Sweet Water Taste by Gloria Bond Clunie is a very funny play about race and how the actions of our ancestors affect life today. The show runs through January 22, 2022 and I saw online that there is a two for one deal on tickets. Tickets run between $35 and $56.

All hell—and a little bit of heaven break loose when Elijah Beckford, a prominent Southern Black undertaker, approaches his white cousin and demands to be buried in “the family cemetery.” First seen at Orlando Shakes as a PlayFest reading, this irreverent comedy takes a hilarious look at the modern racial divide as two families find the meaning in their shared history.

My first pass at the poster focused on a large live oak tree in front of a plantation. Below the ground roots spread out mingling with ancient signatures. Two oval portraits of  a couple hinted at the past. A well and two very small modern day men hinted at the present day comedic drama that would unfold. This is a lot to unpack in a single image and I wanted as well to perhaps focus on the plantation living room where most of the scenes unfold.

My second pass moved in closer to the entrance of the plantation and I focused on the two men wrestling with an old tombstone with their family name of Beckford.   The one thing I liked the most about this sketch was the title treatment and I keep it moving forward. The action of fighting over a tombstome however felt forced and it was decided that the entrance looked too much like the entrance to the White House. I also wanted to get closer in to the men and their expressions. This sketch focused on their gestures but they just needed to look each other in the eyes. The drama didn’t require an over active pose.

The next sketch focused on a very forced hand shake in the plantation living room. I knew I had hit the mark when Jim Helsinger laughed out loud. I had put the headstone behind the men and it was decided to move it forward into the foreground. The felt short compared to the tall ceiling so I was asked to move them up a bit. In this sketch the painting was rather arbitrary to make the room feel opulent but it made sense to change that and incorporate one of the family portraits I had used in the very first sketch. At this point the changes would be minor as I teeked and refined the image.

In the next pass I considered bringing back the live oak tree since it made sense to have the headstone outside. The cracked headstone in this case seemed a bit too large, so I would have to find a way to make it less pronounced. The title treatment and author type sizes were now working right. I also adjusted the handshake to it read better from a distance. Since I enjoy family history I knew I had to slip more of the past into the final image.

Back in the living room, the men are taller and I added one of the family portraits. It was decided that the female portrait would be better and I decided to add a more interesting shape and texture to the headstone. The final image is the largest one at the top of this article.

I can say that by working digitally I am able to repurpose and reuse various element sand shuffle them easily each time changes are made. Working traditionally these would be six different paintings but it is easy to change things on the fly, focusing on one aspect of the poster at a time. It as fun to play and experiment with the limitless possibilities.

Effective as of November 23, 2021, Orlando Shakes in partnership with UCF will no longer require a negative COVID-19 test to attend performances or special events. Instead, guests 5 years of age and older must now only wear a face mask when inside the building.

The World Health Organization (WHO) warned on December 29, 2021 that a “Tsunami” of Omicron cases are coming. This deluge of cases should stretch throughout the winter.

The Financial Times reported that Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO’s director-general, said the highly transmissible omicron variant and the fast-spreading delta variant will lead to the surge of cases. “This will continue to put immense pressure on exhausted health workers and health systems on the brink of collapse and again disrupting lives and livelihoods,” Tedros said.

“There is this narrative going on which is ‘it’s milder or less severe,’” Tedros said. “But we’re undermining the other side, at the same time it could be dangerous, because the high transmissibility could increase hospitalizations and deaths.” “Previous strains could often be treated with drugs called monoclonal antibodies. Omicron seems oblivious to most of these, and supplies of those that do affect it, newly developed versions … are limited. This is and will continue to put immense pressure on exhausted health workers and health systems on the brink of collapse and again disrupting lives and livelihoods,” Tedros told reporters as the health body marked the two-year anniversary of the emergence of the pandemic.

We can expect to see major disruptions in the work force as more people become infected. The CDC reduced the isolation time for people who have a close contact but are asymptomatic. from ten days of isolation to five. After 5 days of isolation a person is still 35% infections, so it makes no sense that a negative test is not required before a person can return safely to work. If you are unvaccinated the virus will find you. It is so transmissible that it will be impossible to avoid. The hope is that it will boost the immunity for those who are fully vaccinated and boosted. This could be the beginning of the end of the pandemic or it could be just another enormous wave.

The nation broke records at least four times this week for its seven-day average of new daily Covid-19 cases, reporting an all-time high of more than 386,000 new daily infections December 31, 2021, according to the latest data from Johns Hopkins University. The high case count is already causing disruptions in the country. In New York City, which just hosted a Times Square superspreader event on New Years Eve, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) is plagued with staffing issues and announced three subway lines — the B, Z and W — which service various parts of the boroughs, have been suspended.

The virus is now “extraordinarily contagious” and previous mitigation measures that used to help now may not be as helpful, CNN medical analyst Dr. Jonathan Reiner told CNN on December 31, 2021. “At the beginning of this pandemic… we all were taught, you have a significant exposure if you’re within six feet of somebody and you’re in contact with them for more than 15 minutes. All these rules are out the window,” Reiner said. “This is a hyper-contagious virus.”

Now, even a quick, transient encounter can lead to an infection, Reiner added, including if someone’s mask is loose, or a person quickly pulls their mask down, or an individual enters an elevator in which someone else has just coughed.

On a December 30, 2021 morning TV interview New York Mayor Bill de Blasio said the ball drop in Times Square  will go on as planned. City Councilman Mark Levine, who chairs the health committee, to cancel it as other cities like Rome, Paris, and Tokyo have done. Levine and others fear that it could become a superspreader event.

December 31, 2021 is the mayor’s last day in office. So this superspreading event will be his swan song. Shortly after the ball drops, Eric Adams will be sworn in as the city’s 110th mayor in Times Square. It will be his job to clean up the aftermath. Adams had planned to have an inauguration ceremony at the Kings Theater in Brooklyn Saturday night but canceled it because of rising COVID cases.

The celebration in Times Square typically holds around 58,000 people in viewing areas, but this year it will be limited to 15,000 people. Everyone will be required to wear a mask and show photo identification. All visitors to the Times Square celebration are required to show proof of vaccination if they are older than 5. Any unvaccinated children younger than 5 must be accompanied by a vaccinated adult to attend.

In November 2021, de Blasio had announced the return of a “big, strong, full strength” in-person New Year’s Eve celebration in Times Square this year following its Wack Waving virtual event last year due to pandemic concerns. So are the safety precautions enough to keep New Yorkers and visitors safe? Of course not.