the day has never been a good idea.

Whenever we have to perform something live, we sing along to pre-recorded piano tracks that we received from our class accompanist. Mostly those performances go pretty well and the great thing about being home is you can get creative. If you’re supposed to be making a pie throughout the entire song (aka “What Baking Can Do” from Waitress), for once you can literally get in your kitchen and do it for real!

Another upside to Zoom performances? No audience, or classmates. "I like that I'm able to really focus on myself." said Ashley Matlock, my other wacky Canadian friend who is passionate about Dunkin' Donuts, Emma Chamberlain, and saving sea turtles. "When we were in person, I often was distracted when watching other people in person and hearing people sing in a voice room." 

Duets are a whole other beast, and let me tell you why: not only is it difficult to be acting in a scene when your partner isn't physically in the room with you (can you imagine having to slap someone in the face over a zoom call?) but it is impossible to sing a duet live because of internet lag. One person will always be too much ahead or too far behind. Luckily, we've found a way around that. 

In this past semester, I was taking a music theatre class called Roles and Readings, where each studnet gets to take on a dream role of their choice, and then perform scenes and songs from that musical. In this class I chose the role of Bonnie Parker from the musical Bonnie & Clyde. For the duet, "Too Late to Turn Back Now", my wonderful scene partner who played Clyde sent me a recording of herself singing her parts in the song, and I used GarageBand to add her voice to my piano track. 

Then, every time we performed the scene in class, we would go through all the dialogue in real time; up until we get to the song. My scene partner would mute herself and lip-sync along while I played my track with her singing part. It can be a little weird seeing how the words someone is saying may not line up with what you're hearing, but what matters is we can still get through the song and you still have a scene partner to play off of. I really enjoyed all my duets this semester, so it makes me sad that I couldn’t have done the real thing in person.

But I do feel that online school can teach you many things about technology that we wouldn’t learn in person. Like getting the proper ring light, backdrops for self tapes, how to self-tape, how to sing on zoom…" Ashley says.

As a performer, this disconnected feeling is compounded. Acting is all about listening and reacting, giving and receiving energy. Having to do it all through Zoom can sometimes make it feel like you’re still doing a table read, so we have to work twice as hard to combat this feeling and be present in our scene.

Sierra said she felt like she was missing that spark too. "I don’t like the disconnection with other people. I feel like I can’t really know or meet any students in my classes. Also not being able to exchange and feel peoples energy for performances."

As far as dance classes go, we do what we can. Last semester I took ballet, which consisted mostly of barre exercises while I balanced on a kitchen chair in the basement. I personally discovered my love for ballet about 10 years too late so I'm grateful that in this instance I couldn’t do much besides focus on the basics. Another challenge for me was the fact that I was placed in a class that was far above my experience or skill level so I had to push myself to try even harder than I would if I were actually in person. 

My final semester will present its final, and biggest challenge. Night-time classes on an LA clock. Seeing as I'm in Wisconsin, I'm two hours ahead of Los Angeles. Normally, our final semester at AMDA has late night classes to give us time during the day to find survival jobs, a place to live, and go to as many auditions as we can before we graduate. 

Now that everything is online and the reasons for the late night classes are sort of moot, we'll still be taking them in the evening. This means that I won't be finished with class until nearly 1am most days. I don't think my mom is very excited about that one. I feel the most for my fellow classmates that are on the east coast, like Jenna, who’ll be on Zoom until 2am. “I’m scared it’s going to affect my productivity, and because they can’t guarantee we’ll be able to use the space at AMDA [New York] for classes I’m scared of getting noise complaints.”

It also doesn’t feel right to be approaching this final step without one of my best friends, Lesli Espinal. Her and I had every class together our entire freshman year and went through all the growing pains of college life and adjusting to high expectations. When we graduated in New York we decided to go for our BFA in LA together. Before getting sent home we had also been roommates. We would magically wake up at the same time every morning and silently fist bump in greeting—before we even felt awake enough to actually speak to one another. 

Lesli was also just around the corner when a stranger snuck into our dorm building and came to our door. When he asked me if I was home alone, I nearly told him I was in order to protect her, but it didn't matter-- she stepped into view when she heard the question just to show him that I wasn't. If COVID hadn't existed we were most likely going to go through the summer semester, graduate early, and then move to New York together. 

When virtual learning kept getting extended, Lesli wisely decided to wait and continue her education when she could do it in-person. I completely understand why she would want to wait to go back, if that were a viable option for me I would too, but it makes my chest hurt to think that she of all people has to wait in the first place. 

It's hard to be doing this without her because I've never met anyone so passionate about performing. I've watched her grow so much, and I've watched her work harder than anyone. I cannot tell you how many times it would be 10:30 at night, and we'd be with all of our friends, exhausted from a full day of classes and homework--but she'd be in that dance studio saying "just one more time." 

Her and I have been talking a lot about how we've just got to be patient before we can take the world by storm. We both know we're not done being roommates, and that we've both got big futures ahead of us. 

Online schooling is not ideal, especially for a senior year of college. Regardless, there have been so many moments when in class or performing that I truly enjoyed myself. More importantly, I’m still learning a lot. I'm very excited to graduate in June, and I'm determined to make the most of every last class I can.

Until the next cup of coffee,

Ken