Dear Reader
There’s a hopeful if very cautious and tired and fed-up energy in the air right now. Ahead of the big day on November 3rd, when things could either go very right…or very wrong. Emotions, to use that proverbial phrase, are high. It’s quite frustrating not to be able to vote in elections for the country you’ve been living in for almost a decade and pay much of your money in taxes to. But I have been doing my part in spreading the word to get on out there, and I live in the hope that’s it’s played some small part in the momentum that’s been gathering ahead of this major presidential election.
I wrote about Alison Désir, a runner who I first interviewed back in early 2016 on my video series The Rundown, for Shondaland, about how her activism has influenced her running. Alison was one of 10,000 women who took part in a massive virtual relay to encourage voter registration and raise money for Black Voters Matter. If you’re keen to read the story, it’s here.
It’s been a while since you last heard from me, I know, and considering we’re still not really able to gather together in large groups, I thought I’d share a few events happening this weekend. Despite the year of scares we’ve had, Halloween is still going ahead, so, eh, here we go, I guess!
For your consideration, a few online options for the occasions we are currently living through:
1. Macbeth: A Surround Sound Experiment is happening on October 30, 31, and November 1, 8pm EST. Shakespeare's psychological tale of raw political ambition gets the 3D audio treatment, in a production designed for in-home listening on a pair of headphones in the dark (no screens or zooms). Recorded in isolation over the course of twenty four hours, a cast of familiar TV faces brings this familiar tale to life. Tickets benefit The Actors Fund and can be purchased here.
2. You may have heard / read on Twitter Bette Midler talking about the Hocus Pocus reunion. Well, In Search of the Sanderson Sisters: A Hocus Pocus Hulaween Takeover takes place on Friday, October 30, 8pm EST. Ms Midler, Sarah Jessica Parker and Kathy Najimy are reuniting in costume this 1993 film might be one of the most iconic Halloween classics. Bette Midler, Sarah Jessica Parker, and Kathy Najimy are reuniting in costume as the Sanderson Sisters for Midler’s extravaganza benefiting the New York Restoration Project.
3. It’s not December but what is time or dates anyway? The Nightmare Before Christmas takes place on Saturday, October 31, 7pm EST. Tony Award winner James Monroe Iglehart and a host of Broadway stars will reimagine their version of the Tim Burton classic on Halloween. Tickets, which you can get here, benefit both The Lymphoma Research Foundation and The Actors Fund.
4. Last week I interviewed Emmy-winning composer Joel Goodman, who was involved in scoring a doc about the coronavirus pandemic, called The Curve, that filmmaker Adam Branzine (Oscar-nominated for Claude Lanzmann: Spectres of the Shoah) has made freely available on YouTube in the run-up to the elections. Totally Under Control, the pandemic doc by Alex Gibney is also free, up until the election. Both films track the Trump administration's wholly inept response to the pandemic — in case there are still people out there heading to the polls who aren’t informed enough about what’s been unfolding around us.
5. The Alamo Drafthouse is also making a documentary available for free — this one is about gun control, through the eyes of teens. Us Kids, which played at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year, is about the young activists who helped create the March For Our Lives movement, sparked by the plague of gun violence that ravaged their schools. It’s screening through Alamo Drafthouse Virtual Cinema ‘til Nov 3rd.
Thank you for reading, friends. I’ll leave you with a little Maggie Smith poetry:
And I’ll see you on the other side!
Stay safe, stay sane,
Your neighbour
Nadia