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In the midst of a pandemic that’s forced people to stay physically distant, live music and performance venues have been hit particularly hard.
Local director and choreographer Lizel Sandoval is one of the countless artists who has been out of a job for months. At the beginning of this year, Sandoval took a leap of faith to focus on her passion.
“I made a decision to leave my day job and focus on my contract work and to become a stay at home mom for my twins,” Sandoval said.
Sandoval was working with the Woodlawn Theatre Academy, helping them put on a production of Godspell JR when production came to a halt just weeks away from opening night.
“It was really a punch to the gut,” Sandoval said. “These kiddos had worked so hard.”
Every single contract job she had lined up for the year was canceled.
Sandoval said this is obviously a financial blow for her family, but it’s also been upsetting to her artistically to not be able to see these projects through. She is holding out hope that her work can return in some form next year.
“Maybe we can do something in 2021,” Sandoval said. “But it may not look exactly how we originally wanted it to look.”
Like so many others, as 2020 comes to an end, Sandoval is wondering what next year will look like, and whether she’ll have to come up with a different plan for her family.
