How Broadway Is Getting Me Through the COVID-19 Crisis…From Afar
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And yet, to quote Company, I’m “sorry-grateful.”
As an immunocompromised person with chronic upper respiratory illnesses who just recovered from a bout of pneumonia in December, I’ve been following the news surrounding the novel coronavirus obsessively for months. Only a week ago, my college classmates laughed at my panicked predictions that we would soon face a pandemic in New York City that would alter our lives completely. They compared me to a street corner doomsayer shouting that the end is near. But my health issues combined with my obsessive-compulsive disorder (which prompted me to replay worst-case scenarios in my head over and over and over), made me feel like I was psychologically preparing for the worst.
And yet, I see this shutdown as the ultimate act of community. Truthfully, I was nervous about seeing Company. I was taking precautions. I’d plotted my commute on bus, not subway; my purse was stocked with travel-size Lysol; and I was singing a 20-second section from Hadestown as I scrubbed my chafing hands roughly every 30 minutes. As I pondered our plans for the evening over breakfast with my boyfriend, the idea of sitting in a crowded theatre left me frozen with fear. What if someone coughed next to me? What if the usher who handed me a Playbill tested positive the next day? As an immunocompromised person, I felt like it was perhaps too much of a risk.
The rest of that evening was a blur. I tried to offer messages of love and support, but for once, as a writer, words were hard to find. It all felt apocalyptic. I found myself sitting in the lounge of my college dorm all night, hoping to run into another theatre kid (at a distance, of course), just so I could reassure myself that one day in the future, the shows would go on.
Although that was just six days ago, it feels like decades. So much has happened since then, locally, globally and personally. (With my NYC college closed, I’m now back at my parents’ Maryland home.) But even as the news about pandemic has worsened, I’ve woken up every day to online—Kelli O’Hara singing, Ben Platt hosting a dance party, Billy Porter reading the virus, Laura Benanti soliciting videos of canceled student performances. Watching their strength, solidarity and soldiering on in the face of the unknown has been so healing and heartwarming for me and, I’m sure, countless other fans.
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Meg Masseron is currently studying Digital Journalism and Theatre Arts with a concentration in Theatre History at Marymount Manhattan. Follow her on Twitter at @megmnyc. Follow TDF at @TDFNYC.
Top image: Patti LuPone in Company. Photo by Brinkhoff/Moegenburg.
Meg Masseron is currently the Nighttime/Weekend Reporter at Playbill. Follow her on Twitter at @megmnyc. Follow TDF at @TDFNYC.