So he wanted to juxtapose the monotony of office work with a reflection on death and grief. After several trial runs, the production debuted at the 54th New York Film Festival at Lincoln Center. During early performances, Wember and Rau, sitting at tables behind the scenes, manually sent every email and clicked on every cue. “Asa and I were just sweating backstage, as we tried to send emails at roughly the right times,” Rau said. Eventually he used his coding skills to write a program that automates some aspects, such as when emails come through.

Source: New York Times October 20, 2020 17:37 UTC