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First, the tiniest seeds of a dream.

Over the last year or so, as the world began to slowly emerge from the deepest throes of the pandemic, @hilljam & I began expressing to each other the inner rumblings we each were experiencing about what we wanted our post-pandemic #music-making life to look like.

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We both felt the spark of something new coming to life, and we both knew that after that season of solitude, which followed a decade of us pouring ourselves into house concert touring, we were ready and eager to emerge with bigger stories to tell.

So, about a year ago, we prepared our first-ever two-person synthpop show for a radio festival we were invited to do in coastal Oregon. It was the first time in our 16 year partnership that Jamie and I had ever been on stage together!

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And it was so. dang. fun.I honestly can't remember a time when I'd had so much fun preparing for a live performance. I knew there was something special happening here.

The festival performance went great. The feedback was very encouraging. And then we had to get to work continuing to prep for the release of our album Good to Me, which came out in December last year. (https://songwhip.com/shannoncurtis/good-to-me)

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(And which is, by the way, my favorite album we've ever made, and the one of which I am most proud, on many levels. I wish that the whole world would hear it.)

After an end-of-year exhale and holiday break, we convened in early January with a big paper easel and colored pens (yes, the scented kind) to write down all the ideas and dreams and possibilities we could imagine for the year to come. How we might get this album and its message into the ears and hearts of lots and lots of people.

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Things we'd like to accomplish, even if they seemed desperately far out of reach.

One of those things was: “We'd like to start playing shows in theaters. We want to bring people an experience of music and storytelling and visuals that's bigger and bolder and more immersive than anything we've ever done."

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But ... neither of us had any idea how we were going to do that. We'd spent a decade performing *very much under the radar* in people's backyards and living rooms — who on earth would book us to play in their fancy-pants venues with literally zero ticket sales history?

We figured we'd need to put together a good-looking video of the idea we were incubating, so that we could sell the vision to people who might take a chance on partnering with us to put on these shows.

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So we called our friend Scott, who had founded a concert promotion company in Sacramento some years back.

We thought we'd ask him for recommendations of any small, good-looking rooms in Sac where we might stage something that looked like a theater show for the purpose of capturing it on film, as we built toward our playing-in-theaters goal.

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He countered with, "how about we put you in The Sofia?" Our minds were kind of blown. And we weren't entirely sure we could pull it off. But Scott seemed to believe we could; so we leaned on his belief & dove in.

And this past April, our people SHOWED UP for us at The Sofia. The room was full of people & love, we felt miraculously like we and our show really *belonged* in this gorgeous space, and the show that we'd created & rehearsed our butts off for went off without a hitch or a glitch.

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But the biggest measure of success for me, personally — the one which I knew in my heart of hearts I could go to the bank on in terms of whether this new format was the right path for us — was that it was an experience of PURE JOY.

That was all the indication I needed to know that we were onto something special. I couldn't WAIT to do it again.

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So ... we got home from Sac with a big "now what?" We came up with a list of other regions in the US where we've done house concerts over the years. I started researching theaters in cities in those regions. And eventually, once he got up the nerve (which, I have to admit, he got way before I did!), Jamie started cold-emailing a few of these venues.

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The first one he contacted was super encouraging! After learning about us and the show we were bringing, they even suggested that we could do a ticket split for the show — which, for those of you not familiar with how concert promotion works — essentially means that they were going in on the risk of the show with us, like a partner. How cool!

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The next several theaters we contacted weren't in a position to go that same route with us (given our — ahem — lack of public performance history), but they were eager to work with us to get our show into their rooms and see what we could develop.

But booking in these theaters was going to mean a big risk for us: Jamie and I were going to have to become the promoter of these shows *ourselves*.

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What that means — for those of you who aren't schooled in concert promotion lingo — is that we, personally, would need to take on ALL of the financial risk for the events.

That means we rent the venue, we pay the venue staff, we secure insurance for the performance.

And then — crossing all our fingers and toes and working it like we've never worked anything in our lives — we sell tickets, get butts in seats, and hopefully fill these little theaters (and not lose our shirts! ).

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Eeeeeep!!!

This is not how I imagined this would go! I mean, it's not like I knew precisely how our playing-in-theaters scheme was going to pan out.

I thought maybe it would involve (eventually) working with a booking agent, and that it would maybe not happen for another year or so while we built toward this idea we'd dreamed up.

You never know how things are going to pan out, right? You just do your best to put one foot in front of the other, do the next right thing, & keep doing that.

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But I suppose I should have been able to predict that — like everything else in the history of our music-making life — we would be faced with a moment of deciding whether or not we were willing to bet on ourselves to get where we aimed to go.

And here we are. Betting on ourselves. Again. The biggest bet yet.

It's honestly terrifying. There are a lot of days when Jamie or I turn to the other and say, "I'm feeling super anxious today about all of this."

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It's helpful when the other of us is having a more confident day and we can borrow from each other's faith a little.

But even on those days when our confidence wavers, I do my best to go back to these things:

- the spark that ignited this is powerful and undeniable

- we have big, bold, immersive, heart-lifting, vital stories to tell

- joy is at the center of all of this, and joy is guiding us

- we are worth the bet we're making on ourselves

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- if we don't bet on ourselves, how can we expect anyone else to?

- we have a community of loving, amazing people who have supported and lifted up what we're doing for years and years

- we believe in our community; we believe that they're going to show up for us just like they have again and again in the past

- there is so much more ahead of us, so much more to do / create / share; and we are just. getting. started.

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So ... if you've read this far ... you've gotten a glimpse behind the curtain.

This is the vulnerable, doing-it-scared reality behind all the excited, flashy concert posters and show announcements.

This is the gritty, getting-ourselves-messy part of this work that we think is going to result in something beautiful. Thank you for being witness to the gritty part.

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And also ... if you've read this far ... you know how much we need you to help us make all of this come to fruition!

If you live anywhere in getting-yourself-there distance from #Philly, #Burlington, #Omaha, or #StLouis, it would mean THE WORLD to us if you would go right now & get tickets.

We've started a challenge to #bring4friends. If everyone reading this in these 4 cities brings a car full of folks to the show, we — together — will make these shows enough of a success to build upon.

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@chrisgervais ahhhh!! Thank you so much, Chris!!!