Viral Theatres’ Pandemic Playbook - Documenting German theatre during COVID-19

Abstract

This document offers an overview of the artistic research project Viral Theatres, which documents the radical changes in theatre aesthetics and infrastructure during the Covid-19 pandemic by building an online multimedia living archive that tracks these developments in interviews, video documentaries, rehearsal residencies, and case studies. Through a survey of five exemplary case studies we show how significantly the tools and practices of theatre have shifted during the pandemic and suggest that these examples belong to a reconceptualization of the idea of theatre per se. In creating an online Living Archive platform that makes these and other case studies and pandemic material accessible, Viral Theatres contributes to creative documentation of pandemic culture.