Here Comes the Sun

  You all know the story.  Girl visits NYC and it's love at first sight.  All she wants is to move to NYC and perform on Broadway.  She just hopes that New York will take her in and be kind.  Well, okay - anyone who saw my cabaret knows that isn't exactly what I had expected.  I knew it would be really difficult - but hell if that didn't excite me even more!  The first time I set foot in NYC a pigeon shit on my head but I didn't care.  I expected it.  So I moved here and started my NYC romance.  Like every exhilarating love affair - I found passion, inspiration, & creativity with just the right amount of hurdles and pigeon shit laced throughout to keep it a constant challenge/chance for growth.  New York forced me to evolve in ways I never dreamed I would and learn exactly what I'm made of.  Though I knew my dream of Broadway would be difficult - I feel a little silly now saying that somehow - deep inside - I never doubted it would happen.  Here I sit - nearly 11 years later and well, let's just say that dream feels 100% as challenging as it did the day that pigeon shit on my head.  People often would ask me in those first few years whether I was thinking about giving L.A. a try - or did I miss Pittsburgh?  My mom, of course, knew me best and could tell within that first year or so that I wasn't coming home - that NYC was going to be my home for a very long time.  She saw my love for the city and continues - to this day - to support me fully in my pursuit of my dreams here.  All I have ever wanted, that I just knew was in my grasp if I did the work, was living in NYC and performing.  That was one thing I was sure of.

  One thing I've never been sure of is whether or not I'd ever find someone to share my life with.  Of course I grew up expecting that "someday I'll meet someone" - because that is just what is supposed to happen - but as I grew older it really felt like that part of my life might never be like it's "supposed" to happen - and I honestly started to just accept this.  I knew I was likely going to live in NYC for the rest of my life and would most certainly be that crazy lady on the train with weird glasses wearing leopard pajama pants and talking to herself.  And that was okay by me.  My, how life can through you for a loop sometimes! Without getting too crazy into the nitty or the gritty -- the important part here is that I did meet someone.  And that someone loves me.  And I am crazy about that someone.  And that someone lives out in New Jersey.  So....guess who's moving to Jersey?  That's right - it's ME!  I know - I am as stunned as you are - which is the point of this post.  It wasn't an easy decision and again - neither the gritty nor the nitty is necessary here but....the EXCITING thing is - I am so giddy to begin my life with this guy without all the commuting!!!  The thing I haven't been as excited about is leaving my NYC.  That is the tough part.  There are so many things I am frightened of as I prepare to make my commute to my city-life sightly more difficult.

  So there I am - the day before I am to move 98% of my belongings from Queens to Jersey --- and I hop on the subway to meet my Jersey boy in the city for a "Final Saturday as an Official New Yorker" dinner type thing.  I am a little melancholy - as I have been with all my recent NY activities - when I hear an accordion player step onto my subway car and start playing/singing "Here Comes the Sun" by The Beatles.  Now - if you live in the city - you know there are a cast of familiar characters you see on your trains -- every once in a while there is someone new - but generally it's the same folks with the same old schtick.  Well, I have never seen this dude and I have rarely - if ever - heard any of them playing this song.  More importantly - this is one of the FEW songs my Jersey boy sang lead on in his old band.  I couldn't help myself as a smile spread from ear to ear and I heard the comforting words "It's all right.".  I begin to get out a dollar for this guy (which I try to do when they genuinely make me laugh/smile).  He had stopped playing and collected from someone else - but was on his way over to me.  My head was down as I struggled in my pocket when suddenly he is hovering over me and loudly singing directly at me "SUN SUN SUN - HERE IT COMES!!!!!!!!!!!!!! SUN SUN SUN - HERE IT COMES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"  I gasped and giggled as he stopped and apologized for scaring me.  I gave him my buck and then he remained there - playing some romantic tune you'd hear if you and your love were being serenaded by an accordion at a little Italian restaurant.  But I was all alone.  It was perfectly ridiculous.  All of it.  It was one of my favorite types of NYC moments - I hadn't had one like that in a while.  And it came just when I needed it.  It felt like my "old flame" NYC was giving the thumbs up to this move with it's blessings - reminding me that it will always be right here and that I will always be just as much a part of it.  Only now it would be my (slightly) long-distance commute.

So that girl moves to New Jersey.  And it's all right....

"So, What Happened?"

I recently had another disturbing conversation much like this xtranormal video:

Whilst working a holiday job I am NOT too giddy to return to (but grateful to have), a young co-worker learned that I had gone to college many moons ago. Here is our conversation:

Her: "So what did you go to school for?"
Me: "I got a B.A. in musical theatre."
Her: "So, what happened?"
Me: laughing uncomfortably, "What happened?!"
Her: "Yeah, don't you audition for Broadway?"

I've had many conversations like these. The kind where that one response:

"So, what happened?"

just repeats and repeats in my ear. Sometimes it pisses me off. Sometimes it makes me sad. This time it just made me giggle. A lot.

Whether or not it as simple as this cat thinks it is. Do I still even want to be on Broadway?

Maybe.

The recent closing announcements of two new-to-Broadway shows, "The Scottsboro Boys" and "Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson" has me upset and curious about the current state of Broadway and how it compares to the Broadway that I fell in love with. Two new musicals with compelling storylines and new music MADE IT TO BROADWAY in a time when only jukebox musicals and blockbuster movie-to-musicals which all leave oodles to be desired are being produced and worse, selling tickets. Within just a few short months they get their closing notices and the theatre community mourns their loss. What is the problem here? Is there truly not an audience for these shows? I am inspired by these shows and I have not seen them yet. So am I to blame? I can't afford to see them!! Even at a student rate (which I am far from a student) I have no extraneous cash (yes, people can actually not have an extra $25-35 for a ticket). I have relied for the past several years in this city on the kindness of friends who work in box offices and theatre marketing companies for all of my theatre-going needs. Even when I receive a comp, my word-of-mouth can only go so far. I am well-connected but, to a sea of artists much like myself. I know numerous people who would thoroughly enjoy and support work like this but who do not have the means to. Is that where things stand? Is the only true audience for shows such as these the very theatre community which cannot afford to support it?

Since I have limited time for research on this topic at this moment but really want to get this off my chest, I did a very quick search. The following is from a review of "BROADWAY: THE GOLDEN ERA", (a documentary being shipped to me next from Netflix!) by Seattle Post-Intellegencer movie critic WILLIAM ARNOLD

"If you don't believe Broadway had its greatest years in the two decades between 1945 and 1965, all you have to do is open a theatrical section of The New York Times on any day in this period and you'll see row upon row of listings for plays that are now classics.
It was the heyday of Tennessee Williams, William Inge and Arthur Miller; of Rogers & Hammerstein, Lerner & Lowe and Cole Porter; of "The Glass Menagerie," "Death of a Salesman" and "Guys and Dolls," of Shirley Booth, John Raitt and Carol Lawrence.

And the plays were performed in intimate theaters, mostly without audio systems, at ticket prices that were often less than that of a first-run movie in New York, so that theatergoing could be an affordable part of any New Yorker's life.

Now, according to the nostalgic documentary, "Broadway: The Golden Era," it's all gone, replaced by endless revivals and English imports targeted at tourists, performed in large auditoriums with canned music, at hundred-dollar-plus ticket prices."

Though I have often been saddened by the current state of Broadway, there is always a part of me that feels that if putting an American Idol 13th runner-up in a "Rock of Ages" is what will get a younger audience interested in musical theatre, then I can't totally discount it. But when nothing new can survive in the theatre next door how will that new fan crossover to something closer to theatre?

The good news is that there is still amazing theatre being produced elsewhere. The truest of theatre-goers have been looking Off-Broadway for the past several years to find the creativity, inspiration, and art of live theatre. Clearly Broadway is not where it's at, and even when it is, no one can afford to support it.

So while I begin reassessing my life-long dream of performing on Broadway, I'd like to propose my co worker's question to Broadway itself:

"So, what happened?"