Broadway. Over the years I have been completely captivated by the idea of Broadway and how you could change into a completely different personality depending on the character you are playing but the best thing to me was knowing the next day you could do it all over again. Every night I dream that one day my name will be in lights in the biggest musical theatre city there could be, that I could finally be up on that stage portraying the role of Cosette, Sandy Olsen, Amber Von-Tussle, or even the iconic role of Glinda the good witch who isn't as good as you may think. I recurring get informed that I'm too overly obsessed with musicals although I'd rather live in the fantasy world that is I receiving a Tony award for best actress in a Broadway show.
Growing up I would constantly watch Disney movies and dance around like Cinderella and even sing to birds like Snow White thinking all I would ever want to be is a Disney princess but then I was introduced to the movie musical called ‘Hairspray’, the 2007 version to be more specific. Every time I woke up in the morning, I would imagine I'm Tracy Turnblad singing and dancing to ‘Good Morning Baltimore’ teasing my hair like the first lady Jackie Kennedy and fantasizing to marry the mesmerizing Link Larkin. From that day on all I wanted to be is a part of the nicest kids in town from Corny Collins Show. Now that I look back that movie was the one to start my overwhelming obsession with musical theatre.
I regularly get asked “Why are you so engrossed in musicals?” and I will give the simple answer which is frankly I adore the feeling that is watching a musical. The feeling of watching a musical is almost like the feeling of falling in love, it totally and completely consumes you and lets you forget the tribulations life has and lets you in that moment be happy and content. I would like to give at least one person in this world that feeling by performing.
I have a few views of characters that I dream of portraying. First of all, there is Galinda (Glinda) the good witch from the phenomenon Wicked this is mainly just so I can sing ‘Popular’ and ‘For Good’ also I'd love to say “toss, toss” and flip my hair and give people chills but suddenly I find myself reciting the entire script and dancing the choreography of ‘Mamma Mia’ both one and two, as well as wishing I could be on the island of Kalokairi, wearing dungarees and belting out Abba tunes with my dynamos. Then to contradict that I abruptly receive the rush to fall in love at first sight and wonder if my soulmate will come out of the French Revolution alive just as Cosette did. Without a doubt, there are multiple other roles that I won't get into at this moment.
Some of the best musicals are the ones that you didn’t expect to even become a musical, for example, mean girls were taken on as a Broadway project and surprisingly it has done well. There's also Kinky Boots, Legally Blonde and Billy Elliot but the best of them all would be my current obsession ‘Heathers the Musical’ which is an adaptation of the sensational movie, ‘Heathers’, about a girl that is trying to be popular meets and falls for a sociopath that only knows how to destroy things and people. When I first watched the movie, I thought the only thing that could make this better is put it into song and dance, and to my awe, I found there was. The musical itself is simply astonishing as it really takes the depths of the movie and takes another spin to it. Sometimes I just close my eyes and imagine I'm Veronica singing “Seventeen” with JD or all three of the Heathers singing “Candy Store” but then I realize I don’t really want to kill my classmates and watch my boyfriend blow up in front of my eyes even if he was insane.
If you are a musical lover like myself you either love or hate glee. Personally, I'm in love with the idea of a tv show based around a group of misfits in high school trying to be accepted and communicate mostly through song. I relate to the character, Rachel Berry, as she is a determined woman who won't stop fighting till she's got her dreams. Did I fail to mention her dream is much like mine, to be on Broadway? I also love this show as it feels real, it might not seem like it's real but it deals with issues like school shootings, homophobia, sexism, and death. This is mostly an uplifting show but it does have various moments that break my heart the one that hurts the most is an episode called ‘The Quarterback’ which is based on a main character's death as the actor unexpectedly accidentally overdosing, this event nearly completely changed the show and effected it immensely but they did manage to make this unfortunate twist let the show change for the better. Overall this show taught me to always follow my dreams and don’t let anyone shame me into giving up on them.
In conclusion, I have an obsession with musicals that I can't let go of no matter how hard I try. You could say that I'm ignorant of the real world and its problems but this obsession has let me see life in a new and amazing light that’s full of singing, dancing, and acceptance where nothing couldn’t be resolved with a performance. To be honest I’d rather be a weirdo that constantly finishes everyone's sentence with a Broadway lyric than be someone that leads a normal yet boring life that refuses to let the overwhelming feeling that is musical theatre consume them as they could be labeled as different.