‘Getting Bored Is Not Allowed’ is the story of how Elizabeth Lord got through the pandemic

“Getting Bored Is Not Allowed” is the title of storyteller Elizabeth Lord’s new solo show, opening Friday, April 7.

It’s also her motto.

“It’s something I’ve always lived by,” Lord told The Olympian. “I got it from a book that I loved as a child — ‘Eloise,’ by Kay Thompson. It’s about a girl who is essentially left alone. She lives in the Plaza Hotel, and she has a nanny, but her parents are absent. She makes the declaration that getting bored is not allowed. That always inspired me.”

Beginning at age 6, when her mother gave her the book, Lord began generating her own fun. It’s a skill that served her well during the long, long days of the pandemic lockdown, when everything she normally did — performing, emceeing, producing Lord Franzannian’s Royal Olympian Spectacular Vaudeville Show and working part-time as a bartender — came to an abrupt halt.

Lord was left reeling and questioning whether she should have gotten more education or taken a 9-to-5 job with benefits. “I went down a rabbit hole of regret,” she confessed.

Then she climbed back out of that hole and returned to Eloise’s advice, finding ways to keep her mind engaged and her body active.

“I did a lot of walking in the neighborhood,” she said. “I did it at night. I would just start walking down streets where I’d never been. Some of them were poorly lit and I would just hope there’d be an outlet at the end of it.

“I don’t want to give too much away, but I had a number of encounters with people and animals that sometimes scared me, sometimes surprised me,” she said.

It took a while for Lord to realize that stories about those encounters and her other pandemic adventures — plus a few speculative stories about what might have been if she’d made different life choices — were worth telling.

“For so long, I thought, ‘Well, I didn’t do anything. I can’t write a show if there’s nothing to tell,’ ” she said. “Then I thought again. I said, ‘Wait, what did you actually do?’ and I started writing down those stories. No, they weren’t stories about traveling the world or grand things, but they were things that I did. … I have put together a show that’s all about not getting bored.”

Fans of Lord — whose many theatrical pursuits including producing and hosting aforementioned Lord Franzannian’s vaudeville show — know that her work is anything but boring. And unlike her 2018 show “Homesick,” “Getting Bored Is Not Allowed” will be a light-hearted show with plenty of humor.

Of all of her creative pursuits, she said, creating full-length solo shows is the closest to her heart — and she’s happy to be at it again after five years.

“This is such a huge thing for me,” she said. “This is the most important thing I do for myself as an artist.”

‘Getting Bored Is Not Allowed’

• What: In her first solo show in five years, storyteller Elizabeth Lord will reveal how she made it through the COVID lockdown without getting bored.
• When: 8 p.m. April 7-9, 14 and 15; doors open at 7:30 p.m.
• Where: Olympia Family Theater, 612 Fourth Ave. E., Olympia
• Tickets: $10-$25 online at brownpapertickets or at the door, with no one turned away for lack of funds
• Also: Though it’s being held at the Olympia Family Theater, the show is recommended for those 16 and older.