Last but not least, if you can give to help mitigate the significant loss of ticket income, we’d sure be grateful. Let’s make this extraordinary time count, so that when we can gather once more, we do it strengthened and impassioned by this experience we have all shared.
It occurred to me this morning that in so many of Shakespeare’s plays, his characters become isolated from society-at-large. Examples include the lovers and mechanicals lost in the wood of Athens in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and the exiled Prospero on his island in The Tempest. Viola is separated from the world she knows when she is shipwrecked and disguises herself on the coast of Illyria in Twelfth Night.
These moments of isolation lead to profound changes, however: a renewed sense of self, a regeneration of purpose, and a deeper understanding about why it is good to love one another. As the exiled Duke Senior says in As You Like It:
“And this our life, exempt from public haunt,
Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,
Sermons in stones, and good in everything.”
Shakespeare whispers in our ear that we will be better for this time of isolation, that there will come an end to exile, and that, in exchange for our losses, the world to which we return will be better than the one we left behind.
Until then, stay healthy, stay safe, stay involved. I can’t wait to see you in the brave new world.
Mike Ryan, Artistic Director