Maybe back to Donna's play

We think maybe we will begin again to work on the play Donna Hayes wrote, bringing back to life eight people killed by Portland Police. Next Saturday we have the use of a theatre, closed right after we held the auditions blipped in the link above. We plan to rehearse the reading, wearing masks and sitting at least 6 feet from each other in a large, empty theatre. We hope to have three rehearsals and then work with a community media group to record the play and make it available for people to watch online. We say "hope" and "maybe" because we still don't have a young Black male actor who has agreed to work with us on the reading. Without him, we don't have a reading. But beyond that, the purpose of the reading, we thought, was to expose the play to the eyes of professional production companies in hopes one of them would choose to produce it. Currently all the professional production companies are unable to work. We don't know when or if they will work again. So possibly a reading, offered online, is the only showing the play can have, for now. It is certainly relevant to this moment. And yet...will theatre rise again in this country? And if so, when? There is so much we don't know. Sue helped me to make copies of the script because some people involved in the reading (including me) have misplaced their copies and need fresh ones.

The young journalist who was beaten and arrested by the police this past Tuesday night reported to us today that not only did the police destroy his cameras, but they have so traumatized him that for now, he is depressed, afraid, and doesn't know when he will be able to work again. He was taken to jail and immediately released. There are no charges against him. But he feels emotionally and physically shattered. A friend in New Zealand says it plainly: this is fascism. This is how it works.

Thank you for your very generous response to the photo of Evan I posted yesterday. I'm honored by your kindness, and I bow in gratitude and appreciation. It is a joy to take a break from the horror of what is unfolding in this country and to visit the world of a child for a day. He will need that determination and strength we see in him.