Friday, January 21, 2022

My Theater Dance Card

Dance cards were a thing a lady used to have at a ball - a charming little booklet with an attached dainty gilded pencil to mark down promised dances and her gentlemanly partners.



 Dance card image courtesy of Wikimedia

I've always kept a scribbly, scabby version of a dance card myself, to remember what shows I've promised to design, for which theater group.

Well, I did until covid.

Today (while updating my theater how-to book Alice Through the Proscenium, watch for this new expanded! edition's publication date) I happened to need to refer back in time, to see what shows I was juggling in 2019-2020.  After I remembered that I had a little black book, found it, and blew off the dust, I saw... well, the perfect illustration of just exactly what covid did to the schedules of every theater artist.

Here's my dance card for 2018 and 2019:


Thirteen shows I designed in 2019, for eight different theaters.  In 2020 it was eleven shows, seven theaters, and an Off-Broadway showcase.

Here it is for 2020 and 2021:


Two real shows I designed that actually appeared on stage, one speculative hypnotism show that did not, a cancelation and... blankitude...

That's what covid was like for me and for most of us for those two years.

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