How theater weathers wars, outlasts empires and survives pandemics | Cara Greene Epstein

TED Health

TED

Health & Fitness, Fitness, Shoshana Ungerleider, Medicine, How To Be Healthier, Ted Shoshana, Ted Talks Health

4.2 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 23 February 2021

⏱️ 16 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

When catastrophe strikes, art prevails—and has done so for centuries. In this fascinating talk, writer and director Cara Greene Epstein places the closing of theaters during the coronavirus pandemic in a historical context, exploring how we can use this intermission to imagine a more just, representative and beautiful world, onstage and off.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Ted Audio Collective
0:10.8	Hey, I'm Elise Hugh with today's Ted Health.
0:13.2	I remember being in New York on the last day Broadway was open before it shut down because
0:17.5	of the fast spread of the coronavirus.
0:19.9	It's hard to imagine so many theaters dark right now, putting artists and technicians out
0:24.9	of work.
0:25.9	Today's talk actor and educator Cara Green Epstein champions the power of theater, which
0:31.0	has historically survived other plays before, to help make meaning of this traumatic period
0:35.8	we're in, and connect us to one another again, one day.
0:40.0	Hey, listener, a quick favor.
0:43.9	We are conducting an audience survey and we'd be really grateful if you could take just
0:47.6	a few minutes to respond.
0:49.3	Please visit survey.prx.org slash health to take the survey today.
0:55.8	That's survey.prx.org slash health.
0:59.4	Thanks.
1:00.4	Oh, firm use of fire that would ascend the brightest heaven of invention.
1:06.7	A kingdom for a stage, princes to act and monarch to behold the swelling scene.
1:12.7	Though to be totally honest, right now I'd settle for a real school day, a night out,
1:17.9	and a hug from a friend.
1:20.5	The words that I spoke at the beginning, oh, firm use of fire, etc. are Shakespeare's.
1:25.5	He wrote them as the opening to his play, Henry V, and they're also quite likely the first
1:29.8	words ever spoken on the stage of the Globe Theatre in London when it opened in 1599.
	...

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