Artists in the Pandemic, Part 1: Introduction and Javen Tanner, playwright

In this special episode recorded during the COVID-19 pandemic, four artists discuss their current life and work. Each answers the same four questions: What is it like to make your art right now?; How does this pandemic affect content?; Are there works from the past, written in similar times or about similar challenges that are meaningful to you?; and What advice might you have for an artist in quarantine?

Playwright Javen Tanner in Sandy, Utah discusses his difficulties of focusing on creative work during the pandemic. He muses on Shakespeare and Chekhov, and he has a hearty laugh about a preacher named T. White circa 1577 who blamed the theater for the Bubonic plague, “…the cause of plagues is sin and the cause of sin are plays, it follows that the cause of plagues are plays.”