It's been about a month since I've been to the theater, and therefore about a month since I've posted on this blog. At the end of February, I went to New Zealand for two weeks, which I highly recommend you add to your bucket list when we're all able to travel again. The scenery is out of this world gorgeous, the people are friendly and laid back (and with the cutest accents), and the country seems to be a lot further advanced in terms of environmental awareness than others. I returned home on March 11 with a full schedule of #TCTheater to catch up on, unaware that the world had become a very different place while I was relaxing in paradise. I woke up the next morning preparing to return to life as usual, but life as usual was rapidly changing. We were in a global pandemic, with cases of COVID-19 rapidly increasing around the globe, in the US, and right here in Minnesota. All public events began to be cancelled, including in our beloved theater community. On March 15, the CDC recommended no public gatherings of 50 or more people for eight weeks, which brings us to May 10 (but who's counting? I am. I'm counting.). This has resulted in virtually every theater cancelling, or in some cases postponing, shows that they had opened, were about to open, or had planned to open in the coming months. I'm not going to compile a list of cancelled or postponed shows, because at this point it would just say "everything." It's impossible to say when live in-person theater will resume, but needless to say I'll be ready and waiting when it does. And I'll be sure to keep you informed when things begin to be scheduled again.
In the meantime, please support our local theater community by donating the price of tickets to cancelled shows, buying a season pass for next year, buying a gift certificate for later use, or making a donation to help theaters through this crisis. We need our artists at any time, but especially in difficult times like this, to distract us or entertain us or allow us to process emotions or to help us make sense of the world we live in. In addition to individual theaters, here are a couple of links to organizations you can donate to in support of unexpectedly unemployed artists through this time:
Springboard for the Arts's Emergency Relief Fund for Artists During COVID-19
Broadway Cares / Equity Fights AIDS's COVID-19 Emergency Assistance Fund
I will not be posting regularly on this blog during this downtime, if at all, but I have committed to posting once a day on the Cherry and Spoon Facebook page, so please follow me there (and/or on Instagram) for information on streaming events, features on theaters, fun videos, a look back at a great show from the past, or other content TBD. If you have any ideas of things you'd like to see, or if you hear of anything happening in the community that you'd like me to share, please let me know.
See you on the other side.
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| in happier times: lying on a rock gazing out at stunning Lake Wakatipu Queenstown, South Island, New Zealand |