Jared Mezzocchi
Interviewed by Reed Leventis
Reed Leventis: The first thing I wanted to ask you is about something you said in one of the preview videos for The Digital Renaissance Project. You mentioned that you talked to the children and asked them what they needed during this time of isolation. I’m very curious: how did they answer that question?
Jared Mezzocchi: What they really were cautioning me and any adults in the situation against trying to solve the problem. They were more inclined to get a platform that could allow for conversation so that they could have input about things throughout the process. On one hand, I can give them online programming-okay that's cool, but they really wanted to be a part of what the programming looks like as opposed to us just telling them to get involved with certain things.
That was really helpful, because I think that their request for conversation was also hinting at “You guys might get it wrong, too,” and “You don't really know us: we know, technology, and use it in interpersonal ways that adults don't use it for.”
So their biggest thing was not even talking about content, but just the form in which we are developing our programming needs to be more conversational.
RL: After hearing this feedback, what did your conversation with your adult teaching artists look like?
JM: We basically told the teaching artists that we want to listen to the kids. The kids want to be collaborators and they want to be a part of and affect the system. Something that is very unique to Andy's Summer Playhouse is that we make sure that both investment plans are at their highest. The adults often come in saying, “Oh man, I don't know. I've never worked with kids,” or, “Do you think this or that is appropriate?” I've really tried to change that conversation. I like to frame their experience as an artist residency program - they're an adult who has an idea that we want to invest in. So they come in, make their work, and are passionate about their work. The only twist for them is that their worker bees are going to be between the ages of eight and eighteen, but that shouldn't stop the two parties from communicating eye-to-eye. So, ultimately, the artists come in from an artist residency perspective and the kids come from an empowered collaborator perspective.
Finally, the most important thing with Andy’s that surrounds these two perspectives is that it's all new work, so nobody knows if any idea even is going to work. This too is very helpful because it reinforces the level playing-ground. It would be different if we had a director come in and do Bye Bye Birdie because they know it works already and know how the process for the piece should function. Instead, here you have this really amazing collaboration to figure out a new piece. Now especially, with this new era of technology, the adults that are coming to the space and are learning Zoom at the same level that the kids are. I even find that the kids flexibility and fluidity with technology kind of makes them the expert in that virtual space. This is another instance of leveling the playing-ground.
It's ultimately important to me to not establish a conveyor belt, one way or the other: it shouldn't be an adult telling the kids what to do and it shouldn't be the kids leading the adult too much, so it's about finding that balance.
RL: Do you think one of the many things that your kids bring to the table is that they're much more prepared to interact socially over the internet: they're used to this kind of interaction?
JM: It feels that way. Actually, a lot of our children on the spectrum are becoming rock stars because there's less visual noise around them or stimulation around them. They are in a space that they've made that is secure and focused. Whatever the environment they need, they have made in their home. This allows them the opportunity to be more communicative than I have ever experienced of them. We have kids who are a background and ensemble member when we're on stage that are now writing plays every week for our open mic nights and writing 10-minute shorts with other kids readily joining in. It's teaching me that the educational systems that we've built previously have prohibited certain types of people from excelling. That's where this has gotten really exciting is those perspectives that are being brought to light in a way that they weren’t when we were in real space.
RL: Going off of this, which types of The Digital Renaissance Project programming have you found to be the most successful and will consider working on in the future?
JM: So we have three types of programming that we ask the artists to propose under the categories of: “The Exchange,” “The Stage,” and “Bonfire.”
Image: Andy’s Summer Playhouse website
“The Exchange” is all skill-based learning: learn how to stitch, to build miniature models, to write poetry… it's skill based without a performance at the end. There is still always a product; there's always something they can take away.
“The Stage” is something with a live performance aspect that ends with a live stream or a promotion of the things that they made.
“Bonfire” is much more looking inward to the community. It’s a “let's come together around a table and talk” or a “let's do yoga.” It's more of a community build. “Bonfires” are where every participant, viewer, and creator are an equal part of the Zoom. Whereas, with “The Exchange,” there is a clear leader of the session and, for “The Stage,” it's a separation of Zoom participants and audience members. So those are the three types of systems that we have built.
As to the question of moving forward: “The Exchange” is flourishing and it is very low labor intensive. For us, we just need to make sure that our artist is equipped for it. We have a stage manager and a supervisor who are part of the session so that the lead artist just needs to focus on the art. The stage manager and the supervisor can manage any behavioral or technical needs for the artist or the kids.
So “The Exchange” is easy and “Bonfire” is even easier; it's “The Stage” that requires quite a bit of work. We have a show going up at five today that's using Zoom, Isadora, OBS, and YouTube Live. It is very complicated. We did a run through earlier today, and there's tons of lag. So now we are working on that. We're solving it, but that's the kind of thing that, moving forward into the fall, we need to think about staff-wise because we're only a summer program that is attempting to become a year-round program. It is exciting though.
RL: Speaking to these different categories of programming, are these designations carried over from Andy's Summer Playhouse or were they created specifically for The Digital Renaissance Project?
JM: It was created specifically for DRP. I have OCD, so categories are very helpful. So just to say, “We're doing virtual things,” freaked me out. We sat down and asked, “What are the types of education that are helpful right now?” We ultimately decided that there are three types of things that we need to do: we need to make sure kids are learning new skills, are able to be self-expressive outwardly, and are able to be self-expressive inwardly. From this, we started finding that we were saying the words “skill,” “performance,” and “community” a lot, which led us to the designations we have today.
RL: How much, if at all, did you have to adjust your expectations for these new designations?
JM: Tons. I think Zoom fatigue is real: therefore, how do you rehearse a product and how much does an audience really want to take in? Like a two-hour show, for audience members who are just sitting in their office, is not something that's that exciting. But, for example, tonight's show is going to be 30 minutes and it's awesome. The show is concise, is high end, and is also allowing the lead artist to chew on really big things. This is as opposed to a show that just gets really boring after 45 minutes. I think expectation of rehearsal time management and storytelling time were two things that we had to learn.
In addition to this, we had to ask, “How do we transfer discoveries from ‘The Exchange’ and other ‘The Stage’ projects to each other?” We now have a Thursday evening “Porch,” which is an acronym for Participants Of Renaissance Categorical Hangout. It's basically just all the artists and anyone else come together and just chat. It's just like a summer art program where all the counselors come together at 6pm on Thursday and have drinks. They can express concerns, thoughts, new discoveries, anything they want to. Artists can also showcase their work or sessions with the kids to the other artists.
We also had to grapple with how the internet is inherently sequential. With Zoom, I can't talk while you talk. It pushes us to a “you, then me, then you” conversation style. I think where Andy's Summer Playhouse thrives is in the cyclical conversation that occurs in the art education world. So we put a lot of effort into trying to ensure that this conversational experience occurs in an inherently sequential technology. I think it's about overextending ourselves to provide as many opportunities to share ideas as possible. No one knows what they are doing. So, to me, I think it has been about, “How can I, as a leader, become a barometer, as opposed to a dictator?” I need to recognize, “Oh, you and the kids seem really excited by this - let's follow that for a second and see where it takes us.”
RL: On that note, more specifically, what are some projects that were proposed by students or by artists that seem to really excite the community?
JM: So the best way to answer this question is really just to show you the portal we created.
Image: Sample dashboard from The Digital Renaissance Project
So everybody gets this dashboard. It is password protected and it’s kind of like Facebook. Your dashboard has announcements that are made by me and my Administrative Director, trending projects, and projects that we are pushing. Within this site, you can make new project requests, browse active projects (with filters if you would like), see pending projects, etc.
We're averaging about 35 projects a week. Some of them are as short as an hour long. It's usually, an average grouping is like two to eleven. Eleven is pretty high. 4 to 6 is the most common which has been great. Artists from all over the world working at one-to-six ratio with kids is phenomenal to me.
Image: Sample class from The Digital Renaissance Project
Sample schedule from The Digital Renaissance Project
One example here is, we're doing Arduino coding. Kids are learning Arduino and they are only like ten to twelve-years-old. Each project is a centralized Zoom session. The Zoom links are also found right under the project so you are not searching through your email for a Zoom link. There is also a survey to give us feedback on the project. I find that artists often use the “More Info Materials” section to post resources or shared documents. Lastly, there is a section for open discussion so outside of the work sessions, people can communicate.
We're teaching playwriting, music, book binding, Zumba warmups: it's really about “How do you become a self-sufficient artist?” God knows, right now we need to be self-sufficient and learn how to be our own entrepreneur.
There is also an individualized collection of my own schedule on the dashboard, and I can add and drop things to change it.
RL: Do the kids also create proposals?
JM: Yes! They can create project requests for whatever they might want to do.
Artists, on the other hand, create pending projects where they can propose ideas that they are excited to explore, and the kids can vote for the ones they are the most excited about. Then on a weekend we have programming meetings where we look at our pending projects and project requests with the most excitement and attempt to turn them into active projects.
Ultimately, it's a democratic vote to help us understand what we should fund.
RL: What do “Bonfires” look like? I think events that create community can often be neglected.
JM: Totally. One common type of “Bonfire” is our weekly challenges, which is literally get a prompt on a Monday and make work and submit it by Friday. Then we can showcase it on our Friday night fireside chats, which are led by kids interviewing artists. With so many events happening, I think we can all agree that this year has been an interesting one. This “Bonfire” provides an individualized opportunity to generate something unique and share with others.
Another common type of “Bonfire” is roundtable discussion. For example, we were discussing racial climate today: we did a group watch of 13th on Netflix earlier and then we had a roundtable discussion twice this week.
Lastly, we have other opportunities to get together and pursue a common activity. We have physical warmups for the day, Dungeons & Dragons, Yoga Booty Ballet, game night, etc.
RL: So, with all of this engagement and events that you have cultivated, do you think you have successfully created a community digitally where everyone knows everyone else that is interacting in the program?
JM: Yeah, I mean, we've actually had our largest turnouts at our warmups and lunch. We had someone suggest that we should do a social hour from 12pm to 1pm every day. Now, we have a lunch where 15 kids and adults come in and just eat lunch and talk. They have also come up with themed lunches so now they do themed lunches where they use Snapchat filters or real physical costumes to add to the theme.
Additionally, the roundtable discussions are a place where we're having really deep conversations about what's going on right now in the world and really encouraging everyone to trip over themselves with what they’re saying. We assure them to not worry and that we are not going to judge them. We should use this as an exercise of learning how to talk about these things and learning how to be a community together.
Tuesday open mic nights have also become a space where we create community. We livestream it over OBS to Facebook Live. It has become a very designed thing. We are using breakout rooms and a green room. All the kids who are doing open mic are in the green room for the hour as we push them to the main stage. The kids just hang out while they wait for their turn. While they wait, the kids chat about what they are doing, what ideas they have, and sometimes come up with new performances on the spot. In this space, I am like the sound booth. I am muted visually to the performers but can speak to them. I'll be on Facebook reading all the responses from audience members and be like, “Oh, so and so from Manchester, New Hampshire says, ‘Love you, sweetie. Great work.” We are giving the live feedback to the kids, and they respond to that. Trying to give feedback is a big thing for me.
RL: I would be remiss if I didn't ask about your experiences as a multimedia designer and going into this, and what techniques from multimedia design have you engaged in your teaching or digital art making with The Digital Renaissance Project?
JM: I have a Monday session that explores Zoom techniques like movement, depth, and that kind of thing. We’ve started to move into software experimenting with Isadora, OBS, Qlab, and, of course, Zoom. We've also explored camera technique. We'll take a camera movement from a movie, and then we'll explore what that looks like.
We talk a lot about it being a site-specific. We are doing site-specific work, but the site is the web. We have to ask all the same questions that we would have in a barn: Where's the outlets? How do we hang this light? How do we make this work?
Young artists from The Digital Renaissance Project recreate a scene from Jurassic Park.
RL: You guys have a lot of manpower and time that others in the field may not have. What is the one thing that you hope other theater makers take from seeing your process in The Digital Renaissance Project?
JM: I think it’s letting everybody in on the errors and the growth that allows for a really amazing celebration of process together. With theater, prior to this moment, we have gotten used to the closed rehearsal, preview period, opening, and then letting the show be. Because nobody knows what to do here, it has forced our hand to be a lot more exposed and transparent. Even our open mics, for example, over the course of five weeks have improved massively. All of our community has commented on how it's been incredible to watch us develop the template for it. During those first few weeks, the audience mostly loved the show because they love the children, and they want to support them, but as we progressed, we totally defied their expectations and reached further than they ever thought possible. When audience members commented on this development, I told them that they had just been exposed to what a rehearsal process looks like.
Ultimately, the biggest thing is to create communities where no one is going to laugh at you if you fall on your face. We want to support each other. Especially right now when the majority of people are saying to cancel this or that event. The impulse of people seems to be to say, “I'm really afraid to be the only one out on this limb. If I fail, whatever fail means, then I will lose people’s interest in my project.” Maybe this fear is fair for former worlds from prior to March; however, everybody is yearning for community right now, so to offer a creative infrastructure that grows and responds to the community, I think, is what has taught me a lot. I want to always ask the kids. I even want to involve them in our season selection process. I mean, this has been phenomenal to get their investment early and then see where it can take us. Then there is even more of this community and the kids have more ownership of it and authorship of it.
We're doing a lot to figure out how to create a community classroom. We have teachers that are wanting to observe, because they're freaking out about the fall. I'm hearing everywhere, “God, my kids can't focus when they're in school because they're on Zoom,” and I have to think, “Well, maybe it's not Zoom. Maybe it's the environment in which they're learning.” We have yet to have one kid leave. They're totally invested. It's very different from the ordinary classroom setting: it is much more intimate. I mean, I now know everyone's bedroom, and that's a really personal experience. I think we need to shift our engagement because of that.
RL: So what does the future of the Digital Renaissance Project look like?
JM: A good question. If there is one thing I know, this has been a success story. Unfortunately, we have to close it down on September 4th for at least a month, because I need to reflect on it, and we need to figure out a few things. Right now, it's a $50 registration fee, and the kids can do everything forever and ever and ever. The artists are getting paid based on grants that we get that will run dry around September/October. I want to be able to pause and figure out what is an economic strategy that can maintain a low ceiling cost for the kids and still supply money to the artists. These are the two things that are really key to the ultimate goal of this platform. So hopefully we will reopen as early as October.
We might need a little bit of time to figure out what the best game plan is but this has to keep happening. Even if we get back into the space next summer, this is continuing. We just finished a collaboration to write a poem with an orphanage in South Sudan. It was simple and it was profound. We filmed it and we made it a little four-minute documentary about it. We all watched it and started crying: “Why should we stop this after the pandemic? We should have been doing this last summer.” This project has really opened our eyes up to the power of connectivity and just how far we can reach.
