The Public Theater
Presents
The Digital Premiere of

THE LINE

Written by JESSICA BLANK & ERIK JENSEN
Directed by JESSICA BLANK
Original Music Composed by AIMEE MANN

Featuring
SANTINO FONTANA, ARJUN GUPTA, JOHN ORTIZ, ALISON PILL,
NICHOLAS PINNOCK, JAMEY SHERIDAN, & LORRAINE TOUSSAINT

Production Stage Manager: JANELLE CASO
Stage Manager: LUISA SANCHEZ COLON
Technical Director: IDO LEVRAN

The Public Theater YouTube Channel or Website

July 8, 2020

Attention all ye who mock the COVID virus: watch THE LINE and snap out of it. This masterful production cuts to the bone with its superlative script and its flawless actors, who speak with the voices of actual COVID first-responders.

This “documentary play” is crafted from interviews with New York City doctors, nurses, and EMTs who formed the first line of protection and care when COVID hit. The characters are not composites. Each represents an actual first-responder. Like all of us, they didn’t see this coming. They heard vague news items about some virus somewhere. Then ambulance calls increased by a hundred a night, then more, then even more. They ran out of masks, oxygen, hospital beds, intubators. Young people died in their arms. They themselves caught the virus and were hospitalized. They worked 16-hour days, seven days a week.

One EMT who served in Viet Nam likened it to medical care in battle. Triage. Save the “most-saveable”. Don’t do CPR for 45 minutes, but only 20 minutes. Dermatologists were called into service in the ICU. One-third of the doctors were out sick. No deathbed visitors allowed. No visitors at all allowed.

These first-responders don’t like the word “hero”. They did their jobs. They want acknowledgement for all the other workers on the front lines…housekeeping, cooks, those supplying linens. Without them, the entire system would have crashed and burned.

And when things finally calmed down, the bureaucratic lies began. Talking about the city’s “quick efficient response”, blah blah. Offering “grief counseling”, but weeks or months after the losses. It would have been laughable, if it weren’t so pathetic.

The glorious icing on this rich narrative is the original music by Aimee Mann, featuring her song “Batten Down”. Priceless.

-Karen D’Onofrio-