This is "Your" Show Because...

What's the one show, musical or straight play, that continues to have significance to you? It's "your" show, and the merits, or lack thereof, have no bearing.

For me it is A CHORUS LINE. Thirty years ago this week it was my first date with the person who still shares my life. I remember standing that Tuesday evening in Shubert Alley before the 8pm curtain. It was in previews. When I made the date a week earlier I was told, "Well, I've got friends in it and I've already seen it twice down at the Public, but I guess I'll go again." We're still one singular sensation I'm happy to say.

So A CHORUS LINE remains special to me. Good thing it was a great show!

The Rocky Horror Show- I was also attending this show weekly to help me get through rough times: the loss of some friends on Sept 11th, and both my grandma and great grandma facing death. I had a lot of fun times with great friends, I got to know Sebastian Bach better, and met Matt Morrison.

PHANTOM OF THE OPERA--This was the first musical I have ever heard (I was in 10th Grade). So, without this musical.....I probably wouldn't be at this message board right now.

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ANNIE - Andrea McArdle was my age and it was the first OBCR I bought on my own. I wore that record out and belted my lungs out to it, became a big fan of Andrea, and through her television appearances on Merv Griffin and Mike Douglas where she always sang a Judy Garland song, she introduced me to the music and legend of the great Ms. Garland and all of that put together changed my life.

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I BAWLED in Hairspray when Tracy came-out after her "makeover" in "Welcome to the 60s"!! I mean, CRIED - Was so embarassed...

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Forbidden Broadway-
My Dad and I were very close and when I was a teenager he took me to the first Forbidden Broadway and said this show will be our thing! Everytime the show changed Dad and I went.
He died in 2000 and I continue going and wish he was with me.
He loved Forbidden Broadway.
It has a special place for that and many other reasons.

Dad loved the theater almost as much as the Opera. He took me to everything. He was the greatest Dad.


Let's ruin Times Square again!

Updated On: 7/13/04 at 07:33 PM

Corine, that was just the nicest post. My mom died in 2002, and we went to see "A Chorus Line" together in the mid-70's. It became "our show". She was a wonderful mom. I understand. Thanks for making me feel not alone with memories like these!

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Les Miserables. It was one of my first musicals, but even today, it's a cathartic experience for me. It presents such a beautiful, idealized vision of existence - that one act of good can change the world, and that there is something grand and hopeful beyond this "barricade." I love the fact that each character has his or her "moment" (their own song), and how they each strive for a better tomorrow. At the risk of sounding sentimental and cliche, I find Les Miz wonderful because it's about love. Every type of love is presented: romantic, familial, patriotic, religious, friendship, etc. It's still the most profound musical for me.

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The first show I "adopted" was Les Miserables, because after I watched and loved it in the theater, my parents got me a simplified piano version of the score. So there was a lot of me playing and singing "Castle on a Cloud" when I was 10 or so. :)

The show that I love the most nowadays is Sunday in the Park With George, because sadly, the frustrated artist thing is all too familiar to me.

SWEENEY TODD~~I love the show itself, but it's also kind of special to me because it was the first time someone actually handed me a check for doing something that I will never consider WORK. I played in the pit for a production of it one summer and discovered my dream job. I never got tired of playing that show and my wild imagination was having a field day trying to figure out what was going on on stage (not knowing the show coming into it). It wasn't until well into the run that I had the opportunity to actually sit out and watch a performance. When I hear the show today, my fingers still kind of air play a lot of it...and they'll never forget the last four measures of the show...I think there were more accidentals thrown into those last measures than were in the entire thing, and it flew like the wind!! But such fun!! I'll never forget that summer.

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Updated On: 7/11/04 at 09:12 PM

The Fantasticks.

It makes me think of my childhood...My elementary school was right by the Sullivan Street Playhouse and both my parents grew up in that neighborhood, plus our church and playground were both there, so I spend a lot of time near that theatre.

This sounds totally morbid, but the funeral home everyone in my family has gotten buried out of is across the street from the theatre. Whenever I was at a wake, if I was really upset, I'd stand outside and stare at the theatre and think about the sweet simpleness of that show and it was always a great comfort.

This was especially true at my own father's wake...I was only 17 when he died and I went and stood outside to get away from all my doting relatives. That "Fantasticks" sign always made me feel just a little bit better. Don't know why.

I still get chills every time I hear, "You must always leave the wall."

And when I met Max Von Essen recently, ALL I could think of was, "HE STARRED IN THE FANTASICKS!!!!!!"

It's just an incredibly simple, sweet show...shows that you don't have to be over the top or have crazy sets or a huge cast to be special.

Mine would have to be RENT. Slightly cliche but I don't really care. I saw this show first when I was in 8th grade, in 1998, on tour and was blown away, even though my mother covered my eyes when Maureen's bare ass graced the crowd. I was immediately hooked and logged to find out when the show was coming back. I take the soundtrack with me every where -- on every vacation, every car trip, every move - everywhere. I never get sick of it and every chance I have to see the show I jump at it. I wrote my college entrance essay on the musical and how much it means to me and inspires me to work in theatre (I'm an educational theatre major at NYU). I did a speech about Jonathan Larson and how the world of Broadway, and musical theatre in general, might be different today had he not died in such an untimely manner. No show has ever touched me as much as RENT has and I highly doubt that any show ever will.

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this feels unoriginal but the most significant show in my life has undoubtedly been LES MIS. it was the 2nd professional show I ever saw [age 8] and the first show that I didn't despise (my first show was CATS). even though I didn't understand the plot, I fell in love with the music and spent much of ages 8-10 wearing out the Original Broadway cassette tape and sporting my Les Mis t-shirt. i eventually grew out of it, forgot about theatre, and focused my life on basketball and hardcore rap music until a fateful evening when I was 13.

I hadn't listened to or thought about LES MIS or theatre for several years. Then I happened to be flipping channels one night and stopped on Sally Jesse Raphael doing a show on Broadway kids. She had the current Young Cosette singing Castle on a Cloud and it caught my attention. The next morning I found my old OBC tape, gave it a listen, actually understood the plot this time, and I was instantly hooked for good. From this point on, my life was destined to be one of culture, creativity, and limited employability. Within a month, my Snoop Dogg and Eazy E CD's were replaced by Broadway recordings and I had given up after-school basketball in order to join a youth theatre. Within a year I had stuffed my 14-yr-old head with a great amount of useless knowledge about shows, performers, composers, and all that other fun elitist trivia that comprises the language of this message board. As many of you can relate to, my obsession with theatre has only snowballed over the years and become more and more the central focus of my life.

So even though I've had enough LES MIS to last a lifetime and it's no longer my favorite show, it will always be the show that brought me into theatre to begin with, and it's possible that I never would have set foot into another theatre if I didn't happen upon that Sally Jesse episode. so that's my cheesy reason for why LES MIS is "my show" (also because I've seen it 26 times, own over 40 recordings of it, and have produced a gigantic "Les Mis- School Edition" with a 115-person cast for a city-run theatre).

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