A Love Letter (No, it's not to a person.)

So, I should maybe be blogging about how ITAs went (good) or my future plans (Chicago) or how I'm feeling right now (nervous) or what kind of woes I'm feeling (money troubles), but I'm not going to do that today. I'm going to write about something that makes me happy, that has always made me happy, and I think this is something everyone can appreciate.

Dear Musical Theatre,

I've always adored you. I really, truly have. When I was a child, you were there for me, always. I knew all of the words to The Little Mermaid, Pocahontas, Beauty and the Beast, and all of those other mezzo-soprano-animated heroines Disney pooped out through the 90s. I saw the beauty of Mary Poppins even though my mother hated the movie, and you opened my eyes to the fact that my parents were people before I existed. My dad played Will Parker in Oklahoma! when he was in high school, and my aunt Lesa was his Ado Annie (on my mom's side, don't worry, no incest here). And you brought me The Wizard of Oz, the first old movie I voluntarily sat down and watched, and to this day Judy Garland still kills me with "Somewhere Over the Rainbow." And--confession alert--I still enjoy Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, the only Andrew Lloyd Weber musical I think I could ever enjoy because it was the first show I ever saw.

Through high school, you were my dearest friend. It was easily the toughest time of my life, especially when I moved to a new school that proved to me that every cliched high school movie actually had a ground in reality, with the cruelty of the popular kids, the cliques that never tell you how to become a part of the group. But you saw me through it. Through Cole Porter, George and Ira Gershwin, Rogers and Hammerstein, Adam Guettel, and most especially Stephen Sondheim, you opened my eyes and ears to a world of art and expression.

Sure, I became a hoity-toity know-it-all about musical theatre. I might even act that way sometimes today. But I am 100% positive that I became a better person, a better performer, a better artist because of you.

I never was cast in a musical during college. I've heard rumors that I came very close my first Summer Theatre, which maybe would have changed the kind of performer I am today, the kind of college experience I would have had. Even though I've felt plenty discouraged, I'm still convinced that I will someday have a career, if only a very brief one, in musical theatre.

And despite my confidence in you... not everyone loves you. Some will say you're old hat. That you're not relevent today. That you're a lesser form of art (someone else's words, not mine). Musical theatre, don't listen. These are people speaking out of ignorance, who have clearly never seen shows like Next to Normal or Spring Awakening. These shows both have very clear, very powerful, very relevent messages that concern today's audiences and will concern audiences in the future, and believe me when I say that they aren't the only shows that do this.

I think people forget sometimes that theatre (not just musical theatre) was created as an escape. People come in, they see a story told, they relate to it, they laugh, they cry, they clap, and then they leave the theatre changed, if only for a moment. So what is it that makes you so irrelevent, but a straight play is always relevent? Nothing. Both forms of theatre are escapist forms of art, and I've begun to get increasingly irritated with the argument, "That sort of thing doesn't happen in real-life" or "I didn't like that because it wasn't real."

Well, audiences of today, I have news for you: these plays, these movies, those television shows you watch are not real. You are watching a play on reality, not a depiction of it. It's up to you to dedicate yourself to this story. It's up to you to suspend yourself from reality. And a musical just takes that suspension of reality a step farther than a straight play can go. Instead of watching people go through conflict like they would in real life (which, don't get me wrong, can be equally fantastic), you are seeing these characters truly express themselves in ways that words can't. Happy, sad, comforting, passionate performances through song and dance that take a whole new dimension of talent to perform.

Musical theatre, forget about your waning audiences. I know you're suffering through the idea that all musicals must have spectacle, that all a person needs to be cast in a show is one high note, that Broadway has become a stomping ground for American Idol has-beens. But there are talented people out there who believe in you as I do. We're here, and we understand you, through old splashy movie musicals and new, edgy works that wrench the hearts of audiences.

So if anyone ever insults you, just tell me, and I will beat them up for you. Jets-style.

Love,
Lindsay

P.S. I know this was long... but I really wanted to say everything I felt.