John DeVore: 'Compassion, kindness, and creativity...glows in the darkness like fireflies'

A compelling essay by John DeVore on attending the theater in London:

"Here’s what I remember: energy, life, fire, hundreds of humans gathering, talking and gesticulating, finding their seats, leafing through programs, and watching other people fill a space with words and tears and bones. I remember thinking, “Theatre is not dead.”

* * *

I sat in a theater and watched a play in London. I remember wanting to be there. I remember everyone wanting to be there, too.

* * *

The only way to save the theatre — and, in turn, the national soul because the stakes are high — is to reevaluate our cultural values. Oh yeah. Conservatives are going to hate it. We will need to take over all the baseball stadiums and megachurches to do this right. It has to be IRL. I propose not inviting the tech guys, but we should because every voice is blah blah blah. But this needs to happen in person, like Model UN, Galactus-sized.

* * *

What’s important to me? Family. Friends. Listening to and showing up for those who love and see me. Those who accept me for who I am. It’s important to eat, laugh, and tell each other everything will work out, even if it does not. It’s important to tell stories and to do the work, especially the work that never ends. The work will never be finished, and there is joy in that knowledge. The fight was fought before you were born, and it will continue. Patience and spine are important — compassion, kindness, and creativity, the kind that glows in the darkness like fireflies at midnight. All important. Those are my values. It’s important to step out onto the stage and open yourself up. It’s important to share dreams, even those that feel like memories."

— A Few Thoughts On How To Save The Theatre, John DeVore, June 12, 2024

It somehow reminds me of this too:

"But today I’ll say, I don’t just tolerate fifth grade graduations. I’m not just relieved when they are tolerable simulacra of the Real Graduations. Fifth grade graduations are, at this moment in time, my absolute favorite graduations. Because these ceremonies, for once, aren’t about winning a race. They aren’t about passing a bar whose very existence implies that others didn’t get there with you. They’re about a group of friends who shared a space for far more than half of their lives look each other in the eyes and say that this was ours, together. Some of us were better athletes and some of us were better dancers and singers and some of us memorized more digits of Pi and read thicker books, but it would not have been the same if we were not all here. We were friends, in the most complicated, transcendent form of the word. And if we are lucky, that is what we will still be, years from now."

— Actually, fifth grade graduations might be the best graduations: On celebrating in public, together, Garrett Bucks, June 12, 2024