Dear TRENDS Diary –
Ten years ago, I formed a theater company in Boulder called The Catamounts. We call what we do “theater for an adventurous palate” because we believe theatre should be a very live and adaptive art form.
This pandemic feels like such an unprecedented time. But actually, it isn’t. We human beings have gone through cycles of terrible epidemics throughout history, and we’ve always made it through. Many of Colorado’s earliest settlers came here because they believed the arid mountain climate could cure them of tuberculosis, one of the deadliest respiratory diseases in history.
While most of our work is presented in Boulder County, we are presenting “Land of Milk and Honey,” written by local playwright Jeffrey Neuman, through June 27 on the historic Shoenberg Farm, which was founded by a Jewish philanthropist who lost a son to tuberculosis.
People came to National Jewish Hospital from all over the world because of TB. The hospital would treat them, but they had no way of feeding them. The 800-acre Shoenberg Farm in Westminster was, quite literally, a way to feed them. I was struck by the idea that when something terrible happens, you respond to your grief by trying to save others. This seems like a redemptive response to the kind of grief we all have been feeling over the past year.
One of the things we have discovered during the pandemic is that we suffer in isolation. Theater is inherently about connecting people. It is uniquely qualified to gather us together with stories that unite us, that we experience in proximity to one another. “Land of Milk and Honey” is a way of talking about COVID, and about all of the things we have lost in the past year – without actually talking about COVID. We hope you join us. Info: thecatamounts.org
– Amanda Berg Wilson, as told to John Moore
