"There's Nothing Like a Line In The Sand..."

I like painter's tape. I like it a lot. I don't love the price, it strikes me as one of the most overpriced items on the market next to bottled water... (I'm one of those people that has a glass of water from the faucet. AND I live in San Francisco!)

Painter's tape is a great trick for kid's performers. It's already brightly colored and you can lay it out as a front row. You can use the tape to tape off an area for a stage (if you have time) And it looks funny already.

Painter's tape comes in blue, it comes in purple and other colors.

Here's the cool thing about having a line, people won't cross it. I mean of course they will but you can just say, "this is the front row, stay behind this line!" And kids will actually just line up behind, it's pretty cool. A nice natural barrier.

I have been cornered slowly by kids for 20 some years, they slowly move in on you. Tape is cool because it also gives me a visual on how close to work.

I've used my tape line as a time killer too. As I'm setting up my show, I can do clown stuff trying to keep one side taped to the ground and turning my back and pulling it up. Or I can start taping my line and tape over a kids shoe or I take a piece of tape and try and get it off my fingers.

This tends to be all pre-show stuff for me but it's really funny. I use these routines when I am in a library and the kids are there 20 minutes before the show, they are waiting for my show to begin, I don't want to do routines from my show, then I would run out of material. I need to tape a line anyway, so it's fun.

Because my show is circus themed I have the kids walk a tightrope on the blue line.

I can't remember where I discovered it, I'm sure I saw another performer tape down a front row and thought, "that's a good idea". Or it came to me in a dream. Either way, tape is a kid's performers good good friend!