Your support has made it possible for the Lantern to remain one of the most active theater companies in the country throughout the pandemic. Since Covid closed theaters around the world in March 2020, we have created five digital productions that have garnered national attention from The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times, developed four films from plays previously recorded for our production archives, and produced six Zoom readings of Shakespeare plays, including two exclusively for our school partners.

Although no substitute for live theater, this body of work throughout the pandemic fulfills a promise kept to you and to our theater artists. Our digital productions have been viewed over 15,000 times in 17 countries and in 45 U.S. states, including by over 2,500 students and teachers at our middle school and high school partners in the School District of Philadelphia. In this same period, we have employed more than 150 theater artists in the creation of new work and paid royalties and residuals to 50+ theater artists for streaming productions filmed prior to the Covid health crisis.

We hope you share our high hopes for our upcoming 2021/22 season. We hope that you are excited to return for live performances of Fabulation, or the Re-Education of Undine by Lynn Nottage, A Man for All Seasons by Robert Bolt, and Travesties by Tom Stoppard as much as our artists are enjoying the creative process in which they are engaged right now. We hope that everyone will comply steadfastly, if not enthusiastically, with our mask and vaccination policies to keep us all safe. And we hope for the continued health, safety, and well-being of the entire Lantern community – all of you in the audience, our theater artists, and our staff.

We need your help to make our return to live theater a success. We have planned an artistically ambitious 2021/22 season. We have increased the compensation of our theater artists in keeping with the Lantern Theater Artist Fair Initiative, introduced in 2015. We have continued to employ the Lantern's dedicated core staff on a full-time basis throughout the pandemic, and we have recently brought on board four talented early career professional apprentices for the new season.

We are incredibly grateful for your support, and we ask now for your help to establish a strong foundation for the Lantern's 2021/22 season. We cannot make theater without you in our audience and without your support.

With deep appreciation,

Questions? Please contact Ileana Fortuño, Development & Ticketing Operations Manager, at ifortuno@lanterntheater.org or 215.829.9002 x202. Thank you for supporting the Lantern!