Borderless Thalia

This book was born out of a need to use comedy to cope with COVID-19 and to show how we can be together, we can laugh, and we can show solidarity, thus moving forward. The playwrights here prove that writing remains a therapeutical method, and a way to connect with one another and face any difficulty that may appear insurmountable in the moment.

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Borderless Thalia: A Multilingual, Pandemic Comic Collection was born out of a need to use comedy as a tool to cope with, at the time, the vast unknown of COVID-19 and to show how, through writing in English as well as in translation, we can be together, we can laugh, and we can show solidarity, thus moving forward. There is the famous Phoenix myth, the bird that manages to get reborn out form its own ashes, and afterwards stay indestructible. In a similar vein, yet in a much more refined gesture, the female playwrights selected for this volume proved that writing remains a therapeutical method, and a way to connect with one another and face any difficulty that may appear insurmountable in the moment.

It is women of all kinds who carry the weight of the world, and not Atlas, and yet, these women teach us that we need to make time to see what is inside and around us.

This collection includes the following playwrights: Christine Benvenuto, Barbara Blatner, Sarah Congress, Connie Dinkler, Selma Dragos, Tjasa Ferme, Catalina Florina Florescu, Avery Grace, Jinna Kim, Elena Naskova, Joyce Newman Scott, Nella Ohayon, Cindi Sansone-Braff, Ellis Stump, Laurie Tanner, and Otilia Vieru-Baraboi.

Dr. Catalina Florina Florescu holds a PhD in Medical humanities from Purdue University, teaches at Pace University in New York, curates the new play festival at Jersey City Theater Center, and she is a mother of a beautiful teen.