Online readthroughs - meta poll

[wildeabandon]

Okay, I'm trying to think ahead about readthrough logistics and what to read, and it would help to know what people's preferences are. If you have any interest in coming to any future readthroughs, I'd appreciate you filling in the following poll. Thank you!

Poll #23789

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 23

View Respondents

How interested are you in participating in online readthroughs?

View Answers

Extremely - I'd be pleased if you started hosting them more often than weekly and still come to most
1 (4.5%)

Very - I'll probably come to most of them
6 (27.3%)

Quite - I'll probably come to around half
7 (31.8%)

Somewhat - I'll probably come occasionally
8 (36.4%)

Not at all - I don't plan on coming at all
0 (0.0%)

Which factors are most significant in whether or not you'll come to a given readthrough?

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Whether I have other plans
10 (45.5%)

How interested I am in the material
14 (63.6%)

How much social energy I've got at the time
16 (72.7%)

Something else which I will explain in the comments
1 (4.5%)

How long would you prefer to spend on the readthrough each week (not including faff and chatting beforehand/between episodes/afterwards)

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<1 hour
1 (4.8%)

1-2 hours
16 (76.2%)

2-3 hours
3 (14.3%)

>3 hours
1 (4.8%)

Is the Saturday afternoon slot I've generally been using a good time for you?

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Yes, it suits me at least as well as any other regular time would
16 (76.2%)

Yes-ish - it suits me reasonably well, but I would prefer another regular time
1 (4.8%)

Yes-ish - it suits me reasonably well, but I would prefer if it moved around so I don't have to block out the same time each week
2 (9.5%)

Not really - I would prefer another regular time
1 (4.8%)

Not really - I would prefer it moved around so I don't have to block out the same time each week
1 (4.8%)

The following times are usually reasonably good for me:

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Monday evening
9 (50.0%)

Wednesday evening
9 (50.0%)

Thursday evening
9 (50.0%)

Saturday afternoon
14 (77.8%)

Saturday evening
11 (61.1%)

Sunday afternoon
15 (83.3%)

Sunday evening
10 (55.6%)

How do you feel about paying for script ebooks?

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I don't mind as long as they're not ridiculously overpriced
14 (63.6%)

I'd prefer free, but having to buy a script wouldn't stop me from coming
7 (31.8%)

I would be noticably less likely to come if I had to buy a script
1 (4.5%)

I'm thinking of doing Good Omens over a few weeks, cast differently for each episode, but I'm definitely planning on doing an in-person readthrough of it in the next couple of years. How do you feel about that?

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I would enjoy participating in this, but it would make me less likely to come to an in-person weekend readthrough of the series
2 (10.0%)

I would enjoy participating in this, and would still be likely to come to an in-person weekend readthrough
12 (60.0%)

I would enjoy participating in this, and would be unlikely come to an in-person weekend readthrough in any case
6 (30.0%)

I would not enjoy this
0 (0.0%)

I'm most interested in the following sorts of readthroughs

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Shakespeare
19 (95.0%)

Other out-of-copyright plays that I will suggest in the comments
5 (25.0%)

BBC radio plays
10 (50.0%)

New/unpublished plays (e.g. from newplayexchange.org)
3 (15.0%)

Something else that I will suggest in the comments
2 (10.0%)

One of the most time-consuming aspects of organising these readthroughs is finding material and skim reading it to check that it's suitable (i.e. has a reasonable part distribution and not too much reliance on camera work/special effects.) Would you interested in helping with that?

View Answers

Yes
5 (22.7%)

Maybe
8 (36.4%)

No, but thank you for doing it
11 (50.0%)

Comments

[atreic]

We are in a mild tangle where we’d quite like to do Bridge with Shadow at the weekends, but Shadow is roleplaying on one day and readthroughing on the other day and that means bridge gets squeezed to a school night when I’m tired. But I think this is just the general problem of three fun things to do and only two days, which is not really solvable! :-)

[tenebrousphantom]

Saturday morning bridge? :)

[atreic]

Saturday morning post parkrun cafe! But yes, I would do Saturday morning bridge, but I think we might not get all four of us!

[ewt]

I feel like I like the idea of this in theory, but in practice I don't have the social energy for another new-to-me thing right now and also Saturday afternoon is allotment time. Under circumstances where we aren't all trying to stay home, an online readthrough would appeal to me more (because it reduces travel and other wear and tear), but under those circumstances most people would prefer an in-person readthrough anyway, and my diary gets very full very fast.

(Sorry, that's not very helpful. But it puts me into the "probably won't come" category, so I have not filled out the poll.)

[highlyeccentric]

I would be interested in other early modern plays, but have no idea how much interest anyone else might have in that!

[the_alchemist]

I'm always keen to do more early modern plays.

I don't think I've ever readthroughed Perkin Warbeck, Women Beware Women, the White Devil or The Spanish Tragedy, so I'd be particularly keen on those.

[bunnypip]

I'd be interested too (even though it's a bit of a busperson's holiday)

Insatiate Countess (available second hand in a volume called '4 Jacobean Sex Tragedies'); anything by Lyly, James Shirley's Hyde Park (tricky to get scripts for) as well as the ones the_alchemist mentions and any one of many others.

[bunnypip]

Also interested in other stuff too.

Victorian melodrama? Classics? Lots of stuff really.

[wildeabandon]

Didn't we do Women Beware Women at a Bardcamp?

[the_alchemist]

I thought we might have done The Spanish Tragedy at Bardcamp, but in any case I can't remember either of them well and would be keen to do them [again].

[leonato]

We did, but should do it again!

[taimatsu]

Biggest factor in participating for me is organising around the baby, stuff hanging a regular slot I know about well in advance is great.

I am a fan of Restoration comedies eg Behn’s The Rover. Other plays also good, eg Sheridan. I’m always more interested in comedies.

[palmer1984]

Filled the poll out, but I'm not a priority as I'm unlikely to attend every week!

[halojedha]

I'm keen, baby permitting, but struggling to fit in work and housework and gardening and feel like it's all harder sometimes than others, so very interested to take it on a week by week basis. Thank you for organising!

[naath]

I rather weekends, I'm working full time hours, and have a few other social commitments during the week as well as needing sleep and cooking and so on. But social is fun.

[liv]

I'm really enjoying the readthroughs and have a lot of appreciation for you organizing them. I think three consecutive Saturday afternoons was a bit much for me; I am doing Zoom synagogue services Saturday mornings and it ends up with two hours on Zoom, quickly grab lunch, another 2-3 hours on Zoom, and I run out of video conference energy rather quicker than I run out of social energy more generally. So even though the plays are wonderful I think 1-2 times a month would work better for me, or a bit more often if times vary.

[juliet]

I am a bit nervous of participating but would really like to (esp if you're doing Good Omens :) ), but am supposed to work on Saturdays and have been losing quite a bit of other work days to volunteer stuff lately* :/

However if Saturdays really suit everyone else might not-every-Saturday be an option?

* lesson learned re communication with volunteer organiser: if I intend to say that I can make this day OR that day for the rota, I need to be really clear that it is OR and not AND.

snowflake answer

[emperor]

I am generally finding videoconferencing a poor substitute for social interaction, and am a bit unusual in having Opinions about what tech is used. I find it difficult to predict how much / how often I'm going to want to online-readthrough. At the moment I'm finding I'm a bit splat by the end of the working day.

I am irrationally a bit sad about the idea of a virtual GO readthrough "replacing" an in person one.

Sorry, this is all not vastly useful.

Re: snowflake answer

[wildeabandon]

*hug* This is in fact, quite useful ;p I'm going to try using Jitsi this weekend and if that works as smoothly as Zoom then will switch to using it generally.

That question was there precisely because I don't want to do GO online if it looks like it would replace an in-person version, but it doesn't from responses so far.

Re: snowflake answer

[emperor]

A couple of things I've found useful with jitsi are to note that you can tweak your video quality (and it defaults to HD which is probably not what you wanted), and that it works much better with Chrome/Chromium than FF.

[the_alchemist]

I didn't want to give an answer to the amount of time question, because I'd be happy to do long readthroughs sometimes but definitely not every week. It would be good to have a variety of lengths.

I am desperate to do a Dear Brutus readthrough at some point nearish midsummer, but will organise it myself separately. There are two other JM Barrie plays I would be interested in readthroughing: The Admirable Crichton and Mary Rose.

Another Under Milk Wood would be fun.

[tenebrousphantom]

Weekend afternoons are definitely the best time for me. At the moment I have free Saturday afternoons; that could become free Sunday afternoons, or a mixture. For any given readthrough on a weekday evening I might be able to come to it, but with weekday evenings generally I'd worry about having to drop out at the last minute because of work.

Having a pre-determined regular time or regular pattern of times (eg alternating two days) would generally make it easier for me to come to readthroughs. I'd definitely still come if it was moving around, but I'd expect to be able to make less.

I'm pretty much interested in most sorts of readthroughs. I'd be more interested in a variety of things over time than all Shakespeare (or all anything else!).

I wouldn't be confident finding material, but given a definition of what a reasonable part distribution looks like I'd be very happy to skim read material somoene had found to check it if that would be useful.