Love in Times of Epidemy

Speakers Alma R. Selimović and participants 

Everywhere masks, masks outside, inside and in between, bubbles, contactlessness, distance, threat, danger, seriousness, guilt, zoom parties, whispers about those who were not taken by the disease, but the virus took away their projects, work, earnings and joy of life. This atmosphere raised the question of how theatre creators feel at this time. The essence of theatre, however, lays in contact with the audience! And the Paper project was born.
Maybe, it is time for spectators to tell the actor what the theatre means to them? In a time without hugs and kisses, theatre audience started writing letters to actors (and other theatre creators) and have still been writing them. The letters can be read on the Slovenian theatre web portal SiGledal, and the first hundred, written between 16 October and 31 December 2020, were published in a book 100 Letters to My Actor. The book is full of different approaches, styles, language levels, articulations, speeches, and signatures – just like picturesque audience in a packed theatre hall.
And the actors who have been preparing new performances in stock behind closed doors, and trying to stay in their best possible condition? In Records from the Lair, we can read about that. 
The theatre knows, from its history, of dormancy and interruptions due to epidemics and other reasons … nothing has killed it so far. The theatrical strain is stronger and there is no vaccine against it – creators and spectators raise it and pass it on to each other.