In these extraordinary and uncertain times of COVID-19, with venues closed and live performance at a halt, NiteLife Exchange is reaching out and covering the effect the crisis is having on performing artists.
Stephen Mosher is a photographer, reviewer, Cabaret Editor at Broadway World and strong cheerleader for our community.
NiteLife Exchange (NLE) asks Stephen Mosher (SM) Six Questions:
NLE: What’s your best advice to others who are coping with isolation?
SM: Open the curtains—it is difficult to be depressed when you have sunlight in the room. Open the windows—it is difficult to feel oppressed when there is fresh air in your lungs and on your skin. Listen to music that makes you feel happy, sing along, dance. Stay in contact with the outside world. Actively choose to remember that we are doing this in an effort to stay alive and keep our loved ones alive. Do one thing a day that makes you feel productive. Lead with kindness and generosity. And as much as I don’t want to say this because people don’t want to read it: remember that alcohol is a depressant. These are difficult times. If a person is prone to depression, alcohol will not make this situation better.
NLE: What’s your favorite thing to do now that our lives and behaviors have changed so dramatically?
SM: Other than spending so much time with my husband (which often reminds us of that line from The Lion in Winter—“I’m locked up with my sons, what mother doesn’t dream of that?”), my favorite thing to do is find ways to continue to promote and support the artists, the community of fans and artists, and the Broadway World family. Also, Pat and I watch one movie we haven’t seen every day – right now the ratio is 2 “meh” movies for every “YES!” movie. We need to do something about that.
NLE: Do you think positives will come out of this situation? If yes, what?
SM: I do. Something positive can come out of almost any situation, we just have to be open to finding out what it is when it’s done. There are people who will lose loved ones, and it will be hard for them to find a positive because that is just a dreadful thing to have happen to you. Losing a loved one is one of life’s rites of passage, and it hurts in the worst kind of way. But for the world at large, for the people of the world, there may be positives—we just have to find them and acknowledge them when they present themselves.
NLE: What negatives might emerge? For example, will people return to live performance as readily or continue to favor a virtual reality?
SM: I don’t know about the negatives; I don’t think anything could be more negative than what is happening right now, which is people dying. Once we are in recovery mode, there’s nowhere to go but up. If nobody is dead, dying or bleeding, we can work with it. As for live performance, I think that people will return to live entertainment – maybe not as quickly or in the numbers that they once did, but they will. Live performing arts is one of mankind’s greatest inventions and pleasures, people need it to nurture their souls and make themselves happy. Even in the worst of times, people have turned to live entertainment to ease their troubled minds. Consider how the entertainment industry used live entertainment during the AIDS crisis to raise money to help the victims of that virus. Consider how important the entertainers have been to the morale and the troops during wartime. Well, we are at war with a virus, and we are adjusting to what we have with which to work in this moment. When the experts have gotten to know this virus better and have answers, the general public will do its’ part to fight the virus and rebuild. It is human nature to begin again.
NLE: What’s made you laugh the most during the quarantine?
SM: My husband. He is the source of almost every smile and every laugh that I have. Also, that viral video of people getting punk’d in the photo booth at Universal Studios.
NLE: What’s the first thing you’re going to do when the quarantine is over and we return to normalcy?
SM: Throw a party so that I can put my arms around my Logical Family.
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