May – August 2020

*..as Zoom becomes the medium Creatives use in ‘self-empowerment’ to cultivate some measure of their work across hiatus, I'm wondering if it's possible to curate core fodder of the play, and move it into online spaces for workshop.. – but how..?

*..Thembi and I have continued the conversation on things By Me.. and, in the existence of the medium of Zoom, have jointly come to the decision of just going ahead with an unrehearsed table reading, which she is financially supporting, navigating, and directing.. 

..it is a huge, humbling, exhilarating moments reaching towards this works 'appearance'!

*The table reading is for a closed few spectators, and a table full of incredible artists fully putting teeth to the language, and effort of this work.

..deeply grateful to each of them; and especially to Thembi, who -in an extended 'after reading talkback', adroitly unknit all the snares and points of trigger, to allow for the cast to express, in many cases, feelings that had never had access to be expressed of/in their families.. and life journey's..

Amazing.. enriching.. -daunting; as it is clear that, while this work has legs, it is no easy walk! 

AUGUST...

*Zoom continues to dominate this landscape of theatre hiatus/pandemic.. as more and more Creatives have been drawn to create in new defining circumstances.. while theatre companies ..-seem to be determined to sidestep deep work on 'anatomic structures of disenfranchisement' by tossing gobs of digital 'spaghetti' at the walls of their audiences..

..-makes no sense.. - and makes for no knowledge based movement into the experience of 'doing different differently'..!

*Theatre Communication Group! -presents a webinar in which I first hear Brendan Bradley speak details to independent creatives as to how they can evolve their own work in Zoom.

*Subsequent to the webinar, I reach out to Brendan; we connect; he asks to read what I would wish to work on; I share script of Reconstruction and By Me You'll Never Know; he suggests By Me as the right exploration in Zoom-scape especially based on its ask for ‘an untethered landscape’.

*Isabel Wilkerson’s book, Caste, The Origins Of Our Discontent is published.

*Wide scale conversations on ‘color/caste’ spread across social platforms, and appear more frequently in newsmedia..

And suddenly.. its all zeitgeist that swirls across By Me..