As we enter Year 3 of the early 21st century pandemic, it's understandable why we might all long for nothing more than a life outside... outside the walls of Zoom.
The last couple years were dominated by stories of loss -- loss of income, loss of job security, loss of essential routines, loss of friendships, confidence and, of course, the worst loss of all: loss of life.
But scattered here and there, tucked behind and alongside the wreckage lie some unexpected gifts.
To many independent scriptwriters Zoom (with all its annoying limitations) brought unfamiliar opportunity into our worlds. Specifically, the chance to get your work in front of audiences quickly and cheaply and without the usual barriers erected by gatekeepers to keep 99% of writers at bay. Suddenly new pathways presented themselves which allowed the industrious writer to make an end run around gatekeepers who up until very recently were a necessary evil of the game of finding one's audience in a hyper-curated world.
Beyond that, Zoom has bridged geographical divides which, prior to the pandemic, made it highly unlikely that audiences in Seattle would ever discover a lone independent voice making work in Pittsburgh. Now, like never before, it is possible for people who fall in love with your unique artistic voice, to fill themselves on a steady diet of the work they love most no matter where it's being made.
For this reason alone playwrights and filmmakers would be making a grave mistake were we to simply eschew Zoom as an artistic venue out of some knee-jerk emotional (and partly rational too) desire to get as far away from anything we associate with life since March of 2020.
Every artist, no matter what your discipline, should think long and hard before turning your back on a proven tool for expanding the audience for your work.
But there's another value brought to you by Zoom which may be even more important, if a little less obvious as it operates at a deeper somewhat murky level. That is simply the value of a cheap, widely accessible laboratory in which to try stuff out with virtually no financial risk.
The practice of an artist's work is possibly one of the least understood and most overlooked pillars of a successful life in your chosen field. A sculptor needs her clay or marble or metal. A painter needs canvas and pigments. The scriptwriter needs actors and an audience. This is how we do our best sculpting. We write. We then hear the words brought to life by the actors in the presence of an audience. And based on what we observe, we edit. This is our laboratory. Take away either the actor or the audience from this equation and the data we depend on in order to shape our work and keep us honest, disappears or, even worse, leads us to misunderstand what it is we've made and how it works.
Anything that can provide a steady stream of chances to test your work this way must be cherished and protected and prioritized.
That is why in 2022, as we enter Year 3 of our CoVid-altered journey, Hear Me Out Monologues is staying right where you found us... in the Zoomie box, as Maine actress and author Lisa Stathoplos is fond of calling it.
And we can't wait to see what more you get up to when we see each other again... very very soon.
The 2022 Hear Me Out New American Monologue Competition is now accepting submissions from scriptwriters everywhere. For complete submission guidelines, visit the Hear Me Out site.
Roland Tec continues to host the weekly online open mic he began in late 2020. For more info (including registration instructions) visit Wednesday Gathering at Roland Tec dot com.
To never miss a new opportunity, join the Roland Tec Inner Circle.
