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Zoom; or, Obsolescence

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 September 2021

W.B. Worthen
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Abstract

The signal modality of theatrical production during the pandemic crisis of 2020–21 has been Zoom theatre. While Zoom theatre responds to public health concerns regarding virus transmission, it also articulates a vision of performance at the intersection of the public and the private, at the juncture between theatre and electronic media, and as a representation of theatre as a humanizing technology. Theatre has suggestively foregrounded new technologies under the sign of obsolescence, and in the affective register of nostalgia.

Type
TDR Continued…
Information
TDR , Volume 65 , Issue 3 , September 2021 , pp. 181 - 200
Copyright
© The Author(s) 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press for Tisch School of the Arts/NYU

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