Let's Build Theatre Communities . . . or Not: Virtual Teaching and Scholarship in an Exclusionary World

Abstract: As collaborators who have been working together virtually since 2017, we have written plays and articles, conducted artist interviews, and are in the process of writing a book about teaching older adults theatre. When the pandemic came, everything else in our lives moved online, and we encountered new challenges with both our teaching and our scholarship. We were tasked with transitioning our theatre students to a virtual environment while conducting research for our book. We knew what was successful for us, as working online had helped our own practice, but would it be effective for students? And was it possible to write a scholarly book without access to academic libraries and archives? Our experiences over the past year reminded us that it shouldn't require a pandemic to rethink best practices in teaching and research. While the lessons we learned were because of a restructured academic environment, the issues we addressed existed previously and were often ignored. These are some of the things we will take with us postpandemic as educators and scholars.