Tag: virus

Community, Support, Theater Vs. Virus

Theater vs. COVID – 19 #2

JET

Yesterday I went through all of my collection of plays to find ones that would be conducive for up to five people. In case anyone wants to have an online reading with me. I will list them here in case. I also wanted to point out the different things happening around the world that have been created by people.

Yes, and…

One of our alumni, Lauren Flaherty teaches a storytelling and acting class in California and used Facebook to create stories using “Yes, and…” with people commenting to continue the story. Since then others have borrowed the idea and have created wonderful stories together through Facebook.

Musical Genius

Another actress in our community, Avital Sykora, started a thread on Facebook of topical musical theater parodies and it has been a hit!

Sing-along

In Italy and around the world people are singing from their balconies. 

Going virtual

I plan to do an online acting class this evening. It’s all experimental but hoping it will go well. Theater very much needs connection but I hope to bring in theater games and ideas that can involve that connection through conference call.

5 person plays

So here are the plays that I went through. I’ve read through most of them at some point or other. I do have a bunch more that require more than 4 people for a reading, including Shakespeare of course. There’s a few monologue books as well that I am not listing here that would be great to work on while at home. Most of these are contemporary and dramatic. I wonder if any involve a virus.

I also just got Respect for Acting by Uta Hagen. I’ve delved into her exercises and have been meaning to get this book for awhile. So there is some of my reading for the next week or so, or as the foreword by David Hyde Pierce says, a lifetime. Just reading the first chapter I find that our theater community is very lucky to be able to do what we do.

Rabbit Hole by David Lindsay-Abaire, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolf by Edward Albee Proof by David Auburn, Carol Mulroney by Stephen Belber, 9 Circles by Bill Cain, Freud’s Last Session by Mark St. Germain, Orphans by Lyle Kessler, This is Our Youth by Kenneth Lonergan, American Buffalo by David Mamet, Oleanna by David Mamet, Dinner with Friends by Donald Margulies, Pitching to the Star and other short plays by Donald Margulies, Jack and Jill by Jane Martin, Encounters by Leonard Melfi, K2 by Patrick Meyers, The Four of Us by Itamar Moses, Pieces of the Sky by David L. Paterson, Dumb Waiter by Harold Pinter, A Slight Ache by Harold Pinter, Paradise by Yasmine Beverly Rana, God of Carnage by Yasmina Reza, Doubt by John Patrick Shanley, Italian American Reconciliation by John Patrick Shanley, Welcome to the Moon and other plays by John Patrick Shanley, True West by Sam Shepard, Pterodactyls by Nicky Silver, and The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams

If any of these plays are of interest to you to do a reading let me know. I can send you a digital copy somehow, or maybe you own a copy too. If you’d like to share what you are doing during these times let us know and we’d gladly share it on our page. Looking forward to hearing from you.

Mutual support

And in order for our community to continue what it does when this is all over and people start going back to the physical theater space we launched a donations page that links to all the English speaking theater companies in Jerusalem. There are lots of institutions and individuals that need our help to get through this – it’s a long list, and we’re by no means putting ourselves anywhere near the top

We are in this together.

Do you have another idea? Want to write some of your own ideas here? Get in touch with jerusalemenglishtheater@gmail.com.

Community, Theater Vs. Virus

Theater vs. COVID-19 #1

JET

Hi everyone!

As we all know, we’re in the midst of a global virus pandemic. Broadway has shut down along with theaters across the world, including here in Israel. Even Tom Hanks and his wife have contracted Coronavirus.

Now more than ever it’s important to be creative, stay connected to ourselves and to those around us, and continue to stay involved with theater.

I started this blog a while ago to raise awareness about the community in Jerusalem, and I obviously have more time now to think and ponder on ideas. Maybe this is a way to focus in on some of these ideas.

For almost a week now I have been thinking of ways to help maintain the arts and theater albeit in a social distancing atmosphere. While the need to stick to “essential” activities is clear, I would argue that art, and theater, are even more essential in times like these. Although a huge element of theater is live connection, which is difficult in times of social distancing, there are a few ways we can continue our artistic theatrical ways just from our living rooms:

  1. Read! Catch up on plays you have wanted to read, books about theater and how to practice it, brush up on techniques and stories of the great actors and artists that have lived and created to get inspiration from them.
  1. Write! Anything. It could be a short play, a long play, a scene, a sketch, a beginning of a book, a screenplay or just a blog post. You could even start your journal again if you had one or begin one if you haven’t had one.
  1. Watch! The Metropolitan Opera house has opened its archives for viewing for free , there is plenty on Youtube to watch and Broadway licensing is offering up streaming rights for shows that can’t perform live. A different theatrical world is starting but we can be generous to each other artistically.
  1. Come together! Use Zoom or Skype or Google hangouts to do play readings from your living room. Play improv games together. Create a scene from one home and splice it with a scene in another home. Become Youtube collaborators. Just discuss theatrical ideas with each other. Bounce ideas off of each other. Create new music, maybe even new musicals. 

This pandemic will end and people will return to going to the theater but in the meantime we can create so much art and even develop new ways to interact with art during this time. 

Do you have any more ideas to share? Get in touch – I’d love to feature more posts here on the blog.

Want to hear more about the ideas above? Write me a message – I’m happy to brainstorm more ideas about social interaction and theater online.

Leia Rose has a lot of plays to choose from. Who wants to join in?