UC San Diego

I’m Scared.

Last week I watched as every theater company in the country shut down. I wash my

hands every hour or so. I’m down to the last roll of toilet paper. I scroll the internet for updates

on an epidemic that will define my transition from student to artist.

In this tense moment I find new reverence for the formalized ritual of gathering together

to watch live theater. The anxiety of social distancing reminds me that people crave connection

through shared experience. We want to be in one big room with each other. As a theater-maker,

this fundamental desire for proximity reminds me of why I love the performing arts.

In a few months this pandemic will be behind us, and theater artists will be on the front

line teaching the public how to be together again. In the mean time I’ll search for ways to feel

closeness, and to help others feel closeness, even when while quarantined in my home