Prelude to Hearing Some People Sing
I saw my first Broadway production when I was 5 - Stephanie Mills in a revival of The Wiz. But it was after I saw Phantom of the Opera in eighth grade that my pop star dreams evolved into those of becoming a Broadway diva.
Around this same time, in 1998, Joey Potter, played by Katie Holmes, sang “On My Own” at a beauty contest on Dawson’s Creek, causing all the boys on the show to reconsider how they saw the girl next door, and causing preteens across the country to consider a little musical called Les Miserables. I didn’t know a lot about Les Mis, but suddenly every middle school girl was singing the heartfelt ballad through the halls. Though Joey wasn’t a character I emulated, and I didn’t think the TV rendition was as great as everyone else did, I respected how well crafted the song was. Les Mis was a popular, long running show, and now I had an inkling of why it was such a major hit.
I went on to devour popular OBCs (shorthand for Original Broadway Cast recordings) and began acting (see my ode to St. Joe’s in an earlier entry). I loved seeing Broadway shows as well, which was luckily an easy feat since we lived so close to NYC. Favorites included The King and I (still my favorite Rogers and Hammerstein), Beauty and the Beast, The Lion King, and Aida. (What can I say? Disney puts on a good show.) All this before my junior year of high school. Tch. What privilege.
Still, one show I truly desired to see - Les Miserables - eluded me. My parents had already seen it, and while this didn’t stop them from revisiting musicals they loved, my mother was not a fan of Les Mis. I thought that was strange, given how popular the piece was, but she’s also one of the only people I know who hates The Sound of Music. (She says it’s too “namby pamby,” and I get it.) To each their own.
Then, when I was a junior, my choir sang a medley of Les Mis music, and my mind was blown wide open. Forget “On My Own.” That was nothing compared to the gut wrenching “I Dreamed a Dream” and “Bring Him Home.” And “Do You Hear the People Sing?” Are you kidding me? What an epic ensemble number. I had tears in my eyes through every performance - but I had none of the context for it.
For my birthday that year, I begged my parents to take me to see Les Mis. My mother begrudgingly relented. Over pre-theater dinner, she told me that her previous experience with the show had been tainted. The theater has a strict policy not to allow late comers into the auditorium until the first 30 minutes have passed. I believe my mother was pregnant with me when she and my father went to see the show with friends. Their pre-show meal took longer than expected, and they ended up having to hustle to get to the theater. Then their cab hit traffic, and they may have had to run through the streets. Lots of fun when your baby-filled belly gets in the way of your thighs. By the time they got to their seats, my mother was so riddled with anxiety that there was no way she could enjoy the exploits of Jean Valjean.
But my night was different. We enjoyed a leisurely dinner and celebrated my 16th birthday. We were in a good frame of mind when the curtain opened. I was already poised to love this show.
I just didn’t know how much I would love it. And how much crying I would do. Oh my goodness, does that show produce tears. From about 30 minutes from the end, when spoilers Gavroche gets shot right until the closing notes, its waterworks central for anyone with a heart. The story is just so beautiful and heart wrenching in its depictions of the theme of what makes someone a good person.
I was lucky enough to see a touring production of Les Mis just after its initial Broadway run ended. It came to Myrtle Beach when I was a freshman in college at Coastal Carolina University, and I took a friend to see it. She remarked that she had never seen me as happy as I was that night, in a euphoric place where the magic of the theater swirled around me.
When I studied abroad in London, I was excited to learn that Les Mis had never left the West End. I treated Jon to a production as his essential theater education.
It’s now been nearly 20 years since I’ve seen a production. (The movie doesn’t count. It was… fine. Except for Russel Crowe as Javert, because that was anything BUT fine. Hiring an actor who can’t sing to tackle “Stars,” one of the most moving male ballads in Broadway history? No. Not fine at all.) But just thinking back to Eponine croaking out “A Little Fall of Rain” or Valjean pleading with God in “Bring Him Home” brings tears to my eyes. I’d never have thought a story so vast and complicated could be conveyed so effectively through song, but I’m glad Les Mis proved otherwise.
The Green Witch and I
In September of 2003, while I was enduring my freshman year of college in South Carolina, my mom started expressing her desire to see the upcoming new musical Wicked. The radio promos had caught her attention, and when my Dad got her tickets to see it in previews, she gushed with excitement in every phone call I shared with her.
And then, the morning after their production, I asked her how the show was. “Oh,” she replied dismissively. “It was fine.”
Fine? After all that build up, it was just fine? How disappointing.
When I came back to school after Thanksgiving break, an older student in the musical theater program was gushing over his holiday trip to NYC. I overheard him telling someone that he had seen the greatest Broadway show he had ever seen - and it was Wicked.
“Really?” I asked him. “My parents saw it recently and said it was just okay.”
His eyes widened in disgusted disbelief. “No.” His disagreement was forceful. “It was amazing.”
I don’t know why I trusted the opinion of this person I barely knew over my parents - but I did. Suddenly, Wicked became the show I wanted to see the most. When the opportunity arose on the phone, I told my mom what the boy had said.
“Oh.” She was caught off guard by the non sequitur, but she brushed it away. “We really thought it was just okay.”
We celebrated my December birthday when I came home for Christmas. The only show I was remotely interested in seeing to celebarte was Wicked, which my parents had already seen and thought was mediocre. But I had made it pretty clear what my birthday wishes were.
We went out to dinner at a lovely restaurant called Remi. The entire time, my parents insisted we were just there for dinner with no show to follow. (Um, yeah, okay, parents. Then why did we go all the way to the City when there were plenty of good restaurants near where we lived?)
My dad led the way to wherever after we finished the meal. Eventually, we turned a corner, and the marquis for Wicked towered above us. My heart rate picked up. “We’re just going to get the soundtrack,” my dad said unconvincingly. “It wasn’t out yet when we saw the show in previews.”
But of course, as we approached the door, my parents produced a trio of tickets. My mom laughed as she finally admitted, “It is the best show we’ve ever seen.”
“It was so good, I came back the day after we saw it to get tickets for your birthday,” my dad added.
I was already so excited that my parents’ glowing review should have by all rights discouraged me. You know how it is when too many people rave too much about a thing. But for Wicked, it only heightened my fervor.
The show opened with a steampunk dragon flapping its wings to the tune of the overture, and I was pretty much all in. Then Kristen Chenowith floated down in her bubble with her silver ball gown and soaring soprano vocals, and I had a new dream career. Then Idina Menzel belted out “The Wizard and I,” and I thought, This woman has the greatest voice I’ve ever heard.
So I was already solidly in love with the show when the low strings vibrated magic underneath Idina singing “Something has changed within me/Something is not the same.” I felt it, too. I wouldn’t be the same after this show, and I could sense that something truly special was coming.
To this day, 20 years later, I have never felt about any scene in any Broadway production the way I felt when Idina took to the sky on her broom and redefined belting with the lines of “Defying Gravity”s final verse. The powerful image of the green witch flying above the stage combined with the pure force of Idina’s voice weighed me down into my seat. When the curtain came down on Act I, I could not move. I sat, slack jawed, weak kneed, the sound of my mother’s laugher echoing in my ears.
“I had the same reaction last time. This time I just enjoyed watching you,” she said.
Nothing about Wicked disappointed. “Defying Gravity” is still the ultimate belting showstopper. Glinda is still a part I would love to play. The show is moving and timely, from beginning to end.
I had the extreme good fortune to see the original cast one more time that summer, when we took my then boyfriend/now husband to see the show my whole family couldn’t shut up about. We were days away from Kristin leaving, and she pulled tissues out of her bra when the opening of “For Good” began. Afterwards, we headed for the stage door, where I managed to get both Kristen’s and Idina’s autographs.
I haven't see the show since. I can’t see how it will be the same without that original dynamic duo. But after 20 years, I feel like it’s almost time.
Hamil-baby
During the course of obtaining my masters, a teacher I truly trusted raved to our class one day about the show she had seen the night before. She urged us all to see it ASAP. It was a little musical about the Founding Fathers, but the twist was it was told through hip hop. It was called Hamilton.
I mentioned it to Jon when I got home, and he said, “I’ve been wanting to see that for ages. I read the book it was based on. But I didn’t think you’d be interested.”
Well, with the blessings of Lenore Johnston, I was.
The buzz around Hamilton grew, and the ability to get tickets shrank. Ah, well.
While walking down the sixth grade hallway at school one day, the sound of a silly pop song caught my ear. I stopped in the doorway of the classroom and giggled as puns about the growing conflict between King George and the colonies spilled from the speakers. It was my first actual taste of the Hamilton soundtrack.
That afternoon, I blasted the OBC on Spotify. I dare anyone to listen to the Hamilton soundtrack and not fall in love once you hear “My Shot.” Nearly impossible. Lin Manuel-Miranda’s fast paced lyrics jam packed with history and mind boggling word play are enchanting. I bought the soundtrack. So did my parents. We listened ad nauseum, and I took pride in memorizing the flow of “Guns and Ships,” which has the fastest lyric line in Broadway history. We watched specials and could only dream of seeing the show in person.
The night of the Tony awards, a new block of tickets was set to go on sale. Jon and I stayed up late to watch Hamilton’s triumphs, because of course the show, which had already won the Pulitzer Prize, was going to win Best Musical.
If buying tickets online can be considered a skill, it’s something I’ve always been good at. At around 11:00 that night, I scored four tickets in the orchestra section. And then decided to give my parents’ tickets to them as a combination Father’s Day/Birthday gift (for my mom).
This meant I had to wait a week to actually give my parents the tickets- one of the most challenging feats I’ve yet to face. I spend a lot of time with my mother, and we were listening to the Hamilton soundtrack a LOT in those days. The amount of times I almost pondered something about when we were going to see the show aloud was numerous.
But I managed to hold out until the morning of Father’s Day, when I finally handed my parents’ cards to them. My hands were SHAKING with anticipation. Needless to say, they were floored, couldn’t even believe I had managed to get the tickets. It remains one of the best gifts I’ve ever given.
Of course, our tickets were for the following March. Which meant we had to wait nine months to go. I often joked that we were waiting to have our Hamilbaby. Worth it? Of course. Even if the original cast had all done their last curtain calls months prior. Hamilton is a feast for the senses; no part of it can fully represent the whole. I was infinitely glad I knew the soundtrack by heart by the time we saw it so I could find all the meaning in the movements. There is NO WAY anyone could get everything from the show in a single viewing. Seriously. If you see it without having listened to the soundtrack, you won’t even catch half of what’s going on.
It’s one of the many things that makes the show truly genius. There are so many - the casting, the musical style choices, the allusions to other great Broadway shows, the word play, the staging.
Do not lose sight of how brilliant this show is just because of its popularity.
Ditto to the other two.
It’s easy to write off shows/movies/books that get swept away in a pop culture zeitgeist tornado. But I believe at least 85% of things that reach tall zeniths of popularity did so by simply being deserving.
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