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:
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
