2020 marked the 10th anniversary of Big Green Theater, and suddenly we became filmmakers. Though our classroom process was cut short due the COVID crisis, we were lucky enough to be able to continue paying our team of professional artists through the end of April, when our student-written eco-plays were scheduled to be performed at The Bushwick Starr. So we stepped into new territory, took on new positions, and transitioned to working remotely to create... Big Green Theater: The Movie!

We rehearsed nearly every day on Jitsi, an encrypted, open-source alternative to Zoom. In some ways, rehearsals were similar to our theatrical process: we reviewed the unique gestural vocabulary that we use and reuse for choreography; we had dramaturgical conversations and discussed the perspectives of our young writers and how they arrived at their wonderful ideas; we "hungout" using the app Slack, with channels such as "#whatdidyoueatforlunch?" and "#petsofBGT".

But in other ways, it was a wildly different process. The BGT production has always been a highly physical, ensemble event, relying on the timing of actors' bodies and live sound design; for BGT: The Movie, much of this work happened in post-production. So our rehearsals were more about choosing camera angles with whatever device actors had access to in quarantine, and solving storytelling challenges using common household props and a little movie magic. We're also held remote music rehearsals to record students' original songs, and while we missed harmonizing together in real time, the movie format offered us the opportunity to make professional-quality tracks with more instruments than we would have had on stage.

Meanwhile, our visual designers curated costumes from actors' closets, constructed magical mini-sets, puppets, and illustrations to bring the world of our play to life on screen. After weeks of filming, building, and recording, we edited these elements together. The result is two imaginative, musical, multimedia films, free for all to watch. 

Throughout the process, we focused on taking more care than ever, listening to what our brains and hearts and bodies needed in this time of grief and fear. At the forefront of our minds was what has always been essential about making theater: being together, caring together, building together a fabric of resilience for uncertain times.

*We were able to continue the BGT program and create a new culminating event that celebrates the students' work thanks to our generous supporters: the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs, City Council Members Antonio Reynoso, Rafael L. Espinal, and Stephen Levin, the Revada Foundation of the Logan Family, the Cornelia T. Bailey P/Arts Program, Con Edison, and the Lotos Foundation.

Video by Jess Lazar: jesslazar.com