I am a musical theatre geek.
This is probably not too shocking if you read my blog or follow me on social media. In truth, I love all theatre, not only musicals, but I love to belt out a show tune at the top of my lungs and pretend that I am Bernadette Peters.
My sister loves musicals too, and so my birthday gift has morphed into season tickets to Playhouse Square in Cleveland, one for each of us, which is pretty much the most wicked cool gift anyone could think to give me. My sister rocks.
Last night we wound up this season and are anxiously awaiting our new tickets for next season. This season we were blessed to see If/Then, Beautiful, The Phantom of the Opera, Steel Magnolias, and Kinky Boots. April also took her daughter Mallory to see Matilda because it was the day of Felicity's dance recital and not even a Broadway series can actually compete with Felicity.
They are all excellent shows. Theatre's ability to take you out of your own life, to connect with you even as there are so many people around you absorbing this story with you-it's incredible.
The Phantom of the Opera I had seen before, in New York when I went with the choir in high school. Much of Phantom is based on its elaborate scenery, which I think it gets a bad rap for. What Phantom was at the time was revolutionary. The songs are amazing in their range. The story is one of those better in theory than practice pieces to me, but it is certainly unique.
If/Then is a beautiful, intricate story of choices and intersecting lives. The set pieces in particular stood out to me as so compelling in a story about a city planner, about a meaningless decision leading to the fate of your life. It was, of course, a profound play to watch just a couple of weeks after my divorce was final-what if you had made a different decision, and your life had gone a completely different way, and this particular, horrific pain that sears through every memory of the past 15 years of life would just never have existed? Anthony Rapp was in this production, reprising his role from the Broadway production. I adore Anthony Rapp. Yes, because I love Adventures in Baby-sitting but also because I read his memoir last year, Without You, and it was one of the best memoirs I have ever read in my life.
Kinky Boots I loved. It was right up my alley, as I knew it would be. I knew that a story of a shoe company saved from closure by boots made for drag queens would be fun and profound and life changing and it was. Perhaps it shouldn't surprise me, but I love looking around and seeing all of these older people giving a standing ovation in Cleveland, Ohio for a drag queen in thigh high red boots. It gives me hope for humanity that sometimes gets lost.
Beautiful had by far the best music. I love Carole King and Tin Pan Alley. This too felt like a play that I needed to see in this year of transition. Carole King lost more than a husband when she divorced, she lost the other half of her creative side. How hard must those memories have been to release? And yet she eventually created Tapestry from that experience. Oh, I can only hope for such beauty from such pain.
Surprisingly to me, Steel Magnolias was my favorite of this bunch. I love the movie (I especially love Dolly Parton) and I wasn't sure what to expect from the play. Sally Field screaming in the cemetery? How could they transfer that? Shirley MacLaine fighting with Olympia Dukakis? I mean, Dolly was born to play Truvy. But I loved this play. All of the scenes take place in the beauty parlor, and so it is primarily a play of people talking. As a writer, it sank beneath my skin and stayed there. It was amazing.
Next season we get to see Funhome, Finding Neverland, Into the Woods, The King and I, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime, Something Rotten!, and An American in Paris. April is most excited about Something Rotten! I am most looking forward to Funhome. But I am sure that we will be surprised by what we love next year.
Theatre geeks to the end.
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