Ethan Heard
interviewed by Katharine Matthias
Katharine Matthias: You recently directed and adapted Lady M: An Online Fantasia this past spring. What have been your guiding principles for creating live performance in a virtual setting? Has it changed how you think about theater and directing?
Ethan Heard: Our guiding principles have been: Joy! Intimacy! Liveness! Flexibility and experimentation. We wanted to forge ahead with Lady M, and see what was possible online. Directing/producing is about team building and inviting collaborators to be creative together. This project reminded me of the basic exchange between artists and with our audiences. We all wanted to be in space together, experiencing the same thing live.
KM: When I saw Lady M, I was struck by your focus on audience engagement during the performance, and I loved being able to connect to other audience members through the screen. What influenced you to communicate with the audience directly throughout the performance? Did this develop while you were reimagining Lady M for a virtual stage?
EH: Yes, we realized we wanted to host “soirées” much like we do in a board member’s home: a mix of mingling, celebrating, performing, and talking. In the pandemic, we thought it would be especially important to interact with our audience and nourish our relationships with supporters — for everyone’s benefit. We decided to go for quality of audience engagement over quantity of viewers.
KM: Your House Manager became a hugely important part of the experience for its entirety. In a theatre, we may only interact with a house manager in the lobby. How did the importance of this role come about?
EH: Siobahn is a performer and savvy social media manager. She understood the importance of her role and really created it with us. We knew we needed to host people well so they felt taken care of in this new space. We gave a lot of thought to FAQs, pre and post show emails, troubleshooting, zoom settings, introductions etc. And we experimented throughout the run.
KM: You performed 32 sold-out Virtual Soirées on Zoom, reaching 740 households, more than 1000 individuals, across 5 continents. How did audience engagement change over the 32 performances? How did limiting audience size help you cultivate a sense of connection? Do you know if audience members stayed in contact with each other after these performances?
EH: We experimented with audience size: 15 guest households all the way to 30. I’d say we determined 22ish to be the sweet spot. Introductions and Q&A were super important to cultivating engagement and intimacy. We also experimented with how we invited audience members to intro themselves. We tried prompts like “what brings you joy during quarantine?” “What was the last live performance you saw?” Eventually we landed on “what brings you comfort during quarantine, in three words?” This helped keep things moving. For the Q&A we used two breakout rooms for a more intimate experience.
KM: I also loved Heartbeat Opera’s website where you map where audience members come from all over the world. Do you find that you widened Heartbeat Opera’s audience through technology? Did you notice audience engagement change based on where different audiences were coming from?
EH: Yes! It was super exciting to reach an audience all over the globe. We made sure to schedule matinees so folks in Europe and elsewhere could tune in more easily.
KM: Also, you invited the audience to dress up and come with a drink. Did audiences take you up on that? How did asking the audience to dress up and come with a drink change the experience of the live performance?
EH: Some did! We saw some great costumes and delicious cocktails. I think a lot of people are craving events and a sense of occasion. One person told us they loved buying a ticket and putting it on their calendar. We wanted folks to invite friends and meet each other at our soiree.
KM: What platforms and technologies did you experiment with while creating Lady M during your 10-day Remote Residency?
EH: We decided on Zoom and stuck with it.
KM: What have you learned about yourself as an artist through the production?
EH: This project provided me purpose and community during the early weeks of the pandemic. I poured myself into producing and directing LADY M as a survival mechanism and am really grateful for the comfort it gave me. I think that was true for many of my team members. We needed to stay creative and come together and celebrate art. I also learned that opera can really provide comfort to our audiences. And it was so gratifying to reach older folks and sick folks (one attendee was over 100!) who might normally have a hard time getting to the theater.
KM: After we can come together in-person, would you still keep this kind of virtual work going? Do you think your work with this virtual production will change how Heartbeat Opera Company will engage with audience members in the future?
EH: It has changed us and our approach. We need to keep experimenting with technology and virtual experience. We have several new projects in the works, including a virtual Fidelio project, a world premiere opera for Zoom, and an online salon series looking back at our first seven years. I’m excited to keep exploring.
