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When Will We Want to Be in a Room Full of Strangers Again?
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When Will We Want to Be in a Room Full of Strangers Again?

Theater, an industry full of optimists, is reckoning with a heartbreaking realization.

Helen Lewis
The Atlantic, 2020
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8

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Live theater has become a casualty of the global pandemic. Productions are shut down and when or how they’ll reopen remains unclear. Theater institutions, large and small, fear financial catastrophe. Helen Lewis reports in The Atlantic on the struggles of performers, writers, staff and audiences members. Will theater become less innovative and adventurous? Will ticket buyers be fewer in number and increasingly wealthy? And how will both government-subsidized and commercial sectors of the theater industry fare in the uncertain and challenging future?

Take-Aways

  • The coronavirus pandemic poses a potentially existential threat to the theater and the arts that depend on it.
  • The pandemic raises creative challenges, such as how to build and keep an audience in a time of social distancing.
  • The theater shutdown may have long-term consequences for the industry.

About the Author

A London-based staffer for The Atlantic, Helen Lewis wrote Difficult Women: A History of Feminism in 11 Fights.

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