University Players’ fall digital season continues tonight —Thursday, Nov. 19 — via Zoom.

In partnership with Toronto theatre company Outside the March, the players are presenting a series of new Canadian works commissioned for the graduating BFA in Acting class.

The project also serves as research material for drama professor Michelle MacArthur and her team, who are working under a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council grant to examine the impact of live digital performance with analysis of the creative process and audience experience.

The second weekend of the series continues with The Jubilant, a dramatic and touching look at communication in the time of COVID-19 from Elena Eli Belyea, winner of the Tarragon Theatre’s 2018-2019 RBC Emerging Playwright Prize. Guest director Kim McLeod, whose professional work focuses on contemporary performance practices, including devising and approaches to digital performance, brings her unique perspective to the piece. Love, loss, and longing intersect in this new work written for and about the internet.

Marcus Youssef’s work Thank You For Your Labour forms the second half of the evening, promising a current and close-up view of relationships among a group of students as they attempt to put together a musical fundraiser on campus. The piece is directed by Mitchell Cushman, Artistic Director of Outside the March and Creative Curator on The Stream You Step In. Good intentions meet unspoken desires in this Zoom comedy about whiteness, isolation, and how hard it can be to do the right thing.

Shows run November 19-22 at 8pm. Tickets to each double-feature performance are $20 and can be purchased through the online box office. The shows are presented in Zoom’s Webinar format. Patrons are required to register in advance to receive a unique link to the show, and must be purchased before 3pm on the day of the performance. For more information, please visit www.universityplayers.com.