A Midsummer Night’s Stream

There’s no real substitute for live theater, but during the pandemic lockdown, companies across America hastily threw together online performances to keep their audiences engaged and their actors at least partially employed. “Zoom theater” grew increasingly skillful over the 18 months that theaters were closed, though an essential weirdness remained—that of watching actors in front of individual computers doing their best to interact with other actors in front of their computers. As the lockdown eased, it was possible to bring creative teams together for in-person performances, though the audiences were still remote.