Theater is over.

All over the world, theater is over for now. Hold your breath.

Everywhere the stages are empty. Dust settling in the dark. We are at home and watching screens. No need to wait for the interval for a drink.

What we are watching is not theater. We skim back through old photographs, grainy footage and remember the feeling of it. But what we are watching is not theater. It is something else.

Remember how it felt when we were together? Elbow to elbow. The body heat. The breathing. The chuckles. The rustling. The checked watches.

We are racing to put out content. We are pouring content into the void. We are saying our art is valid. That we are valid. Who are we trying to convince? Some of us are unable to say anything, some of us are talking nonstop.

There are days where we feel things quietly crumbling around us. We are floored by the personal toll. We are trying to find ways to channel money to artists. We are commissioning. We are inventing work. We are simply handing money over. We are worried for the people we employ. We are tired, but not sleeping well.

My father imagines a stage big enough for all the performers to be two meters apart and how that would work for, say, Waiting For Godot. It would work well, I say. My neighbor suggests putting a stage in the wasteland at the end of our road for anyone passing to perform for nobody. 

Alone in our bedrooms, at our kitchen tables, we are thinking of our community. Home community, work community, international community. We are looking at each other in little boxes on our screens. We miss hugs. We miss touch. We are up and down, hour by hour. 

We are checking out our colleagues’ houses during our video chats. We are working around our families, our housemates. We are trying to convince our parents to stay at home, to use hand sanitizer. We are assessing if our partner is pulling their weight. We are baking bread. 

Our homes are pressure cookers. Other people are in our thoughts. Old person next door. Solitary refugee. Child without a home. Man going through cancer treatment. Woman in an abusive relationship. Our hands have their own lives now. We live alongside them and need to keep them clean. Our skin is aging from the soap.

We are overwhelmed. We have filled the cupboards. We are snacking. We have too many things to watch. We are simply getting through the day. What day is it? We haven’t begun to digest, no matter create something new from it. To create new art. Give us time.

There will be a day when we turn the lights back on. When we kick up the dust again. There will be a day where we sit side by side again, shoulder to shoulder. We can imagine that. Even though it will take some time to feel comfortable with our bodies again, we can imagine the hugs we’ll give each other. It will be something else.

Theater is over for now. Thank you for your concern. We will return though we won’t return to normal. We will imagine something else. We have a lot to say. Give us a moment to catch our breath. We will catch our breath. It will be something else.