This is an online community, as playwright and unstoppable force of creative nature Nick Green informs us, and it’s been activated to “celebrate and showcase the work of the many artists around the world who have been affected by the need for social distancing that has come about due to the spread of Coronavirus (COVID-19).”
We heard about this Social Distancing Festival from our friends in Austin’s award-winning improv troupe Parallelogramophonograph (that’s P-graph for short, FFS), because that same P-graph is performing live, tonight at 7pm, as part of the ongoing festival.
You wanna see this talented foursome – who did their first virtual improv gig ever just last night and are still working out the nuances of the sudden format – parlay their off-the-cuff antics into a fresh narrative you’d swear was scripted in advance? You wanna see what these yes-and Austin artists can do, live and unrehearsed, right in the middle of your favorite screen?
Well, click here and get in (virtual) line and prepare for lift-off, citizen: We reckon it’s gonna be a good and definitely one-of-a-kind show.
And there’s also, what else, entire theatrical plays, orchestra-performed symphonies, and more – with more shows signing up to be part of this Social Distancing Festival thing, this gatherum of bright diversion and cultural exuberance to bring a little of that old meatspace entanglement into our online lives. Entertaining, uplifting, challenging, delighting, and – listen: You know there’s always that small part of attending a festival, where, days and months and years later, you get to be, like, “Dude, I was there. I was totally near the stage where it happened,” right? That sweet sense of involvement?
Now you can stay right where you are – you safe and socially responsibly homebound creature, you – with those cute pajama bottoms and that bag of Doritos – you can stay there and still snag those I-was-there bragging rights … for when this pathogenic shitstorm finally passes into the history books.
Something like that, right? Whole new world, yadda-yadda-yadda?
And we’ll be right there with you, just a couple screens away.
This article appears in March 13 • 2020.