Ortiz used WhatsApp to both present the play and bring her community together; after each episode, she included prompts for audience members to share their own pandemic experiences in the same texting stream where they experienced the play.
“That was a big part of why this started to brew in my head a couple of months into the pandemic,” she said. “I was like, ‘Man, we were really missing our community.’”
The play has the structure of a soap opera, or a telenovela, as there are several storylines happening simultaneously. But the action is mild, driven more by characters than plot. One person is trying to navigate the closing of schools; someone else has a personal epiphany after the birth of his first child; another person is just trying to stay positive in the face of the threat of infection.
Ortiz gave audiences a chance to get to know these people, rather than send them on a dramatic roller coaster ride.
“It starts out as casual, like, ‘Oh, it’s fun to have this group.’ Then more and more, they get closer and closer and share more deeply,” she said. “It becomes a safe space for folks to come and share how they’re really feeling, and to connect even in the midst of a time that we’re fostering such intense isolation.”
However, as with any online social media platform, there were security concerns.
That’s why Ortiz intentionally kept the audience small, to about 45 people, all of whom were recognized as people already in the Power Street community. “¿Que lo Que?” was not advertised widely, and anyone who wanted to receive it had to register into the WhatsApp group by Oct. 28. After that date, the group was closed to new members, and those in the audience had to agree not to share personal information outside the group.
“Let’s make sure we respect the fact that we’re all sharing our phone numbers to be a part of this group,” said Ortiz. “The folks have been great. I’ve gotten good feedback from folks.”
Now, the play only exists on the phones of those 45 people who signed up in October. Ortiz plans to dissolve the group at the end of the year.
It’s not yet clear whether Ortiz will ever repeat the WhatsApp experiment, as she longs to be back on stage in front of people. Another one of her plays, “Young Money,” just closed its premiere run at the Azuka Theater. But she is not planning in-person performances with Power Street Theatre anytime soon. The costs of pandemic protocols are too great; the recommendation that audience members be six feet apart would force their already small capacity to shrink below a level of financial viability.
Instead, Power Street is continuing its community-building programs. Ortiz is putting her energies into a musical, hoping to premiere it in North Philadelphia in 2023.