Weekly Margin 2020, W17: Where I Am

This week I feel like I reached the acceptance stage, not of our global tragedy (that's a separate staggering grief), but at least of my current cocooned existence. I wake up around the same time each day, I brush my teeth, wash my face, make my bed, log into work remotely, and I exist. That's enough, for now. I've had people ask/assume that I'm writing a lot, with all this time to myself, and no, I'm not. I'm writing my two blogs, but I haven't written any new plays, stories, essays. If I think of something to write, I will, but I'm also not going to punish myself if I don't produce any brilliance out of all this beyond surviving. Surviving is enough.

In the darker recesses of my soul, it seems callous to me to dream of creating something brilliant out of this needless tragedy, this long moment in time that is killing so many people, and will forever scar those they leave behind. I am not saying it is callous to produce art. God, we need art. We need it desperately. I am so grateful to those who are producing art, and sharing it with us. But part of my current survivor's guilt, at still having a job, at having been sick but fully recovered, is also this whisper in my gut.

So I suppose that's where I'm at right now. I do remain impressed with and grateful to those who are able, not just to function, but to create. This past week Joshua William Gelb and his Theater in Quarantine experimentation finally presented a live performance, and this Wednesday Richard Nelson will present his newest play in The Apple Family series, written for this specific time and circumstance, called What Do We Need to Talk About? Conversations on Zoom. And last night, after an hour of technical difficulties, we got the Sondheim concert we could never have gotten in person, and we melted down online.

My past week's watchlist, and a brief list of theater developments, below the cut:

Streaming Theater-Related Content I Watched

• Stars In the House with Seth Rudetsky and James Wesley episodes including a Les Miserables reunion, the Drama Desk nominations/Urinetown reunion, a Frozen writers/voice actors reunion, and a live reading of Arms & The Man.
• American Idiot celebrated its 10th anniversary with a rendition of "21 Guns."
• Take Me to the World: A Sondheim 90th Birthday Celebration, courtesy of Broadway.com.
• In preparation for The Public's stream next week of the newest installment in The Apple Family Plays by Richard Nelson, PBS is streaming the first four plays in the series.
• National Theatre at Home's Twelfth Night.
• Roundabout's stream of 72 Miles to Go...
• The culmination of Joshua William Gelb's Theater in Quarantine exploration, a live-filmed The Neighbor by Franz Kafka.
• Love Never Dies. Oy.
• YouTube's rabbit holes including: Joshua Henry recording "Soliloquy" for the cast recording of Carousel, Santino Fontana and Jonathan Groff dueting "Do You Wanna Build a Snowman?," Santino Fontana and Jessica Hershberger dueting on Adam Gwon's "Fine," Sarah Stiles singing What's Gonna Happen" at Stars in the Alley.

Theater Developments

• Drama Desk nominations were announced via Stars in the House. The award show will take place digitally on May 31.
• Esteemed actress Shirley Knight passed away of natural causes.
• Broadway director Peter Hunt (1776 for most, The Scarlet Pimpernel for me) passed away, as far as google can tell me, of natural causes.