 Liz and Riley, co-founders and Artistic directors of It’s Personal, pivoted their live theater show and classes to an online format at the start of the pandemic. Along the way they learned a few things… 1. Find Your Partner In Crime. Grab your roommate, husband, partner, or that stranger on the street (virtually, we mean. Don’t be touching people!) We promise you will need them to push through the year 2020. We began our journey at Columbia College Chicago and found ourselves both moving to LA in 2013. 7 years later we had a successful theater company and started the journey towards a new year in 2020. “This was our year,” we said. Running a theater company is no easy task. Running a theater company when you can’t perform in an actual theater is even harder. In quarantine, we were able to bounce ideas off each other, cry to each other, and celebrate ourselves when we had a win. Having each other to get through this year was irreplaceable. We highly suggest you find that person. 2 . Go digital. Now. We don’t have to tell you, dear reader, how epically our expectations of 2020 quickly went down the drain. We made it through one of the five themed shows we had planned for the year; our Crush show in January and February. We made it through one month of classes in our rental space. We started rehearsals on our March and April show...and then the world shut down. We decided to just...wait it out. Wait for a date when theaters would open back up, when we could put up our now postponed Growing Up show, when we could cast our fall shows. In the meantime, we did what we could. We did start our podcast in 2020 and figure out a way to record remotely so we could continue to put out an episode every Monday. We brought our classes from classroom to zoom call and many talented teachers in their respective fields taught classes on the It’s Personal zoom. We realized being in a theater again this year wasn’t likely so we took our storytelling shows online too, doing 6 online shows from May to October with so many fantastic performers. Raising money for charity has always been an integral part of our company, but this year we were able to raise more money than we ever have, raising over $1000 for dozens of amazing charities that needed our help. Don’t wait for the world to open back up! You have the creative juices flowing so use it! Hop on instagram and share your story, send out email blasts, create zoom rooms where you can laugh and feel connected. (Maybe you even make a Tik Tok musical like Ratatouille.) 3. “Call Your Girlfriend… I think it’s time we talked.” (Please just play Robyn on Spotify while reading this next paragraph.) Ask all your friends to help you any way possible! We are constantly scared that we are burdening people by asking for help or asking if they want to be a part of something. We forget that people want to work towards something and want to see their friends succeed. The worst thing someone can say is, “no thanks.” Okay, no biggie! Let’s ask the next person. Remember that most creative people are seeking a community. We truly could have not done this 2020 year without our dedicated executive team, cast, crew, teachers and collaborators. We pushed them and asked a lot of them, but we all grew because of it. A creative outlet feels a bit like therapy too! And it’s 2020...we all need therapy.  4. Goals Are Not Just For Athletes. As artists we are constantly inspired and working towards bettering our art. It truly helps to make goals (was this a good sports analogy? We don’t know, we’re theater kids). We found ourselves creating agendas, goal sheets, lists, and long winded emails to better understand where we were progressing our business and art towards. Don’t feel like you fail if you don’t accomplish your goal. Keep adding it to the list and keep working towards that goal. At IP, we have had ideas in the works for months, sometimes years! We are focusing on the stuff we already do, but also looking toward the future of what we can do next. We started this company as two women who wanted to make a space for people to tell their stories. It has grown, and will continue to grow, into something even more magical than we could have anticipated. Staying true to your mission is important. Staying true to your story is our mantra. 5. It’s Okay if it Isn’t How You Thought It Would Be. Who had a Resolution for 2020 that they didn’t stick to? (raises hand) It’s okay if you didn’t accomplish everything you set out to do this year. Just surviving is honestly enough. You are enough. It’s okay if what you accomplished doesn’t look like what you thought it would. Making art is affected by your environment, and if your stage is a computer screen and you can’t connect with your audience, you may feel like a failure. But you’re not, because somewhere in the interwebs is someone receiving your art and better because of it. Because you shared a part of yourself with the world when you would have rather stayed under a blanket till 2021. If you don’t take anything else with you from 2020 (and like, please don’t) go into the next year and do the thing. The thing that scares you, the thing you don’t think is good enough, the thing you’ve been putting off. Because you, and the world, will be better for it. -------- We will be continuing (and expanding!) our digital efforts into 2021. We want to thank everyone that has supported us during the insanity that was 2020. Being able to continue telling our stories has meant the world to not just us, but the entire It’s Personal company. While we look forward to being back on stage at some point, we thank you for your ongoing patronage. Here’s to a better 2021! 
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