The Morning After the Tony Awards

I have just spent a delightful smidge of time reading about the Tony awards.  Once I wouldn't have had to read newspaper accounts; once, in long ago teenage years, I would have stayed up late to watch the awards show.

I don't remember a time when I wasn't interested in drama as a genre (as opposed to drama as a lifestyle?).  I was in plays throughout elementary school, and I was that strange kid that also wrote plays--and performed them.  I loved making puppets and putting on puppet shows.  For Christmas one year, I got a puppet theatre, which was three boards with hinges and a square opening--and a curtain!

So perhaps it seems inevitable that at some point, I'd think about becoming an actress as a career plan.  I first decided this in 7th grade, and in 9th grade, my best friend and I planned to go to NYC as roommates when we graduated from college.  She had recently moved from New Jersey to Charlottesville, Virginia, and was homesick.  I had recently moved and was impatient for grown up life to start.

I read every play I could get my hands on (often out loud, in my room, choosing one character and reading only those parts out loud) and bought the soundtracks to Tony nominated musicals.  Occasionally, I went to see plays--during most of my childhood, we lived in places with community theatre or university drama department offerings.  In those days, seeing Broadway traveling shows meant a trip to larger cities like Atlanta or Washington D.C., which we did occasionally.

This year, unlike other years, I read about last night's Tony awards, and most of the names of the plays are familiar to me.  In part, it's because many of the nominees are revivals or shows based on earlier works, some dramas or musicals (like Cats), some not (like The Lost Boys, based on the movie from 1987).  I also worry that we're in a thin period for theatre, where fewer shows make it to the stage or stay there long, so it means that people like me have less to keep track of from a distance, if we try to keep track through the years.

I am happy that I didn't try to make my childhood love into a grown up career--Broadway has not been kind to women, particularly older women.  I am happy that this childhood love of drama continues to make me happy, even as I don't always go to see live theatre or even read plays.  I do want to make a mid-year intention to read more plays, beginning with Bess Wohl, who won last night for Liberation.