The Show That Wasn't

I will write the Jell-O blog. This coming Saturday, March 28th, would have been our 32nd Jell-O Art Show. Of course it is not the most significant thing that has been cancelled in our new coronaworld but it was big to us. When the plug was pulled, everything stopped so abruptly.

By the time MKAC told us, we were already there. Some of us felt unsafe to come to practices, though we were reluctant to quit. We were pretty close to having the performance pinned down. It was the fifth rewrite of the script, all of the songs were in place and mostly learned, and I had made a few props and bought the shirts. I can hold onto those, I guess, but they are odd colors that I won't use probably. Unless I think of some great apocalypse idea and a way to sell them. I'll just plan around them for next year. I'm sad not to add to my collection, though.

 We can maybe use the same theme, Jell-O Obsession, next year. You never know what will seem funny in the future. That's always a concern for us. When we start in January, we intentionally keep things loose for as long as we can to be able to bring in the timely and take out the inappropriate. We like to honor the recently dead when we can...I wanted us to have a Ram Dass character but we didn't write it in. It's a good thing we weren't considering Jell-O Fever!

Our dress rehearsal would be Friday evening...it is always exciting to run through the whole script and test out those complicated costume changes and prop managements. Usually most of us wait to reveal our full costumes in the Green Room before the show so we can add or subtract accessories, get a good look at each other for maximum laughage, and just to make it as fun as we can. We share snacks and eyeshadow, gloves and hats, and parcel out the aprons for the songs that require them. I'm pretty sad about the Jell-O Jibe costumes that I didn't even really start to work on.

We were already planning for a fairly simple set and I held off making it since things didn't look too promising. But I would have spent the last two weeks with lots of cardboard and posterboard crammed into my living room making some kind of a laboratory setup and some oversize items. I already had the coffee cups ready to paint. I was going to make them look like Fiestaware and the shirts were mint and tangerine.

It was going to be a fiesta of joy! We studiously avoided politics thinking that everyone would rather have just silly joy this year, as things were already grim enough. It seems so odd to notice now how the virus was really not on our radar. I guess we started thinking about it in February.

I also had an extensive plan for a Jell-O making workshop that would have been last Saturday. I know I made the right decision to cancel it, though we could have done some distancing and made it relatively safe. It will only be when we can look back from beyond this that we will know if we were truly safe or just in deep denial.


For a minute we had a plan to film ourselves or perform in an empty room, but we are mostly older folks and were actually all at risk, as we are all now at risk and the myth it was older people only has fallen. It felt brutal to just stop singing the songs and put everything away. I spent some time still singing a couple of them. I feel terrible that we didn't even run through the script once.

It was kind of simple...we learned last year that trying to include too much just makes it impossible. My tendency as a writer is to bring in lots of digression, then tie it all together with little jokes that not everyone will get or even hear.
Hearing it all is always an issue, too, so we don't focus too much on small details in the songs, just try to get something fun and cute to build on. We had some really cute songs, I thought. A takeoff on Makin' Whoopee, that was of course, Makin' Jell-O.  A great version of Java Jive with big plans for the cute. We were actually going to sing a couple of songs without changing the lyrics to parody, which is unusual, but people were already sensing we were working too hard and I think they started just going through the motions a little before we quit. You can only honor "The Show Must Go On" when it isn't actually life-threatening, I guess. We were waiting to see a Tina Turner imitation that was promising...she didn't even get to come to one practice.


 I have a sense of tragedy going which is a disservice to our intent. It is just supposed to be fun and raise a little money for the gallery, but it is always more than that to me. Jell-O made me an artist. I have used it to start my art year, to focus true creativity aside from the thought of money-making, and to play with a medium. I did make some components for the workshop that have stayed out on my table, since I feel I should at least make one fascinator for myself in case we get a chance to celebrate, say for my birthday (May 5th will be my 70th) or for some other fun time. It does seem we will again have fun times. I could wear it the next time I have an online meeting.

I will enjoy making something. I can't let it all just disappear in the current miasma.

Well, for now, enjoy this gallery of shirts and enjoy your Saturday as it comes and you find other things to do. Let us hope for jigglier days. Nothing is ever over until it is really over, and there will always be a need for levity and cleverness. I know the Radar Angels will continue and if there is a Fair, they will be there.

As the story goes, there would have only been one Jell_O Art Show except that one good person approached Indi in the grocery store and asked when the show would be the second year...and that was enough popular demand to get it to happen again.

So keep wanting it. Keep wishing for the normalcy of Why Be Normal. Keep jiggling as we will, particularly with all of this comfort-eating. It's pretty likely there will be a reason for satire and joy in 2021. Even if there isn't a reason...well, when have we ever needed a reason?