Day 98…
One of the glorious things about New Yorkers, is the fact that when faced with miles of raw plywood covering the fronts of our stores, what we see, instead of desolation, is possibility. Miles of raw plywood suddenly becomes miles of blank canvas.
All over the city, artists have started to transform these rough surfaces into something amazing.
It started with graffiti during the demonstrations - angry, immediate and direct. Sometimes just somebody’s name - George Floyd. Breonna Taylor. Sometimes a sentence or a thought - I can’t breathe. Black Lives Matter.
Now, though, people are taking their time and going in deeper.
Somebody down near Union Square Park does beautiful line drawings of musicians. They look like the wire portraits of Alexander Calder. A violin player. A jazz musician with a stand-up bass.
Painters are expanding upon the graffiti and adding color and imagery. ABC Carpet’s plywood is now a stunning riot of color and defiance. Instead of just saying their names, actual portraits of those we’ve lost to police violence are all over the plywood in SoHo showing us who they were.
Other artists have added work that has seemingly nothing to do with the lockdown and the protests - landscapes and abstracts and rainbows.
Seemingly nothing to do with it, but in reality, everything to do with it - an idyllic world that we can’t be in these days because of the pandemic or one that some have been denied because of the color of their skin.
The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers have released a set of proposed guidelines that they believe will help get Hollywood and the film industry back to work.
The guidelines are broken down into several sections: infection control, protecting and supporting cast and crew health and safety, physical distancing, training and education and then a section on unique production-specific concerns. It is a very detailed and extensive document that represents a huge change in the way the industry usually works.
Hundreds of artists participate in the filming of a movie or a TV show. There are the ones you see in the final product, but behind them is an entire army of collaborators - writers, directors, producers, designers, technicians, consultants, drivers, caterers, security, maintenance, editors, studio executives, marketing people…
Some of these people can work by themselves on a specific aspect of the final product, but many of these people have to all be in the same place at the same time.
Last month, the director and actor Tyler Perry announced that he would be reopening his Atlanta film studios and published a document called “Camp Quarantine” outlining how he would do it.
Everyone would be tested before they traveled to Atlanta and then again after they arrived. They would all be kept isolated in their rooms while waiting for the results. Anyone who tests positive will not be allowed to remain. Everyone who tests negative will be required to stay on the lot for the entire duration of the shoot. Masks and distancing, where possible, would still be used, but a kind of quarantine bubble would be formed to protect everyone from the threat of outside infection. Testing would continue throughout the shoot on a regular basis.
The word that is starting to be used to describe this is “biodoming” as in “We are going to biodome in Atlanta while we are filming The Bold and the Beautiful”.
When all of these new films and shows start appearing, we are likely to see far fewer intimate love scenes. There will be fewer fight scenes. Fewer stories about battles. Fewer stories about team sports. Stories involving fewer characters are likely to get greenlit before sweeping, crowded epics are.
This global pandemic is going to have a fairly profound effect on what we are all going to be seeing on our screens for many years to come.
In my business, theatre, the way that we tell our stories has its own set of complications. The main one being that it happens live, in the moment, and requires a lot of people to be present, together, inside, all at one time.
Actor’s Equity Association, the union governing actors and stage managers has issued their own set of guidelines. These guidelines more or less mean that until the virus is under some sort of control, AEA members will not really be able to work.
Before these guidelines were published, Barrington Stage Company in Pittsfield, MA announced that they were going to attempt to do a season. Those plans seem to still be on track. Their first production is a one-person play that they hope to open in early August.
Having only one actor means that the crew can set up the stage beforehand without him, and then keep away from him during the performance. He can dress himself and do his own makeup. Depending on the action of the play, there will probably be no scene changes. The actor, therefore, can pretty much be isolated out on stage and the crew can keep away from him and each other backstage.
As for the audience, every other row of seats in the theatre has been removed. Seats in the remaining rows will be sold leaving two seats empty between each party. The front row will be 12 feet away from the stage. Different sections of the audience will be required to enter and exit the theatre through specific doors to prevent everyone coming in together the same way. Everyone in the audience will be required to wear a mask both as they enter and exit and during the performance. There will be a no-touch temperature check upon entry and any patron with a temperature of 100.4 or higher will be sent home - their tickets refunded or rescheduled. The program will be digital so patrons can access it in their own device and not have to touch a physical booklet. The play will be performed without an intermission and the concession stand and gift shop will remain closed so that patrons will not congregate together while they are in the theatre.
I am trying to imagine what that experience will be like. Will the end result be worth it? Will watching a play under those conditions be satisfying? Will performing it that way be satisfying. Can the theatre make enough money under those conditions to make the whole undertaking worth the effort?
Chris Wheeldon, who was about to direct and choreograph the new Michael Jackson musical on Broadway just created a new virtual dance piece to the music of Ravel’s Bolero. It’s beautiful.
Each dancer is on their own. Chris choreographed each of them individually with the final editing contributing to the creation of the whole.
If the piece were live onstage, he wouldn’t have done it the way he does it here. He uses the editing of the individual pieces together to tell the story as much as he uses the movement.
Never underestimate an artist. The impulse to tell stories is an integral part of the human condition. There is not a culture on the planet that does not create and share art. We learn about ourselves when we hear the stories of others.
The coronavirus has not stopped, nor will it stop our artistic drive.
Even in the worst of the German concentration camps during World War II, Jewish prisoners made art. Secretly. The art they created survived their awful destruction and still, to this day, remains vibrantly and defiantly alive. It still has the power to move us and draw us in.
Movies were a new medium once. A novelty but not a serious form of art in any way. Then artists started experimenting with it.
COVID-19 is forcing us all to find new ways of expressing ourselves.
Obstacles become opportunities.
There are plenty of unused plywood panels left on our city’s buildings. You can look at them as barriers or you can look at them as an invitation.
Of course, I am going to end this by quoting the last line of Stephen Sondheim’s perfect musical about the creative process, Sunday in the Park with George.
A blank page or canvas.
His favorite.
So many possibilities.
Live storytelling
we can do this! 💕💕💕💕