Spotlight on Frontline Health Workers Through the Lens of Theater

In March 2022, as the world was still reeling from the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and its lingering effects, frontline health workers were yearning for a way to share their stories and for the public to acknowledge the devastating effects of COVID-19. With the understanding that the art of storytelling can provoke empathy, the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing and Elevate Theatre Company created the Frontline Health Workers Digital Theater Project. Through our project, we aimed to engage frontline health workers in storytelling and give audience members the opportunity to see how their individual choices impact our frontline workforce. Storytelling workshops were conducted with frontline health workers to further explore and understand their experiences. After the workshops, incorporating the frontline health workers' stories, two original plays were written, and performed virtually, highlighting the personal and institutional toll the pandemic had on these frontline health workers. The two plays were: "A Soft Landing" by Ang Bey and "Silos" by Nikki Brake-Sillá. After the performances, a panel of health care experts and frontline workers discussed multiple themes in the theater productions, including how the public health issues highlighted in the plays manifested in real life and what the public can do to decrease the burden of our frontline health workers. The Frontline Health Workers Digital Theater Project can be viewed on Elevate's website: https://elevatetheatrecompany.com/frontline-health-workers.