JOURNALISM

As an art form, theater is defined by hands-on collaboration, the thrill of live performance, and the real-time connections that audiences forge with the actors and the story onstage. None of those defining elements of theater seem feasible in the age of social distancing. Still, Columbia and Barnard’s theater department faculty never considered canceling the senior thesis festival for directing students.

Harvey Weinstein, the film mogul whose patterns of sexual harassment and assault have been a public secret in the industry, was recently convicted of rape by a jury of seven men and five women in the New York Supreme Court. At the Athena Film Festival on Saturday, a panel of “silence breakers” in the entertainment industry reacted to the outcome that they called “unfathomable” and spoke about the work they’ve done to shift the culture—emphasizing how much work we have yet to do.

Jay-Z was met with a standing ovation upon entering The Forum on Columbia’s Manhattanville campus. While Beyoncé—yes, you read that right—slipped inconspicuously into her seat in the audience, Jay-Z sat down to speak on topics ranging from his musical influences to prison reform to his controversial partnership with the National Football League to his historic role in the landscape of hip-hop.

In lieu of a set and props, the horror of the scene is painted on Tecmessa’s face. Her husband, the warrior Ajax, is reeling from the death of his friend Achilles in the Trojan War. To add insult to injury, the army’s generals have passed him over for the honor of receiving Achilles’ armor. When his rage and grief drive him to despair, Ajax falls on his sword. After lamenting over his mangled body, Tecmessa turns to the audience, asking, “Who will lift him?” Her shift in focus is apt. The real play, after all, is in the audience.

The sound of a neuron’s crackling electrical activity resounded in the auditorium as the monkey came to a decision.

In the cozy echo chamber of Lerner 573, the mellow groove of Khalid and Normani’s “Love Lies” slips into a less familiar but immediately infectious tune, later identified as “High On Love” by Indian-American R&B singer Sid Sriram. As Columbia’s South Asian fusion a cappella group, Columbia Sur performs music that bridges the South Asian and American identities of its members.

Mozart’s opera “The Magic Flute” is not about a lovestruck Boy Scout—at least, not traditionally. The Columbia University New Opera Workshop, however, is not afraid to stray from tradition. In NOW’s re-imagining of a scene from the classic opera, the lonely birdcatcher Papageno was clad in a khaki sash covered in badges, awkwardly wooing his Girl Scout crush, and it was nothing short of delightful.

Nuns who Juul, frisky ferris wheel escapades, sorority squabbles, and the patriarchy—no topic was off-limits at the Columbia Women in Comedy Showcase. Sourcing their material from audience suggestions, current events, and their Columbia experiences, some of Columbia’s finest female comedians performed pre-written sketches and improvised scenes, filling the Lerner Party Space with uproarious laughter.