Everything Was Beautiful at the Ballet

Yesterday, I innocently clicked on a story in The Washington Post, a review of a revival of A Chorus Line at the Signature Theatre.  I wrote this Facebook post:

"Down the internet/memory rabbit hole. First I'm reading a review in "The Washington Post" about a new rendition of "A Chorus Line" at Signature Theatre, then I'm listening to variations of "I Hope I Get It" that helpful people have uploaded to YouTube, and I'm realizing I can still sing all the lyrics, as I have been able to do since I first played the soundtrack over and over again, back in 1977, when my mother got the Broadway cast album for Christmas. I think of my 12 year old self belting out, "Who am I anyway? Am I my resume?""

When I wrote that, I thought about writing more, but I do try to keep my Facebook posts shorter.  Longform material goes into the blog.  I do think about that 12 year old who had never had a job and scarcely knew what a resume was.  However, I've spent much of my adult life singing a version of those lyrics.  How on earth did I get here to this place in my career?  Some days I say that with a sense of wonderment.  Some days I feel like I've gotten completely off track.  On bad days, I wonder if I was ever on a tack at all.

I was surprised by how many people commented on that Facebook post, but perhaps I shouldn't have been.  A lot of my friends have some drama club nerd in their backgrounds.  This show--and the Broadway cast album--was a touchstone for me, in much the same way that the film Fame (the older version, not the TV show, although I did like the TV show) was.  

One of my first creative loves was drama--the dressing up, the trying to be a character that wasn't me, the make believe--so it's not a surprise that I loved A Chorus Line or Fame.  About 10 years ago, I bought a CD of the Broadway cast album of A Chorus Line, and I spent some time reflecting on how adult the content of the lyrics was.  I'm sure most of that just flew right over my 12 year old head.  As I commented on a comment, "I thought the woman singing about tits and ass was just a very late bloomer."

That album covered so much:  adolescent sexuality of all sorts and the thrill and the shame of it all, adult sexuality of all sorts, body image, relationships with parents, being an outsider in so many ways.  There was so much I didn't understand, but at 12 years old, so much that I did understand on so many levels.

When we first moved to South Florida in 1998, a lot of high schools were staging the show, which I found odd. What would it be like to be in high school, playing those roles? Of course now, the content probably doesn't seem quite as grown up as it once did for high school actors.

The show is up in DC until Jan. 5.  Maybe I should check into cheap airline tickets.  My mom and my sister both commented on my Facebook post.  Maybe we could have a different kind of girls' week-end.