If-only-breaking-into-song-is-normal

A letter to readers

Musical theater is not for everyone. Wait, what I mean to say is- musical theater is for everyone, but not everyone is for musical theater. Most people either love it or hate it don’t get it. Surprising to no-one, I land firmly in the if-only-breaking-into-song-is-normal camp. For this, I have primarily my parents to thank. Broadway was often blasting through the speakers in our living room, a five disc stereo with an all star line up of Godspell, Jesus Christ Superstar, Barbara Streisand’s Greatest Hits, Les Mis, and Oklahoma with towers of Andrew Lloyd Weber, Sondheim, and Roger & Hammerstein albums waiting in the wings.

By the age of seven or eight, my sister and I had memorized the entirety of Les Miserables; I performed all the leading lady parts and my sister, obligingly, played Jean Valjean (although, if I remember correctly, I did consent to her taking on the role of the young Cosette). We didn’t fully understand the historical context or who the “lovely ladies” were but we did feel the power of forgone dreams and why people sometimes do the wrong thing for the right reasons or for a loaf of bread. My parents didn’t censor our musical theater listening, and over the years, I learned quite a bit as I lied on my bed sang along as I read the tiny rows of lyrics in cd jackets. Rent was especially formative, but, generally speaking, musical theater doesn’t shy away from the awkward, the strange, the taboo, the challenging, the tragic. It’s all there- alongside hope, joy, and forgiveness, and high kicks.

Through high school, I played Broadway albums through my little sony alarm cd player and transformed into someone else, belting her problems and dreams into a yellow bedroom that became somewhere else entirely. I didn’t need an audience. My bedroom or car was as a good of stage as any. For happy bits of time, I was transported into a different, imagined world where drama and expression through sound and body was normalized, even embraced. All that was held within found release. Even these days, albeit less often, I find myself plunking chords in our studio space and belting “Tell Me On A Sunday” with a kind of passion that I know would bring down the house (or at least the walls of trying-to-keep-it-all-together).

My own children land solidly in the “love it camp” (surprising to no one). Again, I have my parents to largely thank for this. My mom treats them to plays at the local children’s theater, and the three of them have become such insiders about the regular company members and what’s in the works for the next season. My mother also tends to keep the classics in regular rotation in her car, and now “Don’t Rain On My Parade” is on regular rotation at our house. My dad is a major influence too; when Misha found out that Grandpa Mark saw the touring company perform “Beetlejuice,” he was green with jealousy.

Like their mother, Misha and Sula orchestrate their own performances of these musicals, and like my parents, I do not censor. Here’s my feeling- my kids will get what they get, ask questions about what they want to know, and figure the rest out over time. Musicals open up worlds- stories and perspectives that reveal new ways of thinking and behaving, of making choices, of loving, changing, and forgiving. Beetlejuice is a show about death! Into The Woods has themes of generational trauma and self realization. Tracey’s parents in Hairspray defy traditional partnership and steal the show while protesting segregation. Dear Evan Hansen is a window into feeling deeply alone and then realizing that we are all tangled up together, for better or worse. I have watched, sometimes under their strict direction and other times out of the corner of my eye, as my children try on these moments, roles, and perspectives, singing full out with their eyes closed.

I suppose I write all of this, knowing full well that I won’t convince the “hate it” camp to change their tune about musical theater (I know, it is not your thing), to simply offer gratitude to the arts, to advocate for the freedom of access to texts of all types, and to encourage you, readers, to find twenty minutes to put on the music of your preference and just let yourself get into it. That’s it. You don’t have to tell me about what happens, but if you end up throwing your hair back and looking over your shoulder with a kind of pout and flair, well, you won’t catch me judging.