The Dating Game premiered on ABC 60 years ago. This month in Springfield, co-producers Lindsey Goodhart and Ally Lollis and their team premiered their own dating show. Closet Space.
“Closet Space,” explained Goodhart, “is a blind dating show that utilizes a live studio audience, set up as a community event space for Sapphic and other queer identities to kind of build connection.”
Goodhart graduated from Missouri State with a degree in film. She says inspiration came from shows like Love Connection and wanting to produce something with a queer big city vibe in the Midwest. She says the idea grew out of frustration with dating apps and a lack of spaces and events for women to meet other women and for any queer people to meet in person. All that, and nostalgia for a time when tv felt like an event itself…