Produced by Chanel & the Circus, All the Boys I Blocked tells a series of funny yet heartbreaking love stories, featuring hilarious audience participation and improvised singing.
At the beginning, Chanel encourages everyone to share their breakup stories, allowing the audience to relax and evoke their imagination about love. Based on these various stories, Chanel improvises a song for each one with her gentle storytelling voice. Magically, these sad love stories are transformed into courage to face the future.
Chanel invites three audience members to play the role of her ex-boyfriends. These audience members hold exaggerated props and engage in conversation with Chanel, imitating a date scenario. The audience members on stage perform freely under the spotlight, while those seated are entertained by impromptu jokes. Chanel’s sincere gaze and moving singing guide the emotions of the audience, who laugh or cry along with her.
The video projection adds an extra layer of imagination to All the Boys I Blocked. Chanel’s chat logs with her ex are displayed on the screen, capturing both joyful and heartbreaking moments. The lighting shifts between cool and warm tones in line with the changing emotions. This makes the audience feel as though they are all Chanel, shouting together to let him go. Chanel sings along with the audience, assisted by the lyrics projected on the screen. “I’m sorry to inform you, you’ve been blocked!” These courageous lyrics convey the strength to face life with a smile.
Surprisingly, the theme of All the Boys I Blocked goes beyond a single love story and includes confidence and self-love. Chanel cries until her makeup runs from her repeated romantic failures, and the audience carefully wipes her face clean. Chanel begins to accept reality and her true self. As the mirror passes from one audience member to another, we confidently declare, “I love you, I love myself.” This inspiring design conveys an important message: even if no one else loves you, you must always love yourself.
All the Boys I Blocked is filled with the power to make us laugh and cry.
