Month Three: Singing along with BROADWAY MUSICALS, BABY!

Oh-to-the-Em-to-the-GEE! It’s BROADWAY MONTH! In case you can’t tell, I am a HUGE musical theatre fan. I have been since I was a wee little kid singing along to Phantom of the Opera at the top of my lungs (no wonder I became an opera singer!). I went from those early one-woman-show days (lol) to being a hardcore theatre nerd in high school, to doing tons of musical theatre singing during my opera studies. Then, like most of the things I’m revisiting this year, I just set that part of myself down and stopped looking at it. Well, mostly.

You see, I have this really fond, fairly recent memory from my corporate days. After I hung up my ballgowns and left my opera singer life, I went back to school and did my law degree and my MBA. This, unsurprisingly, landed me in a big corporation, with a fancy ass title, a key card, and a sweet, modern, glass-walled Cubicle Of The Future (basically the only way I know how to explain it). During my first summer in this job that I felt IMMENSELY grateful to have obtained, I spent a couple hours of nearly every afternoon in exactly the same fashion. I would tuck in at my computer, pop on my headphones, kick off my heels, and put on the Hamilton soundtrack. I was drinking free coffee, making spreadsheets or doing research or processing data, and in my own little world. I had made it. I was in corporate heaven.

Hamilton is what made these moments magical. It’s, strangely, a huge part of what I immediately loved about my job. I love to be engrossed in a story, and I love to use what I’m listening to to help me find a flow state and just crank out work. These afternoons were so memorable, even though I couldn’t for the life of me tell you now what exactly I was working on (though I know I was busting my ever-loving ass). All I remember is Eliza, and Burr, and Angelica, and Alexander. All I remember is “My Shot” and “Dear Theodosia.” All I remember is getting to the end of the show and having to bend down to pat away the mascara tears.

When I reflect back through my life before that time, I can remember many such soundtracks, and where I was when I listened over and over. The ones to which I not only know every word, but I’ve felt every feeling a hundred times over. Listening to RENT on my discman in grade seven. Les Misérables in the backseat of my parents’ minivan on the way to the lake. In the Heights every morning on the bus to downtown Florence the summer I studied in Italy. Then there are the shows I’ve been in, especially in high school. Oliver!. Little Shop of Horrors. Godspell. I am right back in my costume as soon as the opening number rolls.

I can’t wait to spend this month losing myself in these beautiful words and music and stories. I believe that Broadway is so moving for the same reason as opera (or any song, for that matter): the humanness of merging words with music is inherently transcendent. By mixing what is said with the emotion behind it, the creators and performers of musical theatre take us beyond our thinking minds and into a powerful heart space. Not to mention that the medium is larger than life, allowing for really, really big emotions – which I’m all for.

So here’s to musical theatre month! I’ll post the full list of musicals over on Instagram (so check it out!), and I’ll be sure to toss it up here as well. I hope my fellow Broadway nerds will listen along!