X-Stream: An Online Play Reading About Reading Plays Online

All zoom productions are unintentionally Annie Baker plays. The prolonged silences. The awkward pauses.

The stark fourth wall created by your computer camera and the World Wide Web. One may think “hey that’s awesome! I love The Flick!” or “The Aliens is totally rad; I’d dig that happenstance,” but this unintentional theatricality comes at a price: control. As artists on zoom, we lack the ability to control pacing! Diction! WiFi! Outside car noises! Parent’s footsteps! And many other technical issues. This makes

productions- and rehearsals- harder than they’ve ever been before. In this piece, we get the inside scope on an attempted play reading. But will X-steam be an Alien success? Or a Flick turned Flop?