Comprised of faculty, staff, and graduate/undergraduate reps from all areas of theatre and dance, our season selection committee met last year, as usual, and came up with a slate of plays, musicals, and dances that we felt were challenging, expansive, reflective of the world around us, and especially pertinent in an election year. We gave this season a theme, The Personal and the Political, based on through-lines we felt connected the plays selected and the dances to be choreographed. Celebrating the season, we even shot our first video, breaking a piñata to reveal the titles.

This was all pre-pandemic, mind you.

In June, we created a plan to produce this season, one we hoped that would allow us to share works with limited audience members in a reduced, safety-conscious capacity, and that offered our designers a partial build, our actors opportunities to develop characters and serve narratives all the while masked and six-feet apart. We knew these compromises were not ideal, especially for our audiences, but we believe strongly that education is best served by process, and that this season plan was educationally exciting, posing obstacles that our community is intent on creatively overcoming. And we were honored that several other universities asked to use our season plan.

But in August, when the COVID numbers in Texas continued to increase, our Acting/Directing and Design areas revisited that plan, intent on retaining our emphasis on process but also increasing measures to ensure safety. We were loath to abandon our live audiences, and just as, if not more, upset to rehearse online.

Ok, "upset" is not the right word exactly. We knew we could still protect the integrity of our process, of education, while still serving the plays/musicals/dances chosen. But we knew we'd miss the traditional ways we built ensemble. We would miss proximity. We would miss shared spaces. And, we sure would miss our audiences

But we trusted no matter the compromises, if we continued to privilege education and health, our community would understand.

Our season, The Personal and the Political has, ironically, grown both more personal and political in the last few months. Rather than be constricted by the choices made pre-pandemic, we are embracing the concept of a fluid season, one that is continuing to evolve based not only on acknowledging the world around us, but also the community within the Maedgen. In an effort truly to respond to our reactions to current events, we have already abandoned titles, chosen new ones, deconstructed others, and are consistently shifting the means by which we rehearse and share them.

Every personal decision has a political repercussion.

The works you will see this season navigate the muddy waters of the political world in which we live, even more so impacted by our personal journeys and those of the lives around us. What better way to make sense of the world in which we live than embracing art that explores the consequences of our choices while simultaneously reflecting upon our shared humanity?

This season, we hope you will join us virtually to experience the innovations and creativity of our students and faculty. We promise a season full of surprises, one like no other in the history of our program.