DRAMA IN THE TIME OF COVID

Humans birthed theater when the earliest cave dwellers picked up spears and reenacted the day's hunt around the evening fire. Thus, the playwright was born. Since then, from Aeschylus to Ibsen to Albee, across the centuries from Greek theatrons to the La Jolla Playhouse, the theater has displayed human existence in all its blood, sweat, and tears, and audiences have loved it. Then in 2019, COVID killed the Theater...presumably. The coronavirus pandemic closed performance venues from New York's Broadway to London's West End to Avenida Corrientes in Buenos Aires and every world capital in between. Actors and directors collected unemployment and lived hand to mouth, locked out of even their old wait staff jobs as restaurants shuttered. Playwrights holed up in their apartments to wait for the pandemic out, or even worse, returned to living in their parents' basements. But even COVID could not kill Theater. Playwrights, actors, and directors all found ways to keep theater alive. They took to Zoom and YouTube and outdoor venues or friends' living rooms to stage their work. This collection celebrates their survival in all its colorful dramatic diversity. From Joe Gulla's heartfelt Members Only to Phil Darg's musical comedy Quarantined! these plays run the gamut from somber to comedic to downright bizarre, each probing the human pandemic experience all across the world. COVID did not kill Theater, because COVID never killed the Human Spirit. Amid disease and death and masks and vaccine mandates, playwrights remained at work making theater, and we thank them for doing so. So, read a play. Write a play. See a play. Act. Direct. Tech. Why? Because Theater lives.