On Thursday afternoon, the school nurse called. My 6-year-old daughter had run a fever and complained of a sore throat. Could I come and get her? It could be the flu, we agreed, or possibly strep throat. Neither of us wanted to name other possibilities. I called our pediatric practice as I walked to her school, securing an appointment for a strep test. While we were waiting, with her sucking a dripping Popsicle, and me twitchily checking my phone and trying not to spiral, I saw the announcement that all Broadway productions would close immediately, reopening in mid-April at the earliest.

As we walked to the medical practice — the first strep test was negative, but the doctor insisted on running a second and honestly I’ve never felt so grateful to have a bacterial infection confirmed — then headed for the pharmacy, my phone kept buzzing. Each notification was an email announcing a new postponement, a new closure, as though theater in New York were some gaudy chandelier and I could see its bulbs blinking out, one by one. I had a show to see that night, another on Friday and more over the weekend; they all disappeared, except, inexplicably for Taylor Mac’s “The Fre,” in which cast and crew jostle together in a ball pit. That one I canceled myself.

To go to the theater, to engage in any activity in public life, is always to assume a certain hazard. (Then again, hundreds of people die every year from falling out of bed. Nowhere is safe.) To put ourselves into community means to make ourselves vulnerable to infection, from a virus, from an idea. It’s possible to forget that, sunk into some plush seat while a chorus line ululates, but threat remains. And live art, like most sporting events or religious services or flying economy class, puts us into particular proximity.

At the doctor’s office, waiting for test results, I worried about how I had put my daughter at risk (she attends a public school, which was open) and whether she might have infected others. Which is to say that I was and am sympathetic to the directive shuttering venues that seat 500 people or more, including all Broadway theaters, even though it caught me by surprise.