Digital Works Podcast
Talking about all the different things that 'digital' means in the arts, culture and heritage sectors. Tales of success and failure, interrogating the shiny new things and looking at what works (or not) and why, Interviews with digital folks working across the sector and beyond, in-house, consultants, funders, and more.
Digital Works Podcast
Episode 008 - Molly Barson and Will Cantler (MCC Theater) on learning how to do digital work, rehearsals in quarantine, the benefits of live chat, and reaching new audiences
We sit down with MCC Theater's Artistic Director, Will Cantler, and Digital Marketing Manager, Molly Barson, to delve into their recent digital production of Alan Bowne’s Beirut starring Marisa Tomei and Oscar Isaac https://mcctheater.org/tix/beirut-benefit-play-reading/.
They speak openly about what they learned working in this way for the first time, what worked (and what didn't) and the surprises they encountered along the way. We discuss how to conduct rehearsals in quarantine, the benefits of live chat, the proportion of new audience members this reached, how to price this type of work, and loads more.
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Speaker 2:Hello and welcome to the Digital Works Podcast, podcast about digital stuff in the cultural sector. Today's episode, episode number eight, I think, features a conversation with Molly Barson and Will Kler from M C C Theater in New York. I spoke with Molly and Will in May this year, 2020, mid Coronavirus lockdown about the digital production of Alan Bounds play Beirut, which starred Marissa Tome and Oscar Isaac. This was a paid for live stream , very much developed within the constraints of lockdown, and it was the first time that M C C had ever done anything like this and Molly, and will speak really openly about what they learned working in this way for the first time, what worked and what didn't, and the surprises they encountered along the way. Uh , the first voice you'll hear is Will Kler, one of MCC C'S artistic directors describing the play. Then a conversation with Molly Barson , who's MCC C'S Digital Marketing Manager. And finally, along longer chat with Will we discuss how to conduct rehearsals in quarantine, the benefits of live chat, the proportion of new audience members this reached, how to price this type of work and loads more enjoy.
Speaker 3:Alan imagined a world where a highly contagious disease was ravaging New York City. The Lower East Side had been turned into a quarantine zone. All contact of any physical nature between people with strictly forbidden Central Park had been closed to human activity, and people needed to stay away from each other on the streets at the time that seemed dystopian. Uh, now it just seems prophetic,
Speaker 2:So, hi, Molly. Hi,
Speaker 4:Ash.
Speaker 2:Thanks for joining me to talk a bit about Beirut.
Speaker 4:Yeah, happy to be here.
Speaker 2:S so I, I thought maybe, maybe we'd start with the , the question has, or have M C C or had M c C ever done anything like this before?
Speaker 4:No, this was our first kind of foray into virtual producing. We kind of, when this all started, our director of Public Engagement and education, Tricia , like immediately jumped in and started hosting Zoom panels and like conversations and open mic nights and like totally took over the Zoom space. But this is the first time in our history that we've had to actually produce live theater online.
Speaker 2:And where did the idea originate?
Speaker 4:It actually originated with Marissa Tome. Um, she came, she was the star in the original production of Beirut when M c did it in 1987. Uh , and she came to Will and said, I've been thinking so much about Alan's play and I think it's a perfect time to resurrect it. And it kind of was like, well, how are you gonna say no, Marissa , we don't wanna do that. Sorry. Thanks <laugh>.
Speaker 2:And I mean, given that this isn't, it's not like your audiences are going, okay, when are M C C gonna do their, their next sort of online live streamed thing, and it feels like it came together quite quickly. Um, how did you, how do you, where do you start, you know, is it as a comms challenge, as a sort of sales challenge? Where do you start with Marissa Tamay coming to you saying, I think this play would work really well? Yeah . In the current crisis?
Speaker 4:Yeah. Um, we didn't know where to start. Um, it was chicken and the egg. It was car before the horse. It was, Marissa wants to do it. We don't have a male actor yet. Um, when can we go on sale? <laugh> And Harry and I were kind of like, when can we go on sale with what? Um, so we had a lot of conversations , um, in the marketing department, in the development department, in the audience services department about, okay, people are charging for these things so we know we can charge for it. How are we gonna structure the pricing? We're are we gonna sell it through Spectre as a GA event? Are we gonna try something like Eventbrite? Where are we gonna put it? Is it gonna be unlisted, private password? You know, all of that kind of stuff. Um, basically we, we started just with a hundred questions and tried to fill in all the blanks before we went on sale. And I think the biggest target was like, we only wanted to be on sale about five days before we did the thing. So once we set the target date, then we like backed out from that.
Speaker 2:And it , it was interesting to me 'cause I think in the, in the rush of everyone trying to do all the digital things all at once, because everyone's buildings and physical audience has been taken away for the time being. And it initially I thought, oh , $25, that's quite a brave price point. You know, flat $25 if you wanna access this, this sort of one-off event, that's what you need to play pay. That's the value we've put on it. Tell me a bit about how that conversation went internally. Was it very clear what you should, the price you should be putting on that? Or was there a bit of a tug of war between perhaps people who wanted to put it out for free or maybe people who wanted a price higher than that?
Speaker 4:Yeah, so we, this was an interesting learning. We looked at , um, there's a, a new service that just came out called Play Purview that are basically doing Zoom readings and they're charging anywhere between 25 and $40. Um, and they're all benefiting something, whether it's the theater that's producing it or a charity or something. And this was gonna be a benefit reading for us. That was kind of clear immediately. So we said, okay, why don't we do three pricing tiers? We'll have a five, a 15, and a 25 , but we don't know how many people are gonna come and we wanna make it seem like we sold outta the lower ones. So we're gonna have 30 tickets available at five, a hundred tickets available at 15 and unlimited capacity at 25. Within 20 minutes of the press release going out, before we had even sent our email to our database, the fives and fifteens were sold out. And then we were like, oh my God, we have something here. Um, so I think when we talk about pricing, the next reading, we're gonna open up those lower capacities a little bit. We didn't wanna be embarrassed, we didn't wanna never get to the 25. We didn't know if 30 people were gonna watch this or 3000 people were gonna watch it. So we were kind of taking our cues from other readings that we had seen, and also wanting nobody to complain that we didn't have an accessible price point, even though it was gone before they could've gone to the website.
Speaker 2:And it's interesting there that you sort of, you , you say that from the outset, it was clearly a sort of a benefit. 'cause I know you , you have your, you have your miscast every year, big gala that raises a lot of money for you. Um, lots of very starry, well-known names are always involved in that. And, and so from the outset, was this sort of strand of work, I guess, sitting in in that part of your thinking?
Speaker 4:Yeah, and I think , um, we, from the beginning it was like, we're gonna up cast this. I mean, it started with Marissa Tome, you're not gonna put her next to someone you've never heard of. You're gonna put her next to Oscar Isaac. Um, so I think that that for us was like, we are putting a value on this and we have to m meet that value proposition with the talent that we're putting on.
Speaker 2:How, initially, how, how were you thinking that you would, you would market this, you know, given that you don't have a track record, it's not like you have an existing digital constituency that are waiting for your next product was, and it , and it feels like, I mean, it happened in the middle of the night, so I didn't get to experience it, but it feels like it was a piece of theater rather than sort of people tuning in to observe a technical exercise. It feels like there was, there was , um, a theatrical quality to what you delivered. How did you go about sort of articulating what it was gonna be?
Speaker 4:I, I think that's , it's something we figured out as we went along. I think we started with like, we had to say like a virtual TV event for the, to be able to use the rights to the play because like , uh, some, like somebody owns the theatrical rights, somebody owns the movie rights. So we had to say a virtual TV event. Um, and then we had to kind of back out from that. We had to be like, okay, we're gonna just keep saying Marissa Tome and Oscar Isaac, we're gonna keep saying it's live. We're gonna keep on that. We didn't know really how to talk about what it was gonna look like, how professional it was gonna look. 'cause we didn't know, I mean, over the course of the week leading up to it, it went from like zoom to this like highly produced thing that we ended up with <laugh> . Um, so we kind of came from the lens of like, we're gonna talk about the celebrities. We're gonna talk about , um, the history of the play, the history of Marissa with M C C , um, and lean into that. It's our first time out of the game and we're gonna see what happens.
Speaker 2:People listening to, to this may be aware of our last Digital Works event. We were speaking a lot about digital storytelling and formats, and we talked a bit about live streaming and distribution. And we were fortunate to be joined by David Sable, who was the originator of NT Live and now was involved in setting up NT at home. And he spoke , um, really passionately about the rationale behind why they've, they've sort of, NT Live is an event, you know, it's event cinema, it's a broadcast into , into the cinema. They , they create an event around that and they've tried to take that same , um, sort of ethos into the work they've done with NT at home. So there's a sort of premier moment, and then it's, it's available after the fact, but only for a limited amount of time. And I think it, I found it interesting to see that, you know, you folks were doing this as, as, you know, like a , like a a live performance you have to, it , it , it had a, it ephemeral quality because it happened in that moment. And unless you were tuning in, you missed it. And I , I saw some chat on social media about people going, wait, what Oscar Isaac was doing? Well , where can I see that? And it's like, well, you , well, you , you can't. Um, and what was the sort , I'd be interested to hear a bit about the decision making behind that. Or is it, as you might have indicated in your last answer, was it actually a , a rights thing that ended up dictating the, the format of the event?
Speaker 4:Yeah, it was both. Um, it was , uh, part of our mission and our , uh, ethos, and we'll speak to this as well around producing, is like creating events. Like we're not producing four shows in a season. We're producing four or five events that you wanna be in the room for, you have to be in the room for. Um, and I think that this was the same thing. It was like, it's these two actors for one hour, one time and it's gone. Um, and, and part of it was the rights thing. We could have kept it up for like 24 hours, I think, but then it was also, we couldn't make it a private YouTube link because then you have to give every individual person access. So we had to make it unlisted, YouTube, and as safe as unlisted is, it's also, it's in search. It's can come up in search engines if you're clever enough. And we didn't want somebody who paid $25 or $50 or 75 if they were sending the link to multiple people. Um, and then someone who was crafty enough with Google to watch it for free, we wanted to preserve the paid experience for the people who paid. And in a lot of ways it worked really well. Um, we definitely had people who needed to refresh and missed a couple seconds. Um, we had people who didn't get the link in time and, and all of that. So there's definitely things we're learning. There's the time zone thing, it was the middle of the night for you and there was a lot of people in London who wanted to watch and in New Zealand and Australia and all of that kind of stuff. Um, so we're learning some about that of like, how do we leave it up? And we're, we have solutions for that now . We're partnering with Vimeo on kind of further and, and maybe doing password, protecting it there and leaving it there and doing that. Um, but for the first one outta the gate, the other thing is that we had no idea. We were like, what if it's terrible? What if it just goes horribly? And we've promised people we're gonna leave it up for 24 hours and we just wanna put it in the trash and forget about it. Um, it didn't, but uh, we were just like, let's leave this one ephemeral and we'll see what happens next time.
Speaker 2:<laugh> and I, I knowing that this had happened and I was, you know, looking through Twitter to see what people had been saying about it, and it , it seemed like there was quite a lot of a buzz of people, essentially second screening, you know, people live tweeting about their experience as they went. Which again, given that this isn't a regular thing for , for you folks and that phones in theaters is something that's actively discouraged, how, how was, how was that? Did you as M C C sort of get involved in that and help to amplify that conversation? Or were you just sitting on the sidelines quite pleased that actually people were talking about the thing that you were doing?
Speaker 4:So it was kind of , um, a bit of both. We actually , um, engaged , uh, we work with a company called Yes Broadway , uh, for influencer marketing. And we engaged with them and basically said, pick 200 influencers, some of whom have relationships with MCC c some of whom, you know, can reach these people's audiences and tell them, we'll give you the link for free if you post about it beforehand. Does this no good for them to post the play afterwards? 'cause nobody can buy a ticket. Um, and we've got like 30 bytes on it and they amplified the message like crazy. We had people who, we had somebody who made a TikTok of their whole apartment getting dressed up for a night at the theater and then showing it. Um, so that was really cool. So on the front end we were like, we wanna create a buzz beforehand and we know these people may live tweet it. We weren't necessarily encouraging that because you couldn't tune in during it. So we didn't want too much fomo 'cause you literally couldn't see it , um, in any other way. But what we didn't anticipate was the live chat on YouTube. I was just in a meeting where we were talking about this and I was quoting the social network of like, we don't know what it is yet. Like, this thing is really cool, but we don't know what it is. And we were like, do we turn off the YouTube chat? And then it created this kind of amazing discussion during the show of like, people, like, I wish we would get a talk back with the playwright. Oh , the playwright actually died from aids. That's kind of how the story came to be. Oh, blah blah, blah, blah, blah. Like, and I think that we had no expectation of that or like the memes of Oscar's facial expressions afterwards and kind of what that was gonna look like. Um, and we almost turned the chat off and then I was like, let's just moderate it and see how it goes. And we, it was amazing. And we had a similar experience with our first , uh, live lab this week. Yeah,
Speaker 2:No , I think that's a really interesting aspect of this, particularly for M C C . 'cause I remember when we first started working together and I was in New York kind of disgustingly hot August <laugh> , um, and just everything was sweaty. Um, but I remember sitting down and so many people that I was talking to at m c about, you know, what it , what is this company? Why do you exist? You know, the idea of conversation, that idea of sparking debate came up time and time again. And it's really interesting that actually in a really visceral, obvious real time way this was doing that.
Speaker 4:Yeah. And I think that's like what we stumbled into. It was like, oh, we're creating the mission online. Look, we did it , um, <laugh> and uh, and I think that now we're like, okay, how do we moderate the YouTube chat? How do we encourage people to go to the website? How do we encourage people to come back next time? Um, and I think that now that we've seen that, oh, people actually do participate in these things and it is sparking conversation , um, it it's really exciting for us in , in the mission-driven work and
Speaker 2:Talk. I'm interested now just think looking a bit about sort of internationalization that I think all of this digital activity presents as an opportunity for, for everyone that's engaging with it. And I was having a , a look before our conversation at , at your Google Analytics data, and I noticed, you know, there were ticket buyers for this event from across the globe, you know, from Japan to New Zealand, to Brazil to uh , Mexico. Do, have you had a chance to do any evaluation yet ? You know, the people that are buying tickets for this, do you have , can you share, you know, is this new audience, was it yours? Was it, I imagine there was a , a core of highly engaged people anyway that you, you know, you see them all the time, but what was the split between your core constituency and that new international audience? And do you have any sense of who those people are?
Speaker 4:Yeah. Um, I can share, I actually just pulled the numbers , uh, earlier today. So we sold , um, 1,509 tickets, 1,376 of those people had never been to an m c event before. Um, wow . This was almost entirely new audience. Um, which isn't crazy. Um, and I think, you know, that doesn't account for, you know, the comps, so to speak, the patrons, the board members and things that would've bought a ticket and they may have for their children or whatever. But there was more than that, watched the event 'cause of the sharing we did with staff and whatever. Um, but in almost entirely new audience. I think that a lot of it is Marissa's audience. A lot of it is Oscar's audience. They have dedicated fan bases. Marissa's very active on social and she was really helpful in promoting it. Um, we have all of the influencers fan bases, and we just have people who, I mean, our miscast videos get between four and 9 million views like a year. It's crazy. So we have people who are on our YouTube channel but don't really know who we are and then kind of get hit with a social, a they get hit with an email 'cause they ended up on our database or whatever, and then suddenly this is something they can come to and this is something they can be a part of. And also the play has a bit of a following, which I didn't know there was someone in the chat from Puerto Rico who was actually supposed to produce , um, Beirut this year and they didn't get to , um, and they were kind of like really emotionally touched of being able to watch it produced again. And I think that's just so cool. And
Speaker 2:I , I mean that , those numbers are astounding to me, really. And and obviously as, as you've indicated, there are very clear reasons for , for why all those new people chose to spend money with you. But does that, you know, what's the , what's the plan? What are you gonna do with all these new people <laugh>?
Speaker 4:Yeah. Um, so I think that we immediately kind of Harriet and I, and particularly Harriet afterwards, where it's like, let's not kid ourselves into thinking that a majority of these people ever are ever gonna walk through our doors. And that's okay. 'cause we're gonna be creating digital content for a long time. And once we actually are producing again, we may be capturing those performances and doing a little bit. I think a lot of people are gonna be looking at the NT Live model. I mean, I've been looking at their Frankenstein videos, at their stats about how they did the YouTube giving and like all of that to, to emulate it because we're gonna be doing that for a long time. Um, and I think that our plan is to, to target them with all of our upcoming live events, to segment them out, to hit them with miscast and all of our really starry stuff that we're gonna have coming up. Because the other thing is like, we can up cast everything. Everyone's just sitting at home <laugh> , nobody's on other projects. Um, so I think that that's really cool to be able to have this, I mean, what other time of year besides when we do miscast, do we get an an insurgents of 1400 new people in our database? Like, that's crazy.
Speaker 2:And it, it's really exciting to me, you know, as someone who's passionate about this sort of stuff all the time , um, that it feels like everything that you are saying to me indicates that this isn't going to just be a one-off. And actually it feels like it's not even just gonna be a , a covid covid thing. It feels like it's sort of opened up a conversation and a way of working that . I mean, from what you're saying and the way you're saying , the way you're talking feels like actually there's quite a lot of investment in that as a, a longer term thing really as a , a strand of the way that you work. Would that be fair? Yeah,
Speaker 4:I think that's definitely fair. I think that, I mean, we've now actually made a financial investment in it. We , um, used , uh, e a m for the first reading and we , um, for Beirut, and we hired Paul ek from broadway.com who had produced a couple of these. He did the Rosie O'Donnell thing. He did lips to get their teeth apart, buyer and seller. And we were like, you know what? We're not there yet. Let's just hire someone who knows what they're doing. Um, and it, the front end user experience was amazing. The back end is just not great for the actors. They're on like a Skype connected to ECA m it's like a mess. Um, so we did a bunch of research on what the strongest platform out there is, and it , uh, we landed on Vimeo and they have their own livestream studio software. They have their own backend platform. Um, and we entered into an enterprise partnership with them and we're committed to two years with Vimeo. Um, and, you know, it might not all be producing live content. There's other benefits to having an enterprise Vimeo account, but we, it became very clear immediately to leadership, to us, to everyone that we have to make an investment in doing this right and learning how to do it , um, in-house and being able to produce some of the best life content out there. I mean, I think that one of the things about M C C that I love about working here is like, we're never content just doing it. We have to figure out how to do it better than everyone else is doing it.
Speaker 2:And it's really interesting that , you know, in a , in a previous life I worked with film and television directors and I know that different mediums that require very different directorial skills. And it's interesting to hear there that it feels like quite immediately that realization was made at m c and you went out and you found someone with the skills to help you put this together rather than someone going, well, I'm a director, I can probably turn my hand to that to give it a go.
Speaker 4:Yeah. And it's kind of crazy because I think that , um, you know, in the nature of young and scrappy theater, it's like, well, you know, Molly does digital so she probably knows how to do this <laugh> . Like , I dunno how to do this. Um, now I do, but I didn't at the time. And we were kind of like, look, we don't wanna delay this another two weeks. It's okay to make an investment in somebody else doing it for now. And then we learn, and now I am going to, you know, digital producer school basically, and trying to learn how to each reading, you know, we get a little bit better and we get a little bit more advanced. And directors ask for newer and different things that they've seen other people do. And , and I think, yeah, we are fortunate that our, that our leadership were able to say, you know what, you're right, we want this to be the highest quality thing possible. Let's do what it takes and not just like, stream this from Zoom to YouTube.
Speaker 2:And it's been interesting to see that, you know, al almost immediately you announced this Live labs , um, strand of, of one act readings on a, on a Wednesday at a much more Europe friendly time, I note
Speaker 4:<laugh> . That was taken into consideration, <laugh> ,
Speaker 2:<laugh> . And it was also interesting to me that initially it certainly the first one at least was, was put up , um, without, without any , uh, cost attached to it. C can you talk me through the sort of decision making behind that process? It is , it sounds like from what you said already, that going forward the mix will be, there'll be some things that will be paid for and some things that will be free. Um, how do you decide on , is it a case by case basis?
Speaker 4:Yeah, so the live labs, we kind of all had a lot of conversations and we, the artistic department particularly, and we agreed, felt very strongly that they , it's mission-driven work that should be available for free. There's gonna have to be more free content now for people to watch it. I mean, we, we did our first one, Frankie and Will on Wednesday at five 30. It's up until Saturday at midnight. Um, and it has , uh, almost 2000 views now, and it had just under a thousand during the actual live stream . So you're getting more eyes on it, you're not putting a barrier and it's a 25 minute play. What are you gonna charge for that, really? Um, and I think that we, we don't want audience members to be denied content, especially people who aren't working, especially people who just need these kinds of theatrical experiences. Um, and we kind of, not that any of our work isn't mission-driven, but like separating the mission-driven work from like the benefit kind of stuff. And there's gonna be more benefit readings that are gonna be really, really focused, again, on the same way as Beirut of raising money, of getting new people into our database of generating new streams of revenue.
Speaker 2:Beyond the things that I've seen on, on social media from , in terms of audience feedback, have you, what has the audience reaction been? Like, have people got in touch? What have , what have , how have people received what you've been doing?
Speaker 4:I mean, the biggest thing we've been hearing is thank you, thank you for offering it. Thank you for producing it. Thank you for creating space for people, for creators to, and, and actors and , and things like that. And I think that that's amazing. I think after Beirut, we had some people would be like, I didn't get the link and I couldn't refresh and I want a refund. And that's just the nature of working in a theater. But I overwhelmingly the response has just been like, thank you. Um, and I think it's been pretty cool , um, you know, for some random Oscar Isaac fan account to tweet like a meme of him and 30 people be like, what was this? And just get like a bunch of mentions and being like, people who have never heard of us being like, oh, M C C produced this reading. And that's, I think that's really cool , um, to, to get that like spread and exposure that like, you know , we have dedicated fan bases for a lot of our shows and our actors, like the musicals always kind of get a cult following. Alice by Heart has a lot of following all over the world, and like, this is just taking that and expanding on it. And I think I feel really proud to be creating theater like this during this time because people need it. Like, my mom watched Beirut and she was crying and she was just like so grateful that it was happening. Obviously very proud of me, but like, it's just the, the gratitude is, is kind of wonderful. And
Speaker 2:On a, on a final, a final question. So I realize we're slightly overrunning, but you know, people are listening to this and, you know, they work at a theater or , or they work in , in the performing arts and they've, they've never done a live stream before. You know, digital for them has very much been about marketing shows and selling tickets. What would your advice be to those people? What, where, you know, what, what are the things to try, try your hand at be brave? What are the things to definitely pay someone to do? What , what are Molly's top tips when it comes to doing something like this for the first time?
Speaker 4:Um, I think for the first time, my biggest advice that we learned is like, don't assume the skillset sets are there. Find the people with the skill sets and, and know that there are people whose job this is to produce livestream events. And like, you don't have to go to the top of the line, but like most of them are willing to talk to you even if you don't hire them. Like, go find the people who are already doing this. Ask them questions and then start where you're at. If you're like, at a regional theater in Cincinnati, you're probably not getting a Vimeo Enterprise account. Maybe you are, but probably not. And I think that that's okay and start where you're at. If it's Zoom at first, great . If it's ECA m or it's Streamy Yard , or it's one of the more user-friendly, find someone who's got the passion and the time to figure out how to do it and just put it out there. Right now we're in probably for the next like 10 days, maybe two weeks we're in the part of the Overton window where people are gonna tolerate the Skippy streams and the cutting in and out. And then when we get into the summer, the Overton window's gonna shift and they're gonna want a higher quality stream. And that's what we're talking about for our next ones of like, oh, okay, now what? Because the, the tolerance is going to go from like, oh, I don't mind, you know, ads on Hulu to, oh my God, if I watch another ad here, take my $11 a month, I can't handle it anymore just because everything is online. We're in the , in the part now where your audiences are gonna tolerate the green box around the zoom, but not for much longer .
Speaker 2:And one, one final, final question, I , I promise, but again, around commercial models, I guess, and this is maybe too early to tell, but I'm gonna ask the question anyway. 'cause I've, I've always been very interested in the idea of digital subscription, digital memberships, and, you know, I've always had, they've always been very pie in the sky conversations because people can see the value, I think. But then the, the operational reality , you would have to produce a lot of content. And until recently, most organizations simply haven't had that as a priority to be, to be producing enough content in order for a digital subscription or a digital membership to be worth the money you'd be paying. Ha . Have those conversations started at M C C now that you've sort of got a bit of a roadmap for what content looks like? Yeah,
Speaker 4:So where we're at right now is for Frankie and Will and for all of our live labs. We actually have a two-tiered experience. The general public is watching on YouTube and they're getting the show. And then our patrons right now, and we're likely gonna open this up to subscribers and other members of our constituency , um, are getting a talk back on Vimeo afterwards. So they're getting access to the Vimeo Stream , um, and then an exclusive talk back with the casting creators. So right now we're in the stages of how do we take the people that have already committed to coming back to us when we're back in the theater, the people that have resubscribed, that have donated, that have a re-up their patron memberships and giving them something to have in the meantime. Um, and then I guess we'll go from there in terms of like, are we actively gonna try to seek new people to give this extra thing? What I don't think we wanna do is put a paywall around anything that we wouldn't have a paywall around. It's like the two tiered experience of like, you're not necessarily, you're not gonna get to see a show that somebody else isn't gonna see probably, but you are gonna get to ask Michael Yie a question afterwards. And I think that that is enough right now to entice maybe not a 250 or $300 spend that we would normally get from a subscriber, but 25, 50 for four live labs or whatever the next series is.
Speaker 2:Brilliant. Thanks Molly .
Speaker 4:Thank you. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2:Hi, will, thank you very much for joining me today.
Speaker 3:I'm delighted to be here. Thanks.
Speaker 2:Um, I'm really looking forward to our conversation about Beirut and the, the new digital activity that M C C has been doing. Um, maybe a good place to start is just to hear a little bit about Beirut. The , the play itself, I know it plays an important , has an important place in m c theater history. Could you tell us a little bit about the play?
Speaker 3:Absolutely. So Alan Bound wrote the play back in , uh, 1986, and M C C started as a theater company that year. Um, that's the first thing that we ever produced. Alan imagined a world where a highly contagious disease was ravaging New York City. The Lower East Side had been turned into a quarantine zone. All contact of any physical nature between people was strictly forbidden. Central Park had been closed to human activity and people needed to stay away from each other on the streets at the time that seemed dystopian. Uh, now it just seems prophetic. Uh , we did the play with , uh, Marissa Tome who gave an extraordinary performance and it got terrific reviews from the New York Times and ended up moving off Broadway. And it's the thing that really put us on the map.
Speaker 2:And I I understand that this , uh, this most recent performance of it originated with Marissa bringing the play, bringing the piece to you. Um, can you tell me a little bit about that conversation?
Speaker 3:Absolutely. Well, the play has certainly been on our minds for over 30 years because it was such an extraordinary piece of work, a tight one hour love story as it were. Um, but I think it was early March when all the news and the headlines was starting to really hit, but the full shutdown thing hadn't quite happened, that Marissa reached out to Bernie, Chelsea , one of our other artistic directors to say, gosh, I just can't get Alan's play off of my mind with everything that I'm seeing and hearing these days. And that triggered something in us immediately. We thought, it's time to hear this again.
Speaker 2:And the, the form that the most recent , um, manifestation of Beirut has taken, you know, an entirely online experience. I , as far as I understand, this is not a way in which m c theater has delivered work before. Um, and a alongside that, obviously we're all living in various degrees of lockdown. Could you, could you tell me a little bit about what, you know, what is the, the artistic process or what is the artistic process that you've been through over the past number of weeks that has led to, you know, producing and delivering work in this way? Where do you, where do you start with something like that?
Speaker 3:So when everything began to shut down, and we were in the middle of production on two plays, we had one play that had two weeks left in its run. We had another play that was supposed to start tech rehearsals the next day, and all of a sudden on March 12th, Broadway shut down and we closed our theater that night. We actually have a huge set sitting in one of our theater spaces with all the lights hung and focused just sitting there gathering dust right now. Wow. Um, cut to a hard pivot into an existential crisis, <laugh> . And , uh, and we immediately started thinking besides every other question about survival and finances , um, we're an organization that is about storytelling on some fundamental level. Yes, we're about storytelling in a theater, and we have our own space and on stages where we have told our stories before, but telling stories, bringing an audience together, creating innocence , some sort of campfire where we can all listen , uh, is fundamental to our D n a. And the next question is, well, how do we do that when, for the foreseeable future, we're not going to be able to physically gather around the campfire? And that's when we started thinking about what kind of programming can we do that isn't trying to make a little movie? I mean, we're not gonna be Netflix, that's, that's not us , um, but embraces the kind of medium that we have available and we have available in an immediate and scrappy and affordably budgeted way. Um, and that's what got us thinking about the kinds of programming that we're doing now. Um , Beirut was one of the first things. We had done a couple of Zoom readings , um, really internally, not, not for sharing with people and a reading on Zoom, and I have also attended any number of them since , um, they're great in their way. Um, but we wanted to do something that had , uh, production values isn't the wrong way, but less of the distraction of a Zoom reading. And , um, and so we started looking around at what, what the technologies were that were available and , uh, came to look at some of the work that some other people had done , uh, especially with a software called e a m . So we came around to deciding to do Beirut through e a m . Uh, it was actually, do you want me to get into all these kind of technical details ?
Speaker 2:I , yeah , I think I , I think it is really interesting because I think the audience who are gonna be listening to this are going to be people in a similar position to selves who have maybe not embarked down this route. And so therefore, I think this sort of operational nitty gritty is useful information because a lot of people just simply won't know where to start or what the options are.
Speaker 3:Sure. Um, so we started looking into technologies and , um, we had seen a few things that had been done with , um, a program called , uh, eec a m Um, I think the , uh, Steven Sondheim , uh, uh, birthday , uh, broadcast was done through eec a m Um, the Rosie O'Donnell benefit was done through EEC a m . Um, and so we reached out, we engaged somebody who knew how to do that and set it up , uh, with , um, a backend of a Skype call. And then that got switched through e a m and broadcast out to our audience. Uh , it was , uh, for the audience watching, I think a pretty terrific experience that looked really, really good. The backend of it was difficult. The Skype call was , uh, which is the only thing that the actors were experiencing was the Skype call. Right. They were not seeing what was going out. They were only on the Skype call. And I was on the Skype call as well because I was doing the stage directions. Their experience was something that was really , uh, bulky and felt like it kept freezing a lot and stuttering. And , uh, I can tell you I was panicky through the entire hour that this whole thing was a catastrophe. And the only thing, only reason I knew it wasn't is because I kept getting some text messages from some people who were watching and saying, oh my gosh, this looks fantastic. This is going so well. This is fantastic <laugh> . But the backend experience was really difficult. Um, and , uh, it's a huge credit to those two actors and the way they engaged with each other that it soared the way it did.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And I , I , I think the point that you made when you said, you know, you weren't trying to make a film, I think is , is exactly the spirit that people should be entering into this sort of thought process , um, this sort of activity with, because you're, you're gonna , you're setting yourself up for failure if that's the, the way that you're going to try and judge that. And it feels like the way that you approach this at M C C is it, it wasn't a Zoom, it wasn't a read a Zoom reading, you know, it wasn't a sort of people dialing into a technical exercise. It felt like somehow you managed to achieve a level of theatricality , um, in, in the way that you did this. Uh , what was the, this is not a question that I, I sent you in advance, but I'm interested because it sounds like you had to get real trust and buy-in from Oscar and Marissa in order for this to work, you know, working in , and for you as well, working in a new way , uh, with technology that feels like it's maybe going off the rails and you're not really sure and you are , you're in it. Talk to me a bit about that, that dynamic between the two actors, but also with you as, as, as the person directing, directing this thing. What was that working dy dynamic like? Yeah,
Speaker 3:Absolutely. You know , uh, we actually did our rehearsal on a Zoom call. Um, and in that , um, uh, first rehearsal , uh, Oscar said something just as we were starting , uh, and when I said hello to them and said, you know, really, like, it's great to be working with you all, and thank you for jumping in and being willing to do this. And Oscar said, Hey, we're non-essentials. This is what US non-essentials can do now. And it was brilliant 'cause it really kind of set a tone for this , um, that , uh, hey, we're in, we are in this together and this is the thing that we can take a shot at. This is the thing that we can try to do. Um, so that first rehearsal was a lot of like reading through the play, starting and stopping , uh, figuring out what stage directions we could get rid of. I wanted to get rid of as many as possible. And actually the two of them made me put some back in , um, <laugh> . But , um, uh, and I have to say, it is one of those things we, we did that read through . And I remember thinking afterwards, okay, well if these two people read this this way tomorrow night, then this is gonna be a really good experience. And then the next day we did a full tech rehearsal using the technology, which was complicated. I mean, it was really a lot of like figuring out settings and trying to set expectations for them. And , um, bless them. They both , uh, and Patrick Bree , who was also in it, all three of them could not have been more , um, not, not nervous, <laugh> because they were definitely nervous, but also really game really , um, like brought a spirit of like, okay, okay, we're gonna do this. We're just gonna do this. Um, and then when they got into performance, the two of them really lit up in a kind of astonishing way. Uh , and I remember about half through realizing that I could cut out some of those stage directions that they had made me put back in because they were actually fully in their own spaces acting it. Um, Marissa had a lot of questions about go about it, going into it, about whether she should be really close to the laptop or further away from the laptop, or, and we established in rehearsal, oh, what worked for her was putting the laptop on the back of her couch and leaning over the couch and then just being able to use the couch. She could , she could get back up onto the arm of the couch or lean forward over the back of the couch. Um, Oscar just had a , an instinct, I thought, very wisely to really drop right into his frame and stay there, which was correct for the intensity of the character. I , I can't overstate, a lot of this comes from just the imagination of these two really terrific actors as well as Patrick Breen, who , um, played a guard who breaks in , uh, to examine them just using his iPhone flashlight to play the flashlight and shining that into our camera. Uh, all of it kind of led to , um, a low-fi , high-end experience <laugh>.
Speaker 2:And how much time did you have, you know, in , in the runup to, to , to rehearse and to prepare? Was it just a couple of sessions, a co a few days? It
Speaker 3:Was, we spent, we spent , uh, not quite two hours on the first day doing , uh, read through stopping and starting, but basically just reading our way through once and stopping and answering questions and that kind of thing. Um, the next day we did a almost a two hour tech rehearsal. Um, and then the broadcast we got online at half hour , um, 30 minutes beforehand and , um, just, just like you would do in a real theater. Yeah . Um, we were all online at half hour and uh , we actually ended up with that going online at half hour. Actually had a little bit of a panic attack because Marissa's , uh, ear pods dropped out and she ended up having to reboot her computer. And I spent , uh, quite a bit of time on the tele telephone with her talking her through, because the computer was really not behaving nicely. Um , and watching the clock count down to our seven 30 start time <laugh> , and she finally got back on everything set up, logged back in with her ear pods working at I think 7 28 Wow. For a seven 30 start.
Speaker 2:Wow. <laugh> .
Speaker 3:So there was a lot of adrenaline Yeah . In all of that too.
Speaker 2:Crikey. But, but despite the , the lack of a huge amount of rehearsal time and with the technical challenges, it seems like everything I've seen and everything I've heard that it was a , a huge success. A and it feels like already M C C have announced a series of, of Wednesday events that we'll be, do be looking at other, other pieces of work being performed in as far as I understand it a similar way. Um, and I'm, I'm interested in understanding, 'cause it feels like Beirut was, was almost tailor made for the current crisis that we find ourselves in. Of course , it was so prescient. I imagine there aren't huge numbers of plays that, that exist in such a a , a way that is so obviously relevant and perhaps nor would you want to just be trotting out quarantine play after quarantine play. How are you deciding which plays get performed in this strand of work moving forward? You know, what elements make a piece appropriate for this? I know you spoke with N P R and you said it wasn't just about subject matter.
Speaker 3:That's correct . It's , uh, so this is an evolving process for us. Um, we did Beirut and then , uh, we announced a series of five one Act plays that we would do at five 30 in the afternoon. Um, some of the aesthetic thinking behind that was, and this is also based on our experience, a full length play, a two hour play with an intermission through most of the streaming technologies, feels like a big ask of an audience. Um, and they can absolutely, you know, go watch something on Netflix or H B O or any Hulu or on and on and on and on and on. Um, so part of our thinking was what can we give an audience that engages the actors they know , um, that engages the voices and does it in a way that feels like , uh, connected, achievable, manageable, and frankly, in, at this point in time, doesn't mess with your dinner , um, <laugh> and , uh, leaves you free in the evening. So we settled on doing one acts and we solicited a number of writers we've worked with, and some of them , uh, pulled things out that they'd had before. Um, some of them have written new pieces. Uh, our criterion for choosing it is that it felt like something that in one way or another dropped into the possibilities of this, and we're still exploring the possibilities of this. Um, I think , uh, an analogy I would use is that M C C is like an athlete who was achieving very well in their sport and has just changed sports. You're still fit <laugh>, hopefully you're still talented, but you're using a different muscle group and , uh, some days you can really feel it more than others. Um, so we're trying to look at things that , uh, that feel like they respond to this. So I have read someone X that involve a huge amount of physical action that's just not going to be responsive to this. Um, I've looked at others that , uh, really kind of lean into intimate conversations that respond very well. We did one, we , we have one coming up that was actually written as , uh, a very, very short screenplay that the writer is adapting into this. And I think we're excited about the challenges that she's going to face with that. Um, one of the other things that's been important to us, we've been trying to engage directors in all of this and engage the stage directors who we know. Um, and it's been interesting looking at those responses because there have been stage directors I've reached out to about participating in this who have just told me straight up, I , I don't know what to do with myself right now. I, I can't figure this world out and I just need time and space. Yeah. And I really respect that. There are other people I've spoken to who are like, yeah, this isn't what I thought I was gonna be doing, but this is the world I'm excited to figure out right now. And I think that's a thing for us at M C C as well. It's the world that we have realized. I don't think we realized it right away, but we've realized now this is the world we have to figure out now, and let's get excited about this. Let's get excited about the possibility of reaching audiences who never had physical access to our theater before. Um , and also reach audiences who had physical access to our theater, who don't have physical access to any theater now and want to come on the journey with us. H
Speaker 2:Having settled that, you know , it feels like this has been an invigorating positive experience. It's, as you say, forced you to flex some existing muscles in new ways. What would be perhaps your words of encouragement or, or your reflections on your experience so far directly to other artistic leaders who are maybe looking at this new way of working, you know, this new way of performing and distributing work, engaging with audiences with a degree of trepidation or suspicion. Uh , as I said earlier, this is not a way of working that m c c has, has done lots of in in the past. It feels like you've come to it quite quickly and it really embraced, embraced it as a learning opportunity. What would you say to other artistic leaders around the world who are facing many of the same challenges that you will have done?
Speaker 3:Well , you know , there are a few things. One of them is certainly a privilege that we have had is that we have really strong internet access. And that is something that's made a lot of what we're doing possible. So I do have to reflect that there are a lot of theater companies around the world who are dealing with this kind of , uh, quarantining and social distancing right now who maybe don't have the same level of technical privilege honestly, that, that we're dealing with. Having said that, I feel like if you have that, it's your obligation as a nonprofit , as an educator, as an artist , uh, as a citizen of the world, to lean into it, to take on what you can do to continue telling stories to the world.
Speaker 2:Brilliant. And on that note, will, thank you very much,
Speaker 3:Ash. Thank you. This was really lovely.
Speaker 2:Thank you very much to Molly and Will for spending a bit of their lockdown time chatting to me. Uh , you can find Molly on Twitter at Molly rb 93 . I'm on Twitter at Big Little Things. Digital Works is on Twitter at Digital underscore works underscore . And if you want to check out what MCC Theatre are up to there@mcctheatre.org . Until next time, stay safe. Bye.
