I may have to buy a new calendar to keep track of all the cultural programming being offered in response to all the stay-at-home orders.

In all honesty, I am more likely to print out some free calendar templates for the next month or two. Any calendar I ordered would need to be shipped here over some indeterminate amount of time, and I needs to get myself sorted now.

(Too many choices!)

First there was Andrew Lloyd Webber’s The Shows Must Go On: a musical in his oeuvre made available each Friday for 48 hours. I missed Joseph (didn’t care) and JCS (still kicking myself over that), and made it a point to watch Phantom last weekend.*

Then there was the National Theatre at Home, with different plays being released for 2 weeks of streaming at a time. I missed their first few performances, but am getting my act together in time for Twelfth Night. (Go Shakes!)

Add in the One World Together at Home benefit (we’ve watched the 2-hour reduction and I’m undecided about whether to put effort into finding the rest of the event streaming somewhere), the two-week showings by Shakespeare’s Globe (I missed Hamlet but will get on track with R&J and the rest of their schedule), and the Stratford Festival on Film (finally! something I’m getting in on at the start!), and there is truly an embarrassment of cultural riches to enjoy.**

It’s almost enough to make me wish I had more free time to enjoy all of this. (ALMOST. Mama likes her paycheck.)

And the hits keep coming. Yesterday, I saw a listing for a livestreamed Yellow Submarine singalong (no replay as far as I can tell), and watch parties by the English National Ballet (recasts available for 48 hours). Then today, I saw an article about free telecasts of the famed production of Frankenstein where Benedict Cumberbatch and Jonny Lee Miller kept switching off between playing Dr. Frankenstein and The Creature.

Turns out that most recent article is just the National Theatre releasing the next few titles in the “at Home” series I’ve already linked above. (Whoops.) Still, my confusion is indicative of the ways my brain is not able to keep track all the cool shit I want to be watching right now.

Hence my need for a planning calendar.

‘Cos this is just the theatrical shows (for the most part). What about John Krasinski and Some Good News? The Jersey4Jersey benefit I’m hoping to find somewhere online?*** Seth Rudetsky’s Stars in the House series? (China Beach reunion in 10 minutes!! squeee!)

I suppose if periodic bouts of pandemic brain are going to lessen my capacity for other endeavors and, instead, raise my screen time, I might as well do so when there’s so many options that are waaaaaaay better for me than Tiger King.

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* I have yet to determine whether I will subject myself to Love Never Dies this coming weekend. How interested am I in watching a musical car wreck?

** Yes, this list is Shakespeare-heavy. I am what I am.

*** We would have watched that live last night, but it wasn’t carried by our Boston TV stations.

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Image credit: Flickr user Paul L Dineen, via a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.