My parents had taken me to see musicals when I was younger (Annie, A Chorus Line), but I don't ever recall being really into musicals until high school. My friend gave me a recording of Rent, which happened to be her favorite musical at the time, and I absolutely fell in love. I was obsessed and listened to the recording nonstop for several months. Then I saw that Rent was touring near me and got to see the actual musical for the first time and fell in love again.
A few years later, when I was in college, I took my first trip to New York with the intention of seeing Rent and a few other musicals. What really pulled me in then was Cabaret at Studio 54. I had seen it once before, but the staging and the theatre set-up of Studio 54 was incredible and made you feel like an audience at the Kit Kat Club as opposed to just an audience in the theatre and I loved it.
After that I kind of got caught up in school and then graduation and figuring out what I wanted to do, and as much as I still loved my old recordings and my theatre experiences I wasn't really paying that much attention to the theatre world...until I started grad school and met a friend who introduced me to Wicked. She insisted I had to see it and after seeing it on tour and finally on Broadway I was hooked all over again. Since then (only a year ago) I've been to New York numerous times (it helps that I live closer now) and have become obsessed with everything Broadway all over again. I can't wait to see new shows and hear new recordings and discover old shows I've never seen.
I know Rent and Wicked are kinda cliche, but I'm all for whatever draws people into the world of theatre and if those are a springboard for future shows, so be it.
I wish I could go back to college. Life was so simple back then. - Kate Monster.
"Who here feels like they have no idea what they're doing?" - George, Grey's Anatomy
