It’s my sister and me sleeping in the gameroom on Christmas Eve. (Sometimes we slept in the loft, but this may have been before Dad built it.)
I can still remember pretending to listen for reindeer on the roof, whispering together for hours on end convinced we’d never fall asleep, and then waking up in the middle of the night, sneaking out into the den, seeing presents under the tree, and thinking, “Santa’s been here.”
It’s the feeling I was trying to capture in one of the songs I wrote in my songwriting class sophomore year at Vandy.
Jumping a few years to junior prom! I had to do this one today, because prom that year was actually on April 17. (Prom was open to juniors and seniors, but this was my junior year so I call it junior prom.) This picture was taken on our way from dinner to the dance.
5 of us stuffed into the backseat of Kim’s Corsica on the way from Spaghetti Warehouse to the Hyatt – SQUISHY! (So says the caption in my high school scrapbook)
Kim is driving. Her date took the picture. Then there’s Sammi, me, and Suzy sitting in seats like semi-normal (semi-formal?) people, with Kate and Lisa lying across our laps. Hey, it was less than a mile…
We’d bought my dress the previous summer (on sale at Dillards for like $30 I think) and I was super excited, as evident in my journal entry from July 11, 2003:
Oh hey, I got a prom dress!!! It’s REALLY pretty – ankle length (longer, maybe), light green with light blue mesh on top, beads on the front, and detachable straps (but I am sooo not wearing it strapless). I can’t believe I get to go to prom this year! 🙂
I wrote tons more about the actual event, but that would make this post way too long. So I’ll just stick to other assorted comments scribbled in my scrapbook:
yay for lotsa random adventures!
no, I’ve never eaten pizza from the dumpster
yay, we’re all so PRETTY!!!
yay DANCING!
cool people dance in circles!
blow-dried eyes!
yummy Spaghetti Warehouse
rawr at evil straps – I ended up going strapless
yay for pool at the Union afterward
Felt like a movie star with everyone taking pictures of us!
I can’t imagine my high school life without these girls. They were with me during my “soap opera” year, whether that meant struggling through it side by side, contributing to the drama, watching in amusement, being there for support, or some combination of all the above.
Prom itself was relatively drama-free, thanks to a robotics competition the same weekend that kept the person responsible for most of the drama (at least in my case) from attending. So I could just have fun with my girls without getting distracted by guy-I-was-totally-in-love-with-even-though-he-already-had-a-girlfriend…
…but that’s another post. If I decide I feel brave enough to write it.
In today’s edition of actions-have-consequences: listen to your mom’s warnings even if you’re in the middle of a tantrum. Otherwise, you might throw your glasses across the room one more time and get your birthday party taken away…
But even though I didn’t have a party for my ninth birthday, my parents still made it memorable. They set up a scavenger hunt with clues all around the house, ultimately leading to a dresser drawer in Monica’s room where I found my American Girl of Today waiting for me! (Yes, that is a Pocahontas birthday cake in the first picture.)
First clue
Another clue
Hidden treasure!
Happy Birthday!
We’d been fans of American Girl for years. Monica got Samantha for her eighth birthday, and I got Molly for my sixth birthday a few months later. As soon as I saw the new American Girl of Today in the catalogue, I had to have one. I think later they were available with different hairstyles, but in the original release they all had long hair and bangs. I did too. So I just had to get one with brown hair and blue eyes (and add glasses) and she’d actually look like me!
I named her Brandy, after one of my heroes at River City Twirl & Dance where we’d been taking dance classes for four years. (I don’t think I ever told Brandi I’d named a doll after her though. Still not sure if she would’ve thought it was flattering or creepy, haha.)
She came with six blank books, which I recently rescued from our library. The inside cover of Meet Brandy: A Family Story (Book 1) says, “Finished on Jan. 17, 1996,” and the inside cover of Brandy Learns a Lesson: A School Story (Book 2) says, “Finished on October 23, 1996.” Rereading them now is highly entertaining. Most of the plot details came directly from my own life, and then I gave her things I thought would be cool to have. Like a bigger family, with an older sister AND older brother, plus younger twin sisters. And a kitten named Snowball. And a TREEHOUSE!
I wrote plot outlines for Happy Birthday, Brandy: A Birthday Story (Book 4) and Brandy Saves the Day: A Summer Story (Book 5), and I know I had a draft for Book 4 at least on an ancient computer. (I’m really hoping that’s one of the computers still hiding in the pile of stuff in the gameroom, and that it’s possible to pull files from it!) I don’t think I ever started on Brandy’s Surprise: A Holiday Story (Book 3) or Changes for Brandy: A Winter Story (Book 6). But what better time to finish the series than now? It’s only twenty years later…
I’m turning 30 this year *gasp* so I’d like to find some extra special way to celebrate. I’ve recently been scanning boxes of old photos, which gave me an idea: one blog post per week in the 30 weeks leading up to my birthday, each post based on a picture (or series of pictures) of me.
Since it’s Easter, this seemed like a good one to start with.
As best I can figure, I’m not quite two-and-a-half here. And I totally just noticed the “Jesus is alive” button on my shirt and that makes me super happy. You can also see the end of the slide on the epic playscape that Dad built.
We had an Easter egg hunt at our house every year since I can remember until I graduated from high school. And we never had to cancel because of the weather. There were a few years it was pretty close, but we always got to hunt eggs outside in the backyard. My sister and I would each invite a friend and their family. The kids would all be banished to the front yard or somewhere in the house where we couldn’t see out the back windows, while the parents hid the eggs in the backyard. Then we’d get our hunt instructions (everyone gets the same number of eggs, one big egg each because they had special prizes inside, etc.) and be released! Sometimes the parents would give us “hints” about where to look, but I mostly remember them laughing when they knew how close we were to an egg…
After we’d found the eggs (or decided we just weren’t going to find the last few stragglers), we gathered at the deck table to open them and discover our treasures: Easter stickers and stencils, plastic rings, bubblegum, candy (but never chocolate in case we didn’t find everything), fun hair accessories, tiny little bunny erasers! In later years, there were also little slips of paper in some of the eggs with a “1” or “2” or “3” on them for bigger prizes that didn’t fit in the eggs themselves. Whoever had the most points got to choose first. Then the kids would all play in the backyard while the parents prepared dinner – backyard cookout of hamburgers and hotdogs! With a cross-shaped Easter cake for dessert! (Yes, Mom actually has a cross-shaped cake pan.)
This year, Mom decided she was tired of not doing anything special for Easter (besides church, of course) so we brought back the cookout portion of the tradition for the first time since I graduated from high school 11 years ago. I spend a lot of time at the house still, but I couldn’t actually remember the last time I went outside in the backyard. So even just being out there, all sorts of memories came flooding back. Add in the beautiful weather and a few of my best theatre friends, and I felt super happy and contented. Like being a kid again. When things were simple.
Holy Week and Easter has been one of my favorite times of year pretty much as long as I can remember. But this year it feels more intense.
Palm Sunday
Mass started like it always does on Palm Sunday, outside for the blessing of the palm branches and the entrance into Jerusalem gospel reading. The sun was very bright, so I closed my eyes during the reading. And standing there with my eyes closed, the warm sun beating down on me, I could see it. The disciples finding the donkey. Jesus riding the donkey. The crowd of adoring followers. Most clearly though, I could see the ground. It looked exactly like the paths at Camp El Tesoro, where my sister and I went to summer camp for years. (Maybe that had something to do with all the time I’ve spent scanning and sorting through old photos lately?) When the gospel reading was over, I opened my eyes and felt like I was suddenly pulled back to the present moment. Like I’d somehow been transported and experienced what it would’ve been like to actually be there in Jerusalem 2000 years ago. As we all walked inside, it started to hit me that what had just happened was more than ordinary imagination. And it took my breath away.
Holy Thursday
This gospel reading has one of my favorite lines ever (“What I am doing, you do not understand now, but you will understand later”), but then the homily really bothered me. The priest said he was proud of the children who were there, proud of the children who participated in the liturgy (altar servers, etc.), proud of the choir, proud of the young adult community. Pride. Part of me wanted to stand up and scream at him to stop using that dangerous word. Maybe for the same reason that I refuse to applaud in church. Teaching us to seek human approval and recognition for giving our time and talents back to God, like we should want to do anyway. And being proud of doing something we’re supposed to do can have consequences. For example, we tend to have one or two particular sins we keep coming back to. I’ve had the same “favorite sin” for years, and whenever I feel proud of myself for not committing that sin for a while, it’s never long before I fall again. Often within hours. Or even minutes.
The Triduum services at my church have been bilingual for the past few years, so half of the homily was in Spanish. (I recognized enough words to tell that it was pretty much the same things he’d said in English.) So my exhausted mind began to wander. I gazed up at the window above the altar. There are different colored panes of glass to look like a cross with a sort of halo around the middle. And the thought occurred to me that the “halo” portion of the window looked broken. Like the cross burst through and shattered everything around it. And I thought, “That’s as it should be, because that’s what Jesus wants to do in each of our lives. He’s not some distant figure staying comfortably at arms length while we go on living like we always have. He came to shatter our comfortable world with the cross and show us something better. He wants to be a real, personal part of our lives.”
The choir sang a beautiful “Ave Verum Corpus” during communion, and for a while I was mouthing the words along with them because I know the hymn well. But when I stood up and exited my pew, I couldn’t anymore. It was all I could do to say, “Amen,” when I received the Eucharist. And when I got back to my seat and knelt, I completely broke down. I haven’t cried like that in a long time. Consciously controlling my breathing to keep myself quiet. Tears running freely down my face. I still don’t know why. But it left me feeling peaceful somehow, and then I didn’t cry in adoration like I’d expected to.
Good Friday
Fasting day! Went to Stations of the Cross at noon, and all I’d had since 11:00 the previous night was a smoothie that morning. I felt weak and slightly delirious. Which made it one of the best Stations of the Cross I’ve experienced, considering how weak and broken Jesus felt. And yet, HE KEPT GOING. For us. For me. For YOU.
This is the one day of the year when no masses are celebrated. Extra hosts are consecrated at mass on Holy Thursday so we can still have communion. And the contribution my exhausted mind made tonight was, “Jesus knew what he was doing. He knew he had to leave, but he left enough of himself behind so he could still be here with us. Always.”
Easter Vigil
The beginning of the Easter Vigil is my favorite part of any mass. Everyone has a candle. After the Easter candle is blessed, all of our candles are lit from its flame. And there’s no other light in the church. Something that starts so small and grows to fill a whole building with light. Then for the readings, we all extinguish our candles and only the Easter candle is left. Just a single point of light. Burning bright and cutting through the darkness.
The first reading is the creation story. When it reached the part about the sun and moon, I was reminded of something I’d heard before. Like the moon, we have no light of our own. All we can do is reflect the light of the Son.
Then right before singing the “Gloria” ALL the lights are turned on. It was so BRIGHT. It was actually painful. I kept trying to open my eyes fully but I physically couldn’t do it. It wasn’t until the song was over, after much repeated blinking and squinting, that I finally managed it. And it made me think. Living in a world with so much darkness, maybe people are closed to the light because it’s just too intense and they can’t handle it. Maybe if there were subtle ways to introduce the light gradually, people would be willing to give it a chance and let it shine.
Easter
I left partway through the Easter Vigil (after the Litany of Saints, about an hour and a half in) so I came back for Easter morning. Although even if I’d stayed for the whole Easter Vigil I might have come back anyway. I LOVE EASTER! I sat with friends and their 16-month-old (I think?) son, the music was beautiful, the homily struck all the right chords (like not being able to process amazing victories right away because you’re not entirely sure what just happened). But I think my favorite moment was during the closing hymn, singing the line, “All around the clouds are breaking,” while looking up through the window and seeing the sunshine grow brighter.
As promised, here’s my BroadwayCon post. In an attempt to keep it a semi-reasonable length, I will try to focus on my reactions to things rather than just what happened. (And there’s a bunch of stuff on YouTube anyway…)
Since sharing the stage in a handful of local productions (including two working together as dance captains) and seeing nine touring musicals together over the past four years, I’d wanted to take a trip to New York with this beautiful girl for a while. This was the perfect excuse to make it happen. And boy did it exceed all my expectations! (A full schedule of our adventures is included at the end of the post.)
PANELS
I thought it was super cool that there were panels scheduled for most of our Broadway shows: Fun Home on Saturday, Hamilton and The King and I on Friday, Something Rotten! on Sunday, and Spring Awakening on Friday. The only missing shows were the ones we saw on Sunday (Aladdin and Finding Neverland)!
The Fun Home panel didn’t really feel like a big deal to me, probably because I met the entire cast after I saw the show on Tuesday. But it was still fascinating to hear Lisa Kron talk about how “Ring of Keys” was written and absolutely hilarious to see Joel Perez run onstage dressed as Small Alison, hop in Michael Cerveris’ (“Daddy’s”) lap, and sing a few lines of it!
So many amazing stories from everyone at the Hamilton panel! I was glad Chris Jackson was there since he was out for the performance I saw on Wednesday afternoon. I felt really bad for whoever was doing the captions that appeared on the huge screens in the ballroom though… Trying to type fast enough to keep up with what everyone is saying provides ample opportunities for typos, but this one was especially unfortunate: “rapping” with just one “p”. And it happened multiple times before they fixed it. But the panel’s highlight was definitely seeing Lin-Manuel Miranda freestyle to Phillipa Soo’s beatboxing, especially his zinger at the end that made me laugh so hard I could barely breathe:
But yo we gotta hip hop cuz that’s you and me
And when you type it on the teleprompter don’t drop a “p”
I was really interested in the panel with director Bart Sher, choreographer Chris Gattelli, and scenic/lighting/sound designers after seeing The King and I on Wednesday night. Among other things, it was fascinating to hear them talk about how they’re adjusting the thrust staging on Broadway to proscenium staging for the tour. Chris also mentioned that Kelli doesn’t consider herself a dancer even though she moves really well, and any day I get to find out more about Kelli is a good one.
They were running behind schedule on Sunday, so the Something Rotten! panel had just started by the time it was supposed to be over. Unfortunately, that meant we only got to see like ten minutes of it before we had to leave for the matinee of Aladdin. But those ten minutes were highly entertaining and included Christian Borle joking about how easy it is to play Shakespeare as a narcissist because he’s like that in real life.
The Spring Awakening panel was our very first stop after check-in on Friday. The hall outside the room was super crowded before the panel, and all of a sudden I looked at the person next to me and it was Krysta Rodriguez! She and the other panelists (I also recognized Andy Mientus and Spencer Liff) passed us on their way into the room, holding hands so they wouldn’t lose each other in the crowd, and they were gone before most people even realized they were there. Being mere inches away from one of my favorites (I’ve sung “Pulled” and “Safer” in voice lessons) was a fabulous way to kick off the weekend! The panel itself was well worth it too, even though we had to stand by the wall because we couldn’t find seats, and got us super excited about seeing Spring Awakening the following night! Of course, that was before the blizzard hit… While I was hugely disappointed we wouldn’t get to see this production after all, I was also immensely relieved we didn’t have to go outside again!
There were panels for other shows too. The Rent reunion panel included stories from original cast and creative members about how they became involved with the show that changed their lives (back before “stagedooring” was a verb!), but the best part was when Daphne Rubin-Vega spontaneously face timed Jesse L. Martin onstage! His reaction to a room full of thousands of cheering Broadway fans was just priceless. The most entertaining part of the Fiddler on the Roof panel was either hearing how Melanie Moore tells the guys in “L’Chaim” to perform the slow motion improv part of the song or finding out Samantha and Alexandra’s dressing room has its own Instagram account. There was also a DISASTER! panel as a preview of coming attractions. It was interesting hearing them talk about the show, but my favorite moments were seeing Faith Prince and Seth Rudetsky sing “Suddenly Seymour” and Kerry Butler sing “Magic” (especially since I’d just seen a bunch of friends in a community production of Xanadu the week before)!
We went to a couple of non-show-specific panels too (although I don’t remember much because the room they were in had no air circulation and got way too hot and stuffy). I’m a member of My Broadway Body, so I wanted to go to the “Theatre-Adjacent” panel to see Mark Fisher. He seemed surprised when a few of us cheered when he mentioned it! I’m glad I got to talk to him briefly afterwards. Up next was the “Broadway’s Choreographers” panel. When Chris Gattelli and Kathleen Marshall were asked whose growth they were most proud of, it made me super happy to hear Chris say Kelli, specifically mentioning her work in South Pacific. And later he said his favorite dance is “Seize the Day” and I was like, “Hey, I learned that from you yesterday…”
WORKSHOPS
Besides having awesome panels, BroadwayCon also offered a variety of master classes and workshops that required video applications. I don’t know how, but I got picked for both the intermediate AND advanced dance workshops! So Friday evening, I headed off to the intermediate workshop with Newsies choreographer Chris Gattelli. I was NOT expecting cast members to be there! We learned part of the dance break of “Seize the Day” that had actually been their audition combo. The cast members were scattered throughout the participants, and somehow I managed to end up in the back corner where a bunch of them were hanging out. I even recognized a few from when my sister and I saw the show on Broadway. I DANCED WITH NEWSIES! Definitely one of the coolest things I’ve ever done.
The advanced workshop with Hamilton associate choreographer and dance captain Stephanie Klemons was scheduled for Saturday morning, but it was cancelled because she couldn’t make it. Silly blizzard. But oh my goodness I’m glad I got to see the hilarity at the BroadwayCon Feud instead! Hosted by Jenn Colella with two teams: Susan Blackwell, Rob McClure, Lesli Margherita, and two fans vs. Jonathan Groff, Ryann Redmond, and three fans. The contestants were preparing for the first question when Susan interrupted Jenn’s explanation of the rules with, “Wait a second! When’s the making out?” Then later when it was Jonathan’s turn, Jenn kissed him too, commenting, “I’m gay but I’m not stupid!” I almost lost it when the lady competing against Jonathan (who Lesli purposely traded places with because of that) stepped up and kissed him too!
AUTOGRAPH/PHOTOBOOTH
Lesli Margherita Photobooth
Autograph and Photobooth Sessions were done by online lottery. I got tickets for a photo with Lesli Margherita and autographs with Kait Kerrigan and Brian Lowdermilk (my most recent songwriter obsession) which I was super excited about. Unfortunately, Kait and Brian weren’t able to make it. Silly blizzard. Oh well. We still got to have our picture taken with Queen Lesli! It was highly entertaining just watching the poses she came up with and wonderfully obvious how much fun she was having. I have no idea what we ended up doing, but it was nice to meet her again (I’d met her at the stage door when I saw Matilda a couple years ago) and I think the picture turned out okay.
SPECIAL EVENTS
I’d heard they were writing a “mini-musical” for the opening but didn’t really know what to expect. Oh my goodness. Rewritten lyrics like “Good Morning, BroadwayCon” and “The Con Where It Happens”, the video with Anthony Rapp and Idina Menzel and James Snyder and LaChanze that was edited to look like a Google Hangout, balcony commentary from Avenue Q‘s Rod and Nicky, stars everywhere, confetti cannons all over the place (that they apparently didn’t tell the hotel about! haha), and that original song at the end! It all seemed so surreal. Like, “Wait a minute, I’m really here?” So when it got to the lines “Up till now, Shubert Alley was a dream from afar / But open your eyes, look around – here you are,” I got chills and there were tears in my eyes. Yes. Here I am.
The closing ceremony wasn’t anywhere near as elaborate as the opening, but it did involve Lesli “accidentally” setting off a confetti cannon. And it concluded with all of us singing “Seasons of Love” and “BroadwayCon’s the Place For You”, which was pretty much the perfect way to wrap everything up and tie it all together.
CONCERT / PERFORMANCE
For the BroadwayCon Jukebox on Friday night, we got to vote on what people would sing through the BroadwayCon app! I wasn’t very good at voting for the winning song though. Kerry Butler kicked things off with “You’re the One That I Want”, which I’m pretty sure only won because they said Stark Sands would come out and sing it with her (I know that’s why I voted for it!). Ryann Redmond added moments of comedy to Adele’s “Hello”. The only thought in my head after Lena Hall’s performance of “Origin of Love” was, “That’s why she won the Tony.” But I was most excited to see Stark Sands… His performance of “I’ll Be” (one of my favorite songs when it was released in the late 1990s) was a fabulous way to wrap up day one of BroadwayCon.
Krysta Rodriguez
Quite a few people were originally supposed to be at the BroadwayCon Cabaret on Saturday night, but naturally that changed with the weather. Silly blizzard. Krysta Rodriguez, however, was DETERMINED to be there! She was joined by songwriter Joe Iconis at the piano and Smash show runner Joshua Safran, and the cabaret basically became a one-woman-show with tidbits about Smash thrown in. I was thrilled to discover that “Reach for Me” was actually written for her! I was also impressed with her performance of “Vanilla Ice Cream” (She Loves Me), because I didn’t know she had that beautiful soprano range! She sang so many things from various lists of my favorites: “Broadway, Here I Come” (Smash), “Reach for Me” (Smash), “Safer” (First Date), “Pulled” (Addams Family), “Breathe” (In the Heights). It seemed fitting to end the night with “Blue Wind”, complete with signs. If we couldn’t see the whole production of Spring Awakening, at least we got to see her do that. And based on this experience, I love Krysta a little bit more now.
We arrived Sunday morning in the middle of the BroadwayCon Variety Hour. I was still half-asleep so everything blurred itself together in my head. Of course, that probably made Lesli’s performance of various songs from Gypsy (using the overture, because that’s the sheet music they had) even more hilarious. We’d seen people walking around in costumes all weekend so it was neat seeing a bunch of them onstage for the Cosplay Fashion Show, including the Side Show twins! I don’t think the girl dressed as King George was up there though. I’m pretty sure Lesli’s story about playing the Little Mermaid for one night was part of this too – the main thing I remember about it is, “We only have seashells, not D-shells!”
BLIZZARD
View from hotel Saturday morning
It had just barely started snowing when we walked back to our hotel around 11:00 Friday night. We knew there was a lot more coming, but we still weren’t prepared for the BLIZZARD we had to walk through to get to day two of BroadwayCon! Thank God we were only a couple of blocks away. It was insane. Trudging down sidewalks and across streets filled with snow, all while fighting to see through the tiny frozen white things being blown into our eyes (my glasses gave me limited protection but not enough to really help much), struggling to keep our balance. When we finally reached the safety of the con hotel, our coats and hats and scarves were covered in snow. But we made it!
Since that silly little blizzard was keeping people stranded, they added a bunch of additional Saturday programming at the last minute to make up for the fact that a lot of us were missing out on Broadway shows we’d been looking forward to. The first addition was letting attendees send in links to YouTube karaoke videos for a chance to sing them on the MainStage. Oh my goodness so many insanely talented teenagers! Someone dressed as a Heather sang “Dead Girl Walking” which is actually the first song from Heathers I’ve heard, even though I have the cast recording. Other songs included “Good Morning, Baltimore”, “A Way Back to Then”, “Let’s Hear It for the Boy” (another Heather), and “When You’re Good to Mama” (I think the only non-teenager, who borrowed a fur stole from the twins dressed as Daisy and Violet from Side Show).
Next they talked about how they rewrote the lyrics and stuff for the opening ceremony. I particularly enjoyed hearing the original voicemail of “The Con Where It Happens” being rapped over the Hamilton cast recording. That was followed by Avenue Q&A. Rob McClure had us all in stitches with his one man version of Sweeney Todd, including jumping on and off a chair when switching between characters and making me afraid he’d fall over!
But by far, the best additional programming was The BroadwayCon Blizzard Party Line! We had no idea what to expect. They just told us it started at 8:00 but to get there by 7:50 because there was going to be a huge surprise right at the beginning that we wouldn’t want to miss. They arranged a couple of couches on the stage and brought out Playbill’s Blake Ross, Michael Riedel, and BroadwayCon founders Anthony Rapp, Melissa Anelli, and Stephanie Dornhelm. And then… they just pulled out their phones and started calling people. The “huge surprise” at 8:00? Idina Menzel. Other callers included Audra McDonald, Norm Lewis, Patti LuPone, Betty Buckley, Harvey Fierstein, Laura Benanti, and Joel Grey. Some people knew what was going on, but some calls were completely unplanned! I especially enjoyed the video chats with Darren Criss and Jeremy Jordan, both of whom were supposed to be at the con but couldn’t get there because of the blizzard. Of course, the whole thing was made even more amusing thanks to the onstage glasses of wine. Tipsy Anthony Rapp is so freaking adorable!
Thankfully, by the time we left Saturday night, it had stopped snowing. The walk back to our hotel was much easier, and we kept stopping to take pictures! Because what else would you expect Texas girls to do with that much snow?
Snow covered car
Snow
Snow
Snow in the streets
MY SCHEDULE
Friday
1:00pm Deaf West, East (Katie Boeck, Alex Boniello, Daniel N. Durant, Sandra Mae Frank, T.J. Kearney, Spencer Liff, Austin P. McKenzie, Andy Mientus, Krysta Rodriguez)
2:00pm Something Wonderful: A Look Behind The King and I (Christopher Gattelli, Donald Holder, Scott Lehrer, Bartlett Sher, Michael Yeargan, Catherine Zuber)
3:30pm The BroadwayCon 2016 Opening
5:00pm History is Happening In Manhattan: The Hamilton Panel (Daveed Diggs, Renee Elise Goldsberry, Jonathan Groff, Christopher Jackson, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Leslie Odom, Jr., Okieriete Onaodowan, Phillipa Soo)
7:30pm 10,514,880 Minutes: How Do You Measure 20 Years of Rent? (Wilson Jermaine Heredia, Rodney Hicks, Cynthia O’Neal, James C. Nicola, Anthony Rapp, Daphne Rubin-Vega, Bernie Telsey, Fredi Walker-Browne, Tim Weil, Marlies Yearby)
9:30pm The BroadwayCon Jukebox (Kerry Butler, Jenn Colella, Lena Hall, Anthony Rapp, Ryann Redmond, Stark Sands, Alysha Umphress)
Saturday
10:00am The BroadwayCon Feud
11:00am To Us and Our Good Fortune: The Fiddler on the Roof Panel (Michael C. Bernardi, Jessica Hecht, Adam Kantor, Samantha Massell, Jeffrey Schecter, Alexandra Silber)
11:40am Welcome to Our House on Maple Avenue: The Fun Home Panel (Michael Cerveris, Lisa Kron, Judy Kuhn, Joel Perez, Emily Skeggs)
2:00pm Theatre-Adjacent: Working in the Theatre While Working Outside the Theatre (Mark Fisher, Justin “Squigs” Robertson, Brisa Trinchero)
I took my fourth trip to New York City last week for the first ever BroadwayCon and various Broadway musicals. In this post, I will attempt to capture some of my thoughts and favorite moments.
Hamilton
Finding Neverland
Something Rotten!
The King and I
Meeting Kelli O’Hara!
BroadwayCon
Tuesday evening. Fun Home honestly didn’t feel like Broadway, thanks to the small theatre and staging in the round, but it felt right for the show. “Ring of Keys” and “Telephone Wire” were at the top of my list of favorite songs, as expected, but I was surprised how much “Edges of the World” struck me too. Like I suddenly understood Bruce perfectly. Not to mention making it super clear why Michael Cerveris won the Tony! Bonus: I met the entire cast at the stage door.
Do you feel my heart saying hi?
Wednesday afternoon.Simply put, Hamilton is one of the most incredible things I’ve ever seen. It pulled me in from the first notes and did not let go, just like the first time I listened to the cast recording. (Side note: the cast recording does an exceptional job of capturing the show, almost like they knew how scarce tickets would be and wanted to give people the chance to experience the show as fully as possible without actually seeing it.) I had to keep reminding myself to breathe. The entire cast was phenomenal, but the experience of witnessing genius Lin-Manuel Miranda in a role he wrote is beyond description. Jonathan Groff as King George was way more hilarious than I was expecting. Bonus: I ended up next to Jonathan’s Aunt Cookie in the bathroom line during intermission and again at the stage door after the show (where she recognized me) and she showed me pictures on her phone!
Renee Elise Goldsberry, Phillipa Soo, and Jasmine Cephas-Jones as the Schuyler sisters made me tear up a little with, “History is happening in Manhattan and we just happen to be in the greatest city in the world!” The first moment to sneak attack me with chills and tears was sung masterfully by the ensemble and Leslie Odom, Jr. as Aaron Burr: “Life doesn’t discriminate between the sinners and the saints, it takes and it takes and it takes and we keep living anyway, we rise and we fall and we break and we make our mistakes, and if there’s a reason I’m still alive when so many have died, then I’m willin’ to wait for it…” But “It’s Quiet Uptown” joins “What I Did For Love” (A Chorus Line, my first Broadway show) as the only songs to hit me so hard I actually had to bite down on my finger to stop myself from losing control completely. “There are moments that the words don’t reach. There’s a grace too powerful to name.” “Forgiveness. Can you imagine?”
Really, there were only two bad things about the show:
The seats in the Richard Rodgers (at least in the back of the orchestra where I was) were so close together I would have felt claustrophobic without the magic onstage taking me into another world.
There wasn’t enough time between the end of the show and the curtain call. I wanted to applaud properly, but I wasn’t ready to break the spell yet.
Since it was a Wednesday matinee and they had another show that night, only three people came out afterwards. But I’m so glad Phillipa Soo was one of them. Her performance as Eliza Hamilton was surprising, spell-binding, and the reason I needed more time before the curtain call.
How lucky we are to be alive right now
Wednesday evening.Kelli O’Hara is the reason I saw The King and I. But the moment I entered the theatre (Vivian Beaumont at Lincoln Center) I was struck by its beauty and shocked by how close my seat was to the stage. The audience surrounded the orchestra, and I enjoyed watching them play the overture. I was definitely not expecting the stage floor to slide out over the orchestra pit afterwards, or the massive ship that then appeared on the now-much-bigger stage! The set design for the whole show was just breathtaking. And even though the stage was huge, the thrust design and the placement of actor entrances/exits somehow made me feel like I was part of the show.
The children were adorable. Hoon Lee gave a wonderful performance as the King, capturing both serious and humorous moments. Ruthie Ann Miles gave me chills as Lady Thiang and left me in no doubt as to why she won the Tony. And then, in a class of her own: the incomparable Kelli O’Hara, radiating pure magic every single second she was onstage. Sometimes in scenes between Anna and the King or Anna and Lady Thiang, the person speaking had their back to me but I could see Kelli’s face as Anna listened. Watching her reactions was fascinating, but it was more than that. She made me feel everything she felt. She was always completely present in the moment. And being as close as five feet away while she was singing is something I will never forget.
Not sure why it happened in Act 2 and not Act 1, but one line in the reprise of “Hello, Young Lovers” hit me: “You fly down the street on the chance that you’ll meet, and you meet, not really by chance…” My thoughts: “I didn’t meet Kelli three years ago because it wasn’t time yet. If I meet her tonight, it’s supposed to happen. If I don’t, God still knows what He’s doing.”
I joined a very small group at the stage door after the show. Every time the door opened my heart jumped a little, but more often than not it was kids or orchestra members. A few people stopped to sign autographs, including Ruthie Ann Miles and both of the leading kids. Then… Kelli opened the door. My heart started racing and I felt tears in my eyes, though somehow I managed to keep myself from crying. I have no idea what I actually said to her, but I hope I got some measure of my gratitude across (I tweeted her the next day in case I hadn’t). I don’t think I’ve reacted that way to meeting anyone since my sister and I met Hanson for the first time in 2007 after they’d been our favorite band for ten years! I asked for a picture and she said to make sure I was happy with it, and while I checked she moved down the line to other fans. The picture had felt awkward due to positioning and height differences, and it looked like it felt, so I moved down to meet her again at the end of the line. We took another picture that turned out much better, I thanked her again, and she left. I stayed at the stage door alone a few more minutes in an attempt to stop shaking before I walked back to the hotel. Bonus: Who needs a bonus? I MET KELLI O’HARA!
And you meet, not really by chance
Thursday evening.Something Rotten! basically felt like a love letter to every musical ever. Add another one to my list of favorites! I couldn’t believe how many references they crammed into so little time. I also didn’t realize how much tap was in the show! (Or, as Abby put it, “I didn’t realize this was a tapsical!”) Of course, my favorite bit was the tap battle between Christian Borle as Shakespeare and Brian d’Arcy James as Nick Bottom during the act one finale. So freaking brilliant! This is one show you can’t help but leave feeling happy. All that laughter was great for burning calories, too. Plus this particular performance wasn’t sold out, so the ushers moved a bunch of people. We were still in the mezzanine but about ten rows closer than we would’ve been. That was a nice surprise!
The stage door was crowded, much colder, and challenging because I had to pass two playbills over people’s heads to get signed (with the result that a few people only signed one of them), but we stuck around for a while anyway. Bonus: In three days, I met all four reigning Best Actor/Actress in a Musical Tony winners!
There’s nothing as amazing as a musical
Friday through Sunday.BroadwayCon was surreal and I can’t quite believe I was actually there. I think it’s best left for its own post. For now I’ll just leave a little teaser: the original song written for the opening ceremony!
Up till now, Shubert Alley was a dream from afar
But open your eyes, look around – here you are
Sunday afternoon.Aladdin was a last-minute addition to our plans. I’d heard mixed reviews from theatre friends, and I wasn’t sure how I felt about the gags like Genie pulling a Statue of Liberty out of his pocket instead of the lamp, but as the show went on it pulled me in more. The colors were beautiful and vivid, I loved Adam Jacobs and Courtney Reed’s voices as Aladdin and Jasmine, amazing set design with so many things coming up from the stage (very curious to see how that will translate to the tour…), plus wonderful choreography. By the time “Friend Like Me” rolled around, we were convinced that the entire show would’ve been worth it just for that number. Plus Genie mentioned BroadwayCon and gave a shout-out to his “kids in the back row,” and we happened to be sitting in the very last row of the theatre. Then “A Whole New World” was just plain awesome. It was dark, there were stars everywhere, and the carpet flew all over the stage yet remained completely steady. I’d love to go on that magic carpet ride! Only three people came out the stage door, but those people were Aladdin, Jasmine, and Tony-winning Genie James Monroe Iglehart. Bonus: We got to tell Genie we were his kids in the back row.
I can’t go back to where I used to be
Sunday evening.We were lucky enough to see Matthew Morrison’s final performance of Finding Neverland. I knew we were experiencing something special when I was already in tears seconds after the show started. My mind was completely blown by intermission. And by the end of the show I’m not sure how I was still functioning. What a perfect way to wrap up the trip. HOW WAS IT NOT NOMINATED FOR ANY TONYS?
A few moments that made me cry or took my breath away:
Immediately after the lights went down, Tinkerbell flew from the mezzanine to the stage (more than just a light; we couldn’t figure out how they did it) where SYTYCD winner Amy Yakima as Peter Pan caught her and danced around the stage laughing
Laura Michelle Kelly as Sylvia Llewelyn Davies singing “All That Matters,” especially, “And I know that some may not understand, but he’s guiding me safely to shore. Not afraid anymore,” and, “The singing in my heart is all that matters.”
The Llewelyn Davies children jumping on their beds having a pillow fight when everything turned into slow motion and suddenly they’re flying (with the support of other cast members)
Matthew Morrison as J.M. Barrie singing, “We can sail away tonight on a sea of pure moonlight. We can navigate the stars to bring us back home.”
Kelsey Grammer as Charles Frohman shaking his cane at J.M. Barrie and yelling about the ridiculousness of his new play and the fact that it doesn’t even have a villain, while the shadow of the cane handle on the curtain behind them gradually grew larger and turned into a hook
The flashes of light and accompanying booms (Bass? Drums? Both?) toward the end of “Stronger” that sent chills right through my heart
The heartbreakingly beautiful duet “When Your Feet Don’t Touch the Ground” between J.M. Barrie and Peter Llewelyn Davies
“Neverland (Reprise)” when they perform Peter Pan for Sylvia and the children, especially, “Peter shows Wendy how to fly,” “Just a little faith and both your feet leave the ground,” and the whole audience clapping because we all believe in fairies
The GLITTER TORNADO that came out of nowhere and smacked me across the face with magical perfection and wonder
Bonus: Since it was Matthew Morrison’s final performance, director Diane Paulus and composers Gary Barlow and Eliot Kennedy came onstage for farewell speeches after the curtain call. We thought about waiting at the stage door afterwards, but it was so crowded we couldn’t get anywhere near it. I think we were still both in Neverland at that point anyway.
I’ve noticed a lot of “last day of the year” posts today, including one or two saying they felt bad reading all those other people’s accomplishments because they didn’t think they’d accomplished much this year. That made me think me of something I read somewhere: We are human beings, not human doings.
I forget this a lot. I love doing stuff. I love cramming so much into my schedule that the idea of “free time” becomes a foreign concept. But when I start to let the stuff I do define me, I run into problems. Like driving myself crazy (MUST DO ALL THE THINGS) or burning myself out (MUST SLEEP FOR A BILLION HOURS). And I lose sight of why I was doing anything in the first place
Inevitably though, God finds some way to remind me. Listening to a song. Staring out the window. Napping in my chair. Just being. We’re not defined by anything we do, but by something He did. He made us. And that’s enough.
So go ahead with the traditional New Year’s activities of reflecting on the past year and making resolutions for the one ahead, or however you choose to celebrate. But before you do, stop for a moment. And take time to just be. Just be you.
Look at where you are. Look at where you started. The fact that you’re alive is a miracle. Just stay alive, that would be enough.
Due to a combination of circumstances including studying for the P.E. exam and having surgery, it’s been a year since I opened a show. Which probably explains why I was even more excited than usual for opening night of Beauty and the Beast on Friday. And then, at the end of the show, something happened that made this one of my favorite opening nights.
The finale blocking starts with just Belle and the (former) Beast onstage. Then the rest of us enter while we’re singing.
Tale as old as time, song as old as rhyme, Beauty and the Beast
As I entered singing those words and saw a crowd full of friends and family applauding and rising to their feet (standing ovation before the curtain call!), I suddenly found tears in my eyes and could barely keep singing. And a storm of thoughts started racing themselves through my mind:
“What is happening? I must have lost the story somewhere between the notes and steps. Now I remember. It doesn’t matter if the tale is as old as time or if it’s happened a million times before. It’s still beautiful in the moment. So just be present in it. Even if the moment is not-so-beautiful, I’m in it for a reason. So stay present in it anyway. And this moment is why I do theatre. There is so much love in the room right now from everyone onstage, backstage, and in the audience. We’re creating magic and I get to be part of it. Thank You, God, for letting me be here in this moment and for giving us reminders like this that You are always with us. I’ll remember this moment for the rest of my life.”
Okay, I articulated those thoughts a little more after the fact, but it still captures the general gist of what sped through my mind during the last few minutes of the performance. And based on conversations in the dressing room, I know I wasn’t the only one who teared up. There was definitely something special happening. Pure magic.
So at least for opening night, that moment beat out getting shot in the arm with the confetti cannon at the end of “Be Our Guest” for my favorite part of the show.
Eight years ago today, I took my first antidepressant.
I should have picked up on it sooner. My journal from junior year of high school is full of clues. Maybe I just didn’t want to deal with it so I subconsciously ignored the signs. But junior year of college, things finally got bad enough that I couldn’t ignore them anymore. I’d walk around campus crying for absolutely no reason. I couldn’t make myself care about academic work. I remember one day walking to band practice purposely staying in the middle of the road and not caring if someone ran over me (granted, it wasn’t a very busy road, but still). I think that’s when I really knew something was wrong and I needed help.
It was the beginning of an impossible uphill climb. I called home. (Too many times to count.) I got permission from my professors to turn in assignments late. (One of them already knew something was going on because I’d had a complete breakdown in his office.) With the support of a friend who had gone through her own fight with depression freshman year and was also a psychology major, I made appointments at the student mental health center and the counseling center. (Before choir one day she actually sat with me while I sobbed and held my hand when I’d finally calmed down enough to make the phone calls.)
Around Thanksgiving, I wrote this note on my Facebook page:
Hey guys, I’m sorry if I’ve seemed rude or anti-social or just completely out of it lately. I don’t really know what I want to say. This semester has been tough. I’ve been struggling with depression since at least junior year of high school, and it got so bad around the beginning of September that I finally realized what it was and tried to do something about it. But my medicine stopped working a week or so ago. I’m sure you don’t really care. Anyway. Thanks to those of you who’ve supported me, through prayers or hugs or smiles or even just being there, or for understanding when I just don’t want to be around people. You have no idea how much it means to me. I hope that someday I can be that bubbly happy person who everyone thinks I am. I’m tired of having days of wanting to run away from myself, feeling trapped, crying so much I feel sick, not caring about anything, wanting to fall down the stairs so maybe other things won’t hurt so much. I’m not saying this to make anyone feel sorry for me or worry about me, it’s just the truth. I do still have good moments; it just seems like they’re really rare these days. Which I guess makes them that much more special, but all the same, I’d like them a bit more often. Anyway. I love you.
I will never know how I made it to Christmas. All I know is that I didn’t do it alone.
Eight years ago today was also the very first Friday of Awakening (a Catholic retreat I helped staff) at Vanderbilt University. God definitely made these two events happen the same day on purpose. I spent the whole weekend praying with awesome people and doing everything in my power to give the retreaters the best experience possible. I stayed up all night writing notes to each one of them, and it didn’t even matter when my hand started cramping up so bad I could barely hold a pen. Getting out of my own head and focusing 100% on other people created such an internal shift that it was like one Martha left for the retreat on Friday, and a completely different Martha came back on Sunday. There was still a long hard road ahead, but Awakening was the hand that pulled me back up and made it possible to start moving forward again.
The struggle is by no means over, and I do still have bad days. But as the battle slowly became easier to fight, I’ve gradually come to realize…
And you find out you don’t have to be happy at all to be happy you’re alive
As promised, here’s my BroadwayCon post. In an attempt to keep it a semi-reasonable length, I will try to focus on my reactions to things rather than just what happened. (And there’s a bunch of stuff on 
A Shift In The Light 