I’m going to be honest, I spend a lot of time these days worrying about the future of humanity. It sounds like such a grand thing to say, but news and science and numerous conversations I have every week reflect this feeling back to me; so I’m gonna go out on a limb and assume you know what I mean. Which leads me to the question, what does hope look like in this landscape? Real hope, not band-aid hope. I spend a lot of time thinking about that too.
And here’s the thing, this species of ours terrifies and enrages me a lot of the time. Sometimes, when I fly into New York City and see the sky line appear, I shake my head and go “what were we thinking, what is all of this for, and at what cost?” But, if I’m in just the right mindset, I see it and it takes my breath away. I see all of the innovation and imagination and collective effort it took to build this city, and I think of all the languages and cultures that coexist in this city. I think of all the people in it scrambling around and working for something they believe in. And I am moved.
Because up close and personal, I am in awe of people. Of our resiliency, of our capacity to love, of the magic that happens when care and thoughtfulness is brought to the act of creation.
At The Private Theatre, we are constantly wrestling with what we can do as theatre-makers in these times. What is our role? What can we offer? What can we do to offer hope?
I can’t say I have a lot of answers to these questions, but I do have a feeling. A feeling that if we can find a way to zoom in—to look past all the chaos and commerce and greed to the people who are making their way—that maybe we’ll be okay. Maybe, if we hold up enough stories, stories that push us and comfort us, that remind us of all the intricate crazy astounding beauty of being human on this planet, that just maybe we’ll be able to find our way to hope. To the kind of hope that builds something new, something different, something sustainable, something with kindness and resiliency built into the very fabric of how we think and act and create. And I think, perhaps, it is in asking these questions, in searching for and shaping these stories, that we as theatre-makers can keep our pulse on hope.