David Biedenbender

It felt like it took a long time to write dream of ember, dream of star. I first started work on it in 2019, but as the 2020 premiere approached the COVID-19 pandemic canceled the premiere, and I stepped away from writing for a while. It was rescheduled for 2021 and then canceled again, and I found myself in the strange position of having unfinished material that I had written in what felt like a lifetime ago. Each piece I write is a snapshot of who I am and what I am feeling at that particular moment in my life, and so many things had happened in those long months that I felt different, changed. I found that I could not finish the piece I had started writing almost two years earlier. I restarted.


dream of ember, dream of star is not what I set out to write two years ago, and it comes from a place emotionally that I do not know how to adequately describe with words. There has been so much fear, so much loss, so much change, so much division, so many different challenges and experiences—for some I imagine it must seem like an entire lifetime’s worth of loss has been compressed into relatively a short time span. But this experience has also brought some things into clearer focus—a nascent hope and joy emerging from the pause—the silence—helping us to discover what is truly important. My hope is that this piece might create a space to reflect. For me, I have been drawn to a recurring image of fire and stars—the warm glow of a campfire under a cold, deep blue sky and twinkling stars—both emanating light but separated by billions of miles and many years, felt and warm and visible to me right here and now.

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