Shouted “5! 6! 7! 8!” in the grocery store, just to see if anyone would break into a little soft-shoe.
Made the other five members of my household cram onto the sofa with me to watch TV, recreating that “seated in the mezzanine” vibe. Once there, I unwrapped a throat lozenge with painstaking care — always waiting for a dramatic silence to do so.
Whipped open the living room curtains in the morning and bellowed, “Sing out, Louise!” across my neighborhood.
Renamed various portions of my day: breakfast became “my call time”; desultory morning yoga is the “pre-show warm-up”; logging on to Zoom is “curtain up”; and wrapping up my PowerPoint with a cute puppy meme is “the 11 o’clock number,” the emotional high point of the show.
Wore a fancy dress and heels to sit on a bench in the park and watch the squirrels in what I reviewed online as a “site-specific eco-drama about overconsumption, very much in the style of Annie Baker, but with Brechtian overtones and a dash of the Wooster Group’s manifesto. Could have cut 20 minutes.”
Over-invested in my neighbors’ squabbles about whether they should or should not have installed that new fence, including slipping notes under the door with instructions such as, “Cheat out when you whisper!”
Exited my living room very slowly during the climactic scene at the end of a TV show, making sure to block the view of anyone else present while muttering that my parking meter was almost up.
Insisted vociferously that “Audra could play that part better,” no matter who was under discussion, including the President of the United States, Billie Eilish, and any fourteen-year-old on TikTok.
Asked everyone I encountered leading questions about their love life, in hopes of provoking them into song: “How’d ya meet your girl anyway, Mr. Plumber?”
Placed a stool under my porch light at night, just in case anyone’s in the mood to stop by and perform a spotlighted monologue.
Conversed about all cinematic news as it was theatre: “If you ask me, Wonder Woman 1984 should have closed in Boston.”
Wore all black clothes and told my family that I am a theatrical convention and cannot be seen or spoken to.
Screened Younger and The Greatest Showman on separate monitors to try to imagine what the postponed Sutton Foster/Hugh Jackman The Music Man will be like.
Charged myself $9 for a lukewarm beer left out on the counter, then smushed myself against a corner of the room to drink it, before flicking the lights and throwing it away, half-finished.
Screened the trailer for the film of In the Heights on a loop on my phone while standing 50 feet away and slightly behind a taller person.
Considered actually buying a season subscription to a local theater, before deciding to just wait for free tickets from friends.