Hi all,

What were you doing a year ago?

I was on a plane, headed to the wedding of Arielle Jacobs — a Broadway actress who was, in a month, going to star in the Between the Lines that was opening off-Broadway. There was a dull buzz about coronavirus at the time, but I distinctly remember how, in Mexico at the wedding, it all seemed very far away, and very extreme. I remember sitting with my co-librettist, Tim McDonald, on a beach with our computers and tweaking the script for our upcoming show. Just the week before, I’d done a speaking engagement in the midwest — deciding it was still safe, as long as there was Purell available. After the wedding, I flew to Aspen, where I met my husband and my son Jake — who was proposing to his beloved girlfriend Melanie and wanted us to be there. Again, this virus seemed very far away from real life.

Then we got a note slipped under the door of our hotel room: a guest had tested positive. I remember washing my hands like Lady Macbeth. Touching elevator buttons with my elbow. I remember how, on the plane home, a man coughed and my head whipped around to stare at him. This was March 11. The next morning, my husband and I went food shopping and stocked up for a lockdown. March 12, 2020 was the last time I was in a public store. 

Then I found out that of the six people sitting at my table at the wedding in Mexico — I was the only one who did not contract the virus. Some were hospitalized. Some had milder cases. When my co-librettist Tim recovered, we started talking about how we could chronicle the story of this pandemic in real time. Theatre has a long history of examining public health crises from a unique perspective — think of The Normal Heart, and Rent. We began by writing five short stories about how the pandemic affects different couples whose lives are loosely woven together. Then we invited 5 different songwriting teams to join us in turning these into musicalized vignettes. We attached five different directors to bring the pieces to life. Our show attracted the attention of some Broadway royalty, who became our cast. We mobilized a team of backstage professionals and music savants. 

It turns out that creating a musical about a pandemic during a pandemic is — well — challenging. Every time you watch something that is streamed, now, you are not seeing the added costs of safety — rapid Covid testing, Herculean feats of scheduling, thinking outside the box. We cast real-life couples that could be closer than six feet apart. We workshopped each vignette with its own stage manager and music director, so that there wasn’t cross-contamination. We worked to a piano track, knowing that the orchestrations would be filmed separately and safely and added later. And somehow, in spite of this damn pandemic which has gutted theatre, we created a new musical called Breathe - at times funny, at times painfully real, at times inspirational, and at times heartbreaking. I don’t think there is anyone who will watch Breathe and not see themselves somewhere in it. Last week, we filmed a truly beautiful concert version that is being edited. In the next couple of months I will reveal our cast and some teaser footage, as well as when and where you can stream it. I truly hope you’ll all join me.

This past year we’ve lost so much: milestones, savings, jobs, and loved ones. But as we turn the corner of an abyss of a year, I am trying to remind myself how things have changed for the better. A year ago, I was so overwhelmed and scared that I couldn’t even read; now I’ve finished a manuscript, started another, and completed a new musical. None of that compensates for what this pandemic has taken away — but it is a sign of resilience. We’ve all been knocked down in a big way, and here we are a year later — battered, bruised, still aching — but struggling to our feet.

Oh, and one last thought. Put stage managers in charge of vaccine distribution. With their skill set, we’d all be inoculated in a month.

XO

Jodi