For St. Thomas University alumnus and artist Corenski Nowlan, trying his hand at digital theatre proved to be a challenge and success.
Nowlan’s theatre company, Herbert The Cow Productions, showcased its most recent production, Ice Age Coming, over Twitch, which saw more than 100 viewers tune in for its two showings.
At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, Nowlan said his company was faced with the challenge of creating theatre in a safe way. While he did put on shows outside, they also decided to try their hand at digital theatre.
Ice Age Coming was the second digital play produced by Herbert The Cow Productions, which he said was a more streamlined and polished product than their first digital show.
For the Twitch broadcast, the company streamed a Zoom meeting, pre-recorded videos and other media throughout the show. Nowlan said they had to come up with creative ways to keep their audiences’ attention.
“It’s a real challenge to keep people’s attention online. The way that we designed our two shows was that we had main stories and then we had companion content that went along with the stories,” he said.
Nowlan was excited about all the elements that were included in this production, especially a full-length original music video at the start of the play.
He said another challenge with the digital medium is the added technological complications.
“On the opening night of our show, we had so many tech errors. It was terrible,” said Nowlan.
He said the production went much more smoothly the following night. He also said that it’s important for audience members of digital theatre to remember that they are not watching a film.
“We’re not filmmakers, we’re theatre makers and the goal is to present theatre in the digital space. The goal is to not become filmmakers,” said Nowlan.
The show is still available online to view on Herbert The Cow’s YouTube channel.
