Two weeks ago, Toronto playwright Nick Green was having a banner year: three productions mounted in 12 months and his play “Body Politic” had been published.

But then the COVID-19 crisis hit. Green joined the thousands of Canadian artists who immediately found themselves without work, with two of those three productions cancelled or postponed.

(The third, “Every Day She Rose,” already ran at Buddies in Bad Times Theatre in November and December.)

“Three productions in a year, it has taken me 12 years to get to that place,” Green says. “And with that comes a momentum that keeps you creating, and keeps you afloat and optimistic despite the many discouraging things that happen in this career.”

Luckily, Green will still collect his artist fees from Sheridan College and the Musical Stage Company, which cancelled “In Real Life,” the musical he co-wrote with composer Kevin Wong — which happens to be a dystopian sci-fi show about communicating virtually.

That hasn’t eased the emotional turmoil, though, of losing the project, the team and the social engagement of the theatre-making process. Green describes it as a process of mourning.

“I’m a single person whose family lives in Vancouver and I was going from four weeks, six days a week, eight hours a day, surrounded by people and creativity to my 500-square-foot apartment, alone. It’s very hard in that circumstance to stay creative and motivated. And frankly, not knowing how long this is all going to last, it’s scary, along with the general anxiety of what the hell is happening in this world,” he says.

As the world is realizing, being productive in the midst of a global crisis is tough in the best of circumstances, but it’s an entirely different challenge when your work requires you to make art. So Green did the first thing he could think of to cope: he created a festival to take place entirely online.

“I was thinking, what if we could pose a challenge to those in the arts community who have lost their chance to show their work, and that will maybe help motivate them to be creative?” he says. “Because I need that; to do my best work I need to know there’s going to be a place where people can see it.”

Green created the Social Distancing Festival website to host rehearsal videos, designs, photos, excerpts and other pieces of work that have been cancelled or postponed in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

He put out a call for submissions on Saturday, March 14. By the next day he had 23,000 page views and, as of Thursday, 270,000 unique visitors, including more than 80,000 from the United States, 20,000 from the United Kingdom, 15,000 from Australia, and more from countries like India, Nigeria and Myanmar. And his inbox has been flooded with more than 300 submissions from artists around the world — hope their work will reach an audience.

“It’s turning pretty gigantic,” Green says. He is evolving the project to include a calendar of livestreams, with the potential to grow into interviews with curators and global artists. And while Green is screening each submission for quality and authenticity, he now has the help of a few Sheridan College students and local actors in posting the content. The festivalofficially kicked off on Saturday afternoon.

“I’m not surprised that artists are happy to have a platform like this, but I am surprised by the international response for sure,” he says. “I have cried a few times today reading submissions from the personal messages that people are including about the amount of work that went into their production, and how disappointing it is to not see it come to life. But to write them back and tell them I can post their submission on the site, those responses also are really special.”

Thanks to the Social Distancing Festival, Green encountered the work of Tadhi Alawi, a contemporary dancer from Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Alawi was supposed to show a video work titled “Body vs. Mouth” and a solo piece in Ireland this year at a now cancelled festival.

“It’s stunning,” Green says about “Body vs. Mouth.” He posted it as a sneak peek at the kind of work the Social Distancing Festival will showcase.

“You have to do a lot of work to find that these other artists are out there and they’re doing this thing that you love. But once you found them, it’s like this real time, instant connection. I didn’t know (Alawi) existed, but now we’re constantly messaging each other on social media.”

“I’d say this is the most connected I’ve felt to the arts community maybe in my entire career,” Green adds. “I am surprised that we as artists aren’t this connected to each other’s work all the time. It’s just a click away.”

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

Nonetheless, Green knows the Social Distancing Festival won’t be necessary forever — hopefully.

“Genuinely, my hope with this project is that it helps people engage with art that could otherwise be lost from the public. But I only want to do it until it’s not helpful anymore,” he says. “Alternately, people might burn out of looking at their screens and need to look out the window.”

The Social Distancing Festival kicked off March 21. See socialdistancingfestival.com