Theater history will long remember that 2020 was the year that COVID canceled live performance. It canceled lots else, of course, including, tragically, hundreds of thousands of lifetimes. But it is the crash and collapse of live theater that will be recapped decades from now when young students of the arts bone up on what went down before they were born.
Those students will learn something else as well. They will learn of the resilience, reinvention, and racial reckoning that sprang to life when stages all went dark. They will learn of fiscal rethinking and digital innovation and BIPOC persistence. They will learn of a revolution in how creativity and collaboration and accountability can coexist. They will learn of new ways of understanding and experiencing what theater even is. They will learn more than any of us can know now because that story is still unfolding. Actually, that story is just starting out. And its next page-turner chapters will happen next year.
So it is that we at DC Theater Arts intend to carry on our commitment to continuing coverage of what matters to our readership of theater makers and theater lovers. We wouldn’t want to miss it. We can’t wait to write you about what matters next.
At the same time, we mourn the signing off of our sibling site, DC Theatre Scene. DCTS has had a long and acclaimed run. If it were a Broadway show, it would count as a huge hit. We will try our best to fill the silence that will be left.Â
And we will seek a sustainability for ourselves so we can stay in service to the community into 2021 and beyond. We don’t yet know how that will go. We hope you’ll want to find out along with us and follow us and keep sending us your news and views and step forward if there’s something you want to say on our platform.
Finally, we at DCMTA wish you all a Happier New Year, and we do so full of hope. Because we have a sneaking suspicion that decades from now those future students of theater history will learn that 2020 began a New Restoration.
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