Workshops Help Fill a Summer at Home for Attendees

Jen Klenk during her workshop Building Your Personal Brand Through Social Media.

With only ghost lights illuminating stages in shuttered theatres around the country and in Utah, homebound devotees to the live arts were eager recently to dish a little about the James Lapine play Act One during Zac Curtis’ Broadway from your Couch workshop. Before the workshop, participants watched a 2014 videotaped version of the play, performed in the Lincoln Center Theater. Discussion then moved in and out of the play’s depiction of rags-to-riches playwright Moss Hart’s early career and his relationship with mentor George S. Kaufman. In short, it felt good to talk about theatre again, even if it was only while peering into a computer screen.

 

Salt Lake Community College offered a bevy of varied workshops this summer to educate and entertain during the COVID-19 pandemic, which has seen many people staying home to stay safe, albeit while looking for things to do. The free workshops, it turned out, were a great distraction from the monotony of self-imposed domestic detention.

 

“I have received many emails from people who have attended, thanking SLCC for this opportunity to learn during the COVID emergency,” says Kay Carter, program manager for Workforce and Continuing Education at SLCC and coordinator of the workshops. “I absolutely applaud the variety of the workshops that were offered – there was something for everyone.”

Jade Ozawa-Kirk offered helpful slides during her workshop.

In Stephen Williams’ Write Your Own Screenplay workshop, he presented his Webex audience with the tools needed to build a five-act masterpiece – or at least a rough draft. SLCC associate professor Jane Drexler’s Philosophy for Fun workshop had her virtual audience toy with Plato’s Allegory of the Cave and the Socratic Method. Jade Ozawa-Kirk took her patrons through the paces of stress management during her Mindfulness in a Time of Crisis webinar.

 

Some of the presenters among 32 different offerings through the college hosted two or three workshops, which were mostly attended by community members outside of SLCC who took advantage of signing up for multiple workshops. In some cases, the participation cap was removed, allowing for as many as 100 or more to register. “For those who took advantage of this opportunity, they had a very worthwhile experience,” Kay says. “I was so impressed with the quality of each and every workshop.” Many of the presenters told audience members as the workshops drew to a close about related subjects that are taught at SLCC. Kay says she believes the workshops will have a positive impact on course enrollment going forward.

 

Before everyone clicked “Leave Meeting” on their computers at the end of the Broadway workshop, Zac Curtis, an associate professor of theatre, head of the Theatre Program at SLCC and director of Black Box productions at SLCC South City Campus’ Center for Arts and Media, snuck in a plug for a play his students will be doing this fall. After talking during the workshop about how theatre is having to reinvent itself and come up with new ideas to reach audiences, Zac said his students will put on a roving production of Anton Chekhov’s The Seagull. Scenes will be played out in different locations as viewing areas are disinfected in between scenes for small groups – not exactly what Moss Hart or George S. Kaufman ever had to envision in their time. But, hey, consider it thinking outside of the box – the Black Box, that is.

Stephen Williams shared his own methods for writing screenplays.