Who can afford to survive a plague? Discover how a group of collaborators — students from Princeton, Fordham University, Georgetown University, SUNY Purchase College, and University of Massachusetts Amherst — deeply explored Naomi Wallace’s play One Flea Spare in a spring course led by Princeton Lecturer in Theater Elena Araoz. One Flea Spare, a story about strangers quarantining together during London’s 17th-Century Great Plague, inspired the group to create a wild artistic departure about our own communities’ social iniquities, abuses of power, classism, racism, fake science, and questions about who can afford to survive a plague and the boundaries of gender and the body. A Passage in Relief was devised, written, and performed live in front of a virtual audience on Zoom on April 26, 2021. In this video, the collaborators share how they drew parallels between the text and their daily lives, not only bringing the play to life in an innovative virtual space but also connecting as individuals trying to survive a modern global pandemic.

The recorded performance of A Passage in Relief is still available to view as part of the 2020-21 virtual season of events. Watch A Passage in Relief