UMaine, UNH Perform One Play Simultaneously On Two Stages

Students in the University of Maine Intermedia MFA Program and the University of New Hampshire Department of Theatre and Dance will perform one play simultaneously at both universities by streaming audio and video, and using other technology, including social media.

The universities will premiere the telematic multimedia performance piece “eStranged,” which is based on Albert Camus’ novel “L’Etranger” (“The Stranger”). The piece examines the idea that people exist in two forms — a “real self” and a media-produced and publicly broadcast “virtual self.”

The performance will exist for the audiences in both the physical and virtual realms in Maine and New Hampshire.

The play was written and directed by Nate Aldrich, assistant professor of intermedia at UMaine, and David Kaye, chair of the Department of Theatre and Dance at UNH. The production includes actors, designers and technicians from the Intermedia MFA program at UMaine and the Department of Theatre and Dance at UNH.

“There is not an abundance of telematic performances to study, as the history of this genre is just beginning to be written,” Aldrich says. “As a result, we have experimented at every stage of the process, and the performance is an experimental exploration of the form and content of contemporary online existence.”

The show runs 7 p.m. Nov. 20–23 and 2 p.m. Nov. 24 at the IMRC Center in Stewart Hall on the UMaine campus and at UNH’s Paul Creative Arts Center in Durham, N.H. Admission is free. For more information and to request a disability accommodation for the UMaine showing, contact Bethany Engstrom at 207.581.4390 or bethany.engstrom@umit.maine.edu.