TETA K-12 Committee
Vice President-Elect
Vice President-Elect
Social media has changed the face of UIL One Act Play preparation. In a few seconds, a director can do amazing amounts of research. It is easy to find several hundred images of previous performances, which school did the show last year and what the winning history of the show has been. In the same amount of time, a judge or competitor can find pictures of your show online, messages about how good (or bad) rehearsals are going and the audience opinion of your pre-contest performance. OAP has gone from spending months in a dark theater preparing to surprise your audience to audiences showing up knowing every backstage battle and every visual spectacle you have prepared.
In order to see how much information is out there – I told several students to check their electronic devices and see what they could find out about our current production and see how it fares at UIL OAP. While most of their information was as expected – it seems like everyone uses the same logo and colors for the show, some of the OAP specific things they found were disturbing.
By following hashtags and google links, the kids found some pretty harsh commentary about the OAP experience. Posts ranged from “we didn’t finish our show and still kicked your …” to photos of post show celebrations that included activities not recommended in the handbook. Of course, they also discovered lots of duck-faced selfies, hugging castmates and words of encouragement. But it was the negative images and comments that concern me.
Please take time to remind your students of the importance of maintaining a positive electronic profile – for the sake of your program and for the integrity of the UIL One Act Play system. I’ve spoken with directors who have included “social media etiquette” clauses in their show contracts. Some directors “follow” their students’ accounts while others rely on other company members to report inappropriate use.
Also, think before you post. Check your privacy settings before posting and consider how what you are posting sounds, especially if taken out of context. Some feeds only show what you post while others direct observers to entire threads. Even with the most secure sites available, be cautious. Sometimes it is best to keep your work frustrations off the world wide web.
Finally, as a frequent visitor to the “One Act Play Directors” page on Facebook, I am surprised at the number of people requesting electronic copies of cuttings of plays. We have all been asked to avoid doing that as it is illegal.
We need to model judicious social media use and encourage it among our students.