THE SHOW MUST GO ONLINE NOMINATED FOR THE STAGE AWARDS’ DIGITAL PROJECT OF THE YEAR
The Show Must Go Online has been shortlisted for the Digital Project of the Year Award at The Stage Awards 2020. The innovative Zoom theatre collective has been nominated alongside the National Theatre and Metcalfe Gordon’s digital productions of Romeo & Juliet.
The nomination from The Stage reads:
The Show Must Go Online was one of the first digital productions to take place after theatres were forced to shut because of Covid-19. Created by Robert Myles, and using Zoom, the first reading –The Two Gentlemen of Verona –went live on March 19, 2020, just days after the West End shut down and theatres across the UK closed.
The initial First Folio series took the form of readings of Shakespeare’s plays in what is believed to be chronological order. But once they completed this series, the project didn’t stop, it continued to evolve and grow across 2021.
Setting out to champion early-career and under-represented directors, and actively supporting global-majority, disabled and queer-led work, it produced readings of Doctor Faustus, Dido, Queen of Carthage and Gallathea, as well as a Marlowe-inspired cabaret.
The series eventually made a move away from the free-to-watch format to ticketed performances. At a time when audiences were starved of live performances and actors and creatives starved of work, The Show Must Go Online was one of the first projects to address this mutual need and to do so using gender balanced casting and proactive inclusion of under-represented groups.
It has also created a hardship fund for actors, so those experiencing difficulties in the pandemic could receive financial support. So far it has raised £23,534 in total. Viewing figures have also been extremely impressive, with the series attracting about 250,000 views from more than 60 countries.
Rob Myles, co-creator and Artistic Director said of the nomination, “We had a simple vision: to stay connected and creative at a time when the pandemic robbed us of both. It was a time of exclusion, isolation, shutdown, danger and fear, so we responded with a project we hoped would champion inclusion, connection, productivity, safe space, and hope. We had only the most rudimentary of resources, but we shared a mindset to do what we could. The execution required values-led practice, innovation, endurance, collaboration and community. In the beginning, the first thing we’d get asked was whether we would even finish the First Folio. Not only did we do that, but we went on to do so much more than that, and that same spirit of innovation is still driving us forward behind the scenes. Now, to be nominated alongside the country’s biggest producers is a testament to audacity, creativity in constraint, and shared passion.”