playbill vip

We all know what it means to see a show (unless this is your first, in which case I say: “welcome!”). We buy our tickets, and then on the appointed night head into town, or out to the converted barn, town hall, school auditorium, or old opera house. Maybe we’ve dressed up, maybe not. Maybe we go out to eat first, or otherwise mark the evening as a celebration worthy of special food and drink.

We file into our seats. Maybe they’re plush, comfortable seats with armrests. Maybe they’re old wooden folding chairs. Or bleachers or benches. If it’s November as it is now, we’re stuffing our jackets into our seats, trying to accomplish the dual goals of keeping the coats off the wet, dirty floors, and also making sure we don’t end up sitting on any uncomfortable lumps of winter clothing. Elbow to elbow with friends and strangers alike we try to get comfortable as we wait for the show to start (Why did I show up thirty minutes before curtain; now I’m just sitting here wasting time!).  The occasional boisterous laugh or loud talker rises above the low-level chatter of people catching up with friends and otherwise filling time. (Might as well read the program). Maybe it’s a local show, and you know people involved, so you look for them. If not, at least the program ads provide a familiar sense of community and belonging (oh look! My hairdresser advertises here! And my optometrist’s kid is apparently involved). 

The lights dim, and the crowd slowly goes silent as we take our seats. There’s always a few stragglers that test everybody’s patience (Don’t they know a show’s about to start! Sit down and let it happen!).

And then it does happen. Actors, musicians, comedians and storytellers take the stage and bring the audience into a new world. We laugh, cry, exclaim, hold our breath, empathize, identify, and experience together for one hour, two hours three hours . . . until the final curtain releases us from our collective journey. We leave the theater different than we were when we entered, if only in the sense that we’ve participated in something new. We leave changed, and changed in a similar way as the rest of the audience. Having sat through a show together, we become more like each other. Participating in theater as an audience member brings us closer as a community.

This is what it means to see a show. Or at least it was. This will likely be a very different experience. There is no community space, no strangers, no dressing up for a night on the town. No applause, and no sense of “being here together” with the performers on your TV or computer screens. No stepping out into the cold November evening afterwards as the shock of cool air and the smell of frost greets you as you fumble for your jacket zipper under the marquee lights.
Yes, this is all together something different, from beginning to end. However, it’s something equally magical, if in new ways.

Every person involved in this production has had to learn and incorporate countless new skills and new perspectives into their usual processes. Every person whose name you’ll read in the credits has had to master new technologies, direct differently, act differently, light space differently, sing differently, play their instrument differently, and otherwise reinvent what it means to be a theater-maker. The amount of effort that that took in such a short time frame can not be understated, and the success thereof is here for you to see and hear, and is a testament to the flexibility and dedication of this cast and crew.

This may not be an evening of theater as you’re used to, but my hope is that it will leave you changed all the same.

-Nate Venet