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Interview with Liv Gorom, Writer and Director in the MU Theatre Digital Fringe

 

liv-gorumAn interview with Liv Gorom, writer and director of Not Quite Morning and the writer of Trip in Miami University’s Department of Theatre’s Digital Fringe Festival by Theatre 200 practicum student Abby Coulter.

What are your shows about? Explain the plots a little bit.

I have two shows in Fringe, but my bigger one is called Not Quite Morning, and it’s about two boys who log onto Omegle. They are both really lonely, figure out they are the same age and live near each other so it’s all about their budding friendship. It focuses on a lot of different themes such as isolation, and just being lonely in the tech age. My other show is called Trip and it’s a radio drama that I wrote about LSD and it’s just fun, and kind of sad. It was originally supposed to be performed on a stage but now it’s a radio drama. It’s supposed to be like you’re watching an experiment and you don’t realize that you, an audience member, is a part of it until the end. The script has been changed a little in the way you’re listening to a recording of the experiment. Also, a plug to my assistant director Baxter Whitehead.

What was it like trying to prepare a show while following the guidelines set by the state of Ohio?

It’s definitely different. For our group, since there are two actors, it’s been easier than From The Many, which is a film project I’m acting in. That one is way harder because there are 20+ characters and they’re actually filming on location for that show. For my show, we decided to film on stage as if you were sitting in the audience, which made our lives easier. Keeping the actors in masks is hard because they have to make sure they’re more physical due to losing a large amount of real estate on their faces. Making sure that they move and have room to move was the main focus, even down to the desks they are sitting at having to be fairly transparent, so the audience can see their bodies. We also had to do a lot of rehearsals on Zoom due to people in quarantine and lost 4 weeks of in-person rehearsal time. I thought it would be much harder. We just have to be safe and not be our usual touchy, huggy selves.

With this being your senior year here at Miami, and possibly one of your last shows here, what is one thing you would like to tell underclassmen involved in theatre at Miami?

Don’t count yourself out and try everything that you can find time for because I have had the ability to write three times now and all were performed which is so nice. The only reason that happened was due to the fact that I was actively trying to do them. If you count yourself out or think you’re not good enough you’re wasting your time because you’re in school and you’re supposed to be learning. You have a lot of room to mess around and I wish I knew that because as a senior I am finally acting again and I really like it and wish I made that realization earlier and tried a little harder to take more acting classes.

What makes this production stand out to you from any other production that you have been involved with? and why?

I wrote this original script but there were holes in it and the ending was missing. Once I got my two actors cast, the four of us sat down with Baxter and improvised and did different exercises to help finish the script. It just worked out that both of the actors loved their characters and each other so much that they were easily able to anticipate what they would do in certain situations. The ending wrote itself, which is so helpful. In the past, I would write the ending and it would be done, but it was cool for this show to be more of a group situation, and having other people’s immediate feedback and improvisation. It was really cool and to watch them become their characters. We also have never really been allowed to work on our own without faculty. We have an advisor, but for the most part, it’s just us. It’s been nice to have the department’s support but we’re also on our own.

Why did you choose to be a part of Miami's Fringe festival?

We were supposed to have my other piece, Trip, in April and I was so jazzed about it. When the pandemic hit and it had to be canceled, I just wanted to do it again and have it be seen by human beings or heard because Trip is a radio drama now. New Wave is a student group that has Trip now and is putting it on as a part of the Fringe. I wanted to make something new as well so I also submitted Not Quite Morning and it got accepted. Also, my friend Jamie Chmielewski is directing From The Many and I love Jamie so I auditioned for fun and got a part!

What audience do you think would particularly enjoy this show?

For Not Quite Morning I would say younger people and definitely boys. It was written as my best guess as to what it’s like to be a teenage boy and then it was confirmed by my actors. It’s pretty funny and there’s a lot of jokes that people our age would find funny. It’s really modeled after our experiences, particularly with the pandemic, and a lot of them are from my actors or my assistant director so I think they are fairly relatable. Trip would just be for anyone that wants to listen to a radio drama is super fun but kinda sad.

See all 18 MUT Theatre Digital Fringe shows at miamioh.edu/mutfringe

Trip
Friday, November 13, 7 p.m.
by Liv Gorom. 20 min
Trip is a one-act play focusing on the LSD experiments of Dr. Sidney Cohen. Cohen convinces Dale, his employee, to have his wife Marie be unknowingly drugged to observe its effects. Trip explores motifs of marriage, identity, and exploration of self, begging us to ask who we can trust. Presented as a part of the New Wave Radio Drama Series.

Not Quite Morning
Saturday, November 14, 7 p.m.
by Liv Gorom. 15 min
A devised piece that tells the story of two boys feeling lonely at 4 a.m. Both feeling desperate log onto Omegle, a video chatroom, in order to find someone to talk to. What they find is each other, two 17-year-old boys living in the same city.