AURORA | As theater director at the Community College of Aurora, it’s always been Stacey D’Angelo’s mission to use the stage to reflect people’s common humanity. In the midst of a global pandemic, an upcoming presidential election and a national reckoning with racism, she feels that mission is more important than ever this year.
To that end, the first play CCA’s theater students will perform this fall is Idris Goodwin’s “Real Talk: Plays for Kids About Race.” It will be performed live over Zoom Sunday, Oct. 4 and Monday, Oct. 5 and is free to the public. A panel discussion will follow each performance.
“It seemed like a very important time to get at the heart of what is happening in this country, systemic racism being at the forefront of a lot of the challenges we face,” D’Angelo said.
“Real Talk” is a series of short plays that Goodwin wrote for children and families dealing with the subject of race. Goodwin published the plays and made them free to use after the protests following George Floyd’s death with the hope that they could be a jumping-off point for families to have conversations about racism, D’Angelo said.
It’s a hope that D’Angelo’s acting students share.
“This is a great opportunity for you to bring your children to open up a door for discussions that maybe you don’t know how to have,” said Emily Embleton, one of the actors.
“These shows are really impactful and I think they’ll definitely live in people’s minds,” said actor Gisselle Morales.
Bridget Villegas, another of the play’s actors, acknowledged that having conversations with children about racism can be tough. She’s raising a mixed-race Black son and says that she doesn’t always know how to respond to his questions.
“He has questions now when I mention something about why he can’t play with guns or he can’t have certain toys, and it always comes up “Well, why?” Villegas said. “And I’m always trying to explain why.”
“I’m hoping that these plays will open the eyes of every parent, no matter their color, no matter their race, and we’ll open the doors for them to have the talks with their kids,” she said.
The actors think that the nature of live theater gives it a special power to connect with people.
“When you perform, you want to leave an impact on your audience,” Morales said.
Live theater lets you connect with the audience in a direct way, Villegas said.
“You feel what they feel and you can actually see it,” she said.Because of the pandemic the plays are being rehearsed and performed entirely online, which has been a new experience for everyone.
“At first I was a little intimidated by it, but we are redefining the new American theater,” D’Angelo said. “It’s easy to look at the things we don’t have right now, but theater is sheer magic.”
The actors have had to develop new techniques, such as using slights of hand to make it look like they are passing props to each other through a screen, and training themselves to look at their computer camera instead of directly at their acting partners. Green screens will also be set up in the actor’s homes so that the background will look more cohesive.
Performing through a screen has pushed the actors in new ways.
“It challenges you because there’s nobody there watching, so you have to dig deep to bring that character alive, to make that character believable on a computer screen,” Villegas said.
Watching a play online is also a different experience for viewers.
“There’s so many distractions at our homes that we try to eliminate in a dark theater,” Embleton said.
Technology is another hurdle, as lags over the computer can throw a wrench into rehearsing.
Despite the challenges of Zoom, D’Angelo said she felt like it was important to honor the process of live theater, instead of prerecording a show and sending it to people to watch.
“We’re revealing what life is really like for folks right now,” she said.
She also hopes the accessibility of the internet will make it possible for more people to watch the performance. The Zoom format will make it more interactive, with viewers able to leave comments in the chat box for the panel discussion.
She’s proud of her students for how hard they’re working to make the semester a success.
“I’ll be honest I don’t know what I’m doing, and yet it’s working, and that’s what’s so exciting,” she said. “And that’s what theater people do.”
The college’s second performance of the year will be “The Collective Heart Project (Part II)” on Nov. 1 and 2. The play is a return of a production of original work created by students in 2016 expressing their thoughts on the upcoming election.
On Dec. 6 and 7 students will perform “Quarantine Cabaret,” a series of performances from famous musicals that D’Angelo hopes will end the semester on a lighter note.
Free registration is open for Real Talk at ccaurora.edu/fall-play.