![]() My message did miraculously get to him, even though he moved into a senior facility last year.īrian’s gorgeous response was three pages long, front-and-back, handwritten. So I used the address I had from his letter from 2015, and hoped…just blindly hoped that my words would get to him.įour days later, I received a letter back. ![]() I did much Googling beforehand, trying to confirm that his address hadn’t changed, but couldn’t get any confirmation. So I decided to write back to him, now, after nearly five years. “Memories of your performance are still stirring in me,” he wrote. Last Fall, when I was unpacking after the move from Ontario, I found a letter from a kind man named Brian, who generously donated to my little independent theatre company – Bravura Theatre – back in 2015, after seeing me play Hamlet. I have also used this time to do certain things I was putting off for years because I was “too busy.” We spend every day together, all day, and sometimes it feels like he takes giant leaps in development within hours, as he uses fancy new words and astonishes me daily with his new-found abilities to articulate his little heart. It has also been deeply moving to watch my 4-year-old son grow so much in the last few weeks. I would never have done that sort of thing in the ‘Before World’ and yet, there I was, breaking a sweat and all. The other day, I picked up a sledgehammer and did some demo work in our front yard. I find myself doing things I wouldn’t have done before, at least not with the same enthusiasm that I have now. We have also developed a new relationship with Time during this moment of isolation. But what these acts of reaching for each other via digital ways do is highlight how incredibly hopeful we are as a species.Īs Jeff Goldblum says in ‘Jurassic Park’: life finds a way. Zoom and phone calls do not replace the need we have to congregate, to be physically together. We exchanged memories and told stories and laughed and cried together… I was deeply moved by simply looking at them. Two weeks ago, I had a Zoom call with 12 friends from grad school who are spread all over the globe – from LA to NYC to Australia, suddenly they were here, on my screen, together, after years of not seeing each other’s faces in motion. The phone is definitely “back!”Īlso, love it or hate it, Zoom has been a complete revolution. I cannot believe that it took a pandemic to make me feel compelled to pick up the phone and call people up. This time of isolation has been an opportunity to connect with old friends people I had not talked to in years. We talk about Shakespeare, the magic of being together at a theatre, the Winnipeg community…we talk about the things that make our souls sing – as friends do. When I have conversations with patrons who support Shakespeare in the Ruins, we never talk about money. I have been thinking a lot about the word “friend.” A mentor of mine once said that we don’t have “donors” in the Theatre. ![]() We now actually get to dream up a new world how utterly exciting! The question we must keep asking ourselves is: what do we want the world to look like once we are through to the other side? Now, more than ever, we must make the case for more public funding for the Arts – not as “bail out” packages, but as an investment. The impact of this crisis on commercial ventures, like Broadway and Toronto’s Mirvish Theatres, is devastating. Our sector is going through severe turbulence right now, and the ride will remain bumpy for a while. We will, without a doubt, be the last ones to re-open. Yes, the world is slowly “re-opening,” and people are going back to work and the streets seem to be bursting with more life as the weather improves, and the lushness of summer continues to grow…Īnd yet, there are still questions about when it will be safe to reopen our theatres. We have been living this ‘new reality’ for more than two months now, and it’s still very hard to see the end of it. Has anyone out there written “King Lear 2” yet? I hope you are finding little rituals of joy through these days of isolation.
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