“So explain to me: if you’re capable of empathy now, what was your problem before? Where was your empathy when you didn’t know someone personally? Does a George Floyd or a Breonna Taylor have to die just because you never met a black person who had been harrassed by the police? Excuse me, but have you ever heard of a thing called imagination? People, human beings just like you, are suffering and dying because you lack the ability to imagine their suffering. You say you’re now willing to walk a mile in someone else’s shoes, but you’re only willing to put on shoes that have come out of your own closet.”
As many as 1m,10f to 3m,8f or as few as 1m,5f to 4m,2f, depending on the gender of the characters and the degree of doubling.
available for development or Zoom performance.
About the play:
Allie is falling in love with a mysterious stranger in her adult-ed classes, Deborah drops off 21 pre-cooked meals at her house-bound mother’s doorstep every week, and Maureen visits her mother at her senior living facility. Life is normal … or rather, it would be normal, were the world not in lockdown, and friends and family weren’t communicating with one another solely by Zoom. Willa, a therapist, and Leora, a palliative-care nurse, try to help their friends and patients; but, through “coming together by staying apart,” they all discover the power and the limitations of empathy, and the strain of living and loving and mourning only in their imaginations.
Inspired by Shakespeare’s As You Like It.
Semi-finalist, “Shakespeare’s New Contemporaries” competition, 2021, American Shakespeare Center.
NOTE: THIS IS NOT A ZOOM PLAY, but a play that depicts a world in which all the characters are socially isolated and communicate solely via Zoom, Facetime, and Skype. All of the scenes, though taking place on electronic virtual platforms, are depicted on stage theatrically.
That said: THE PLAY IS ALSO AVAILABLE IN A VERSION DEVISED SPECIFICALLY FOR ZOOM.
Download the latest version of either the theatre script or the Zoom script at NPX, or contact the playwright directly.
Direct all inquiries about performance rights to the playwright.
Poster design by Helena von Nagy
Cary Mazer 