Like you, we are hunkering down at home.
Like you, our understanding of what the next days, weeks, and months will hold, changes moment to moment.
I appreciated Alexis Soloski’s piece from yesterday’s New York Times: the reminder that theater “can ask us to think and feel beyond the confines of our own experience and find fellow-feeling, immediately and intimately, with those around us.”
I am reminded of a few lines from our mission statement:
WE STRIVE TO CREATE GREAT HAPPENINGS IN SMALL ROOMS, THEATER AS CLOSE AS A WHISPER IN YOUR EAR OR A STRANGER’S HAND BRUSHING YOURS. INTIMACY IS OUR WAY IN.
We are thinking about what theater during this new reality looks and feels like. We know we must not gather in person. But we are thinking about how we may able to connect with you remotely.
I also wanted to share a powerful post from playwright-director Morgan Gould, that really speaks to how I’m feeling:
“I know that in the midst of everything – a quarantine, school cancellations, gatherings of only 10 people or less, I know people are reading books. Listening to music. Telling stories. Watching television. I know art matters because in the end, it will be all we have. We won’t have careers. All of that is temporary. We will just have what’s left. The actual stories. I think my role as a theater artist is to adapt to whatever mechanism I have to tell stories. If it’s not a giant festival, it can be a living room. It might not be a stage with insane production design. It might be around a campfire (as Anne Washburn predicted!). But it’s my job to bring hope and tenderness and humanity to a cruel and impossibly scary world. It’s all I can do. In the best scenario, perhaps that ER nurse comes home and puts her feet up and watches something I’ve made and her mind can rest for just a minute before she goes out again to save the world.”
- Morgan Gould
For the time being, we are postponing the world premiere production of Polylogues, created and performed by Xandra Nur Clark, directed by Molly Clifford, originally slated for a April 16-May 9, 2020 run. We are planning to share a snippet of the piece on Monday, March 23rd, (on what was to have been the first day of rehearsal). Please follow us on IG as we go live at 8pm EST, March 23rd with Xandra Nur Clark.
Additionally, we are currently exploring the possibility of shifting our 10th Annual FREE Education Initiative THEATER CAMP for NYC public school students ages 10-15 online. Please click here if you’re interested in participating; or share with a family/friend who may be interested.
Finally, please consider supporting our work during this challenging time. We are committed to continuing to pay the artists & administrators we collaborate with who have been directly and indirectly impacted by Covid-19.
THANK YOU FOR READING.
LET’S TAKE CARE OF EACH OTHER.
Best,
Adrienne & Colt Coeur