Even as our country comes undone, as the very foundation seems to be unraveling, as any semblance of agreements—the kind we grew up with, that bind a civil society together—appears quaint, a thing of the past, as we no longer live in a country governed by laws, I ask myself what matters, and I still find myself saying, “The Theatre.”
I have been playing with an idea about the theatre, our connection to one another, the “live” and person-to-person act of writing a letter, and democracy.
Recently, I attended a meeting with a cross-section of activists, policy makers, and cultural leaders. We were talking about what government for all—really for all—might look like, and there was a sense that nothing works for all. There are always some who are left out. A speaker offered up to skeptics in the room that there is something that works for all. It is the post office. I was compelled to delve deeper into why the post office has always mattered to me.
I have two kids; one lives in Ohio and one lives in Manchester, England. I write them letters. (Occasionally, they write me back.) I write things down on a piece of paper. I address the envelope. There’s something about the act of writing—when the hand takes the pen and presses it against the paper—that deepens the connection between the parietal and frontal lobes of the brain, improving conceptual understanding and memory, among other things.
I love mail.
The post office operates without regard to location: there are 41,552 zip codes and more than 169 million addresses in the United States. No matter where you live, you can get a letter. The post office in a small town might be housed at the drugstore or a general store or a bodega. Post offices are gathering places, where people come together in community. For the cost of a first-class stamp, anyone can send a letter across town or to the Aleutian Islands.
On July 26, 1775, Benjamin Franklin became our first Postmaster General. Legislation passed by the Second Continental Congress explicitly noted the facilitation of the freedom of the press, the privacy of personal correspondence, and an infrastructure to support the growth and prosperity of a nation.
The formal U.S. Post Office Department was made permanent by George Washington in 1792 with the signing of the Postal Service Act. This Act built on 1775 and at its heart was drafted to prevent The Crown from censoring or suppressing political opponents. As such, the post office was considered foundational to democracy, connecting citizens, supporting privacy and free speech for all with services to all, promoting equity—a first-class stamp costs the same no matter who you are—and building an informed citizenry.
In 1970, after 187 years of delivering the mail, the most sweeping changes to the Postal Act were initiated by President Nixon through the Postal Reorganization Act. Since then, out of the line of vision of many, the postal service has increasingly become politicized, threatening its core tenets.
On December 24, 2025, under the current Postmaster General, David Steiner, former CEO of Waste Management and Board member of FedEx, the United States Postal Service (USPS) published revisions to the Domestic Mail Manual (DMM). The newly adopted Section 608.11 of the DMM sets about to clarify that the date displayed on a postmark represents the “date of the first automated processing operation,” rather than the date when the mail was dropped off.
The impact of this clarification has sweeping consequences for everything from year-end charitable giving to mail-in voting and absentee ballots. At the risk of oversimplifying, after nearly 200 years of practice, the assigning of a postmark will no longer have a direct relationship to when you dropped your mail in the post office box or in person at the post office.
In 16 states and the District of Columbia, mailed ballots can be counted if they are received by a deadline set after Election Day— but only if they are postmarked on or before Election Day. One in three Americans in the 2024 elections voted by mail.
I believe we are meant to be informed as citizens. As humans, we are responsible to others, those with us now and those who will follow. A responsibility that can only be fulfilled if we are informed.
The theatre, when available to all, when central to our lives, tells us stories that open us up, deepen our understanding of each other, our empathy for one another. Traveling through stories we are informed. We become better neighbors and friends, better strangers.
Our theatres sit side by side with spaces and places where people gather in pursuit of meaning, purpose, for joy, for fun. Theatre is inextricably bound to our most sacred spaces, to places of inquiry and of learning: libraries, museums, symphonies, schools, parks, public spaces…and post offices.
Shouldn’t we go to the post office?
Shouldn’t we go to the theatre?
Shouldn’t we build an informed citizenry?
In Solidarity,
Laura Penn
Executive Director
Excerpted from a keynote given at the 2026 National Theatre Conference.