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Students’ spring shows go virtual
Three dancers wearing masks performing in an outdoor parking area.

Still from the virtual performance of Penn Dance Company’s spring show, “Premiere.” (Image: The Pennsylvania Gazette)

Students’ spring shows go virtual

COVID-19 restrictions have forced nearly all student shows to go virtual this year, and they are cropping up throughout this month and next as Facebook livestreams, Zooms, and YouTube posts.

The Pennsylvania Gazette

Penn Glee Club becomes fully gender inclusive after 159 years of all-male singers
14 students standing on the steps of College Hall

The Penn Glee Club and Penn Sirens have decided to merge, meaning that for the first time since its founding 159 years ago, the Glee Club will include singers of all genders and will perform repertoire for soprano and alto voices, in addition to tenor and bass, and for all four voice parts. 

Penn Glee Club becomes fully gender inclusive after 159 years of all-male singers

The Penn Glee Club and Penn Sirens are merging, meaning that for the first time since its founding 159 years ago, the Glee Club will include singers of all genders and will perform repertoire for soprano and alto voices, in addition to tenor and bass, and for all four voice parts.

Louisa Shepard , Louisa Shepard

The show must go on, even amid a pandemic 
student dancing outside on the Weave Bridge

The show must go on, even amid a pandemic 

Amid pandemic restrictions, student performing arts groups continued to find innovative ways this fall to create new theater, dance, comedy, a capella, and instrumental productions to share on virtual platforms.

Louisa Shepard

An improv class that enriches the mind and soul, even remotely
A person facing the camera shrugging with arms wide open. Another person is standing to the right, and two others are in the background.

Much like in traditional improv, participants in the Penn Memory Center’s Cognitive Comedy play off of each other, running scenes or throwing each other imaginary balls of varying sizes, for example. Though some facets changed as the sessions went virtual, the program remains well-loved and well-attended. (Pre-pandemic image: Terrance Casey)

An improv class that enriches the mind and soul, even remotely

The Penn Memory Center’s Cognitive Comedy program gives people with memory impairments and their caregivers a no-pressure space to think creatively, socialize, and be part of a community.

Michele W. Berger

Penn performers keep creating during pandemic
Mosaic of students singing together via Zoom call

Penn Dischord.

Penn performers keep creating during pandemic

During the pandemic, the student Performing Arts Council has been working with the Platt Student Performing Arts House to encourage and support the hundreds of Penn performers, finding ways to promote their work on social media.

Louisa Shepard

Personal documentaries replace performing at Edinburgh Festival Fringe
Four students sitting on the floor each with a frame around their faces, one of them holding the book titled Orlando.

The Edinburg Project theatre course is offered only once every two years to about a half-dozen students who prepare a play to perform at the Festival Fringe in Scotland. The “Orlando” actors, from left, Matthias Volker, Whitney Barrett, Susset Tamayo, and Adam Ritter. (Image: Olivia Demberg, stage manager)

Personal documentaries replace performing at Edinburgh Festival Fringe

Theatre arts students created personal documentaries relating their situations during the coronavirus quarantine to the theme of transformation in crisis in the play “Orlando,” which they were supposed to perform at the now-cancelled Edinburgh Festival Fringe in Scotland

Louisa Shepard

Performing arts diversity in the (virtual) stacks
Members of a dance troupe linking arms in a line during a performance In a Rhythm by the Bebe Miller Company, performed at On the Boards. (Image: Penn Libraries)

Performing arts diversity in the (virtual) stacks

Diversity in the Stacks aims to build library collections that represent and reflect the University’s diverse population, and extends to the field of digital performing arts.

From Penn Libraries

Theater stopped misinformation during the Ebola crisis. The arts might help beat this pandemic
Jasmine Blanks Jones working with a student at B4 Theater.

Before the need to socially isolate, Jasmine Blanks Jones worked with student artists at B4 Youth Theatre. (Image: Penn GSE)

Theater stopped misinformation during the Ebola crisis. The arts might help beat this pandemic

When she started B4 Youth Theatre in 2010, Jasmine Blanks Jones wanted to create a theater camp where Liberian youth could amplify their voices as members of their community and use theater to create change. 

From Penn GSE