My Musicals on Stage

Community Theater

            I recently realized a new definition of courage: community theater. Being on stage, blinded by lights, without a cue or clue of one’s lines, is such an adrenalin rush!  It is high risk adventure, yet perfectly safe, physically. One’s dignity is at risk, but who can manage maintaining much of that through life anyway? But among community, it all happens in a friendly atmosphere of regularly shattered comfort zones. My family was flabbergasted when I wrote my first musical. All they had ever seen me do was work, yard work, pay lunch money, correct papers, and read interesting books, without saying much. They had to do most of the talking if any happened. But then came a time when a daughter (who had done well in drama) did not have a lot to do at the time, and having toyed with the idea of writing a musical, I decided it was time and wrote one with her in mind, followed by 5 more in succession since.

The pattern is consistent: as performance dates draw near, a feeling grows within, a sick feeling, much like an honest effort at Golden Corral coinciding with the stomach flu bug completing its incubation period. And that’s only the worry for your own part, (1) when someone else wrote it, (2) when someone else decided to do it, (3) and when, outside of your own lines, you have no responsibility whatever for the whole mess—if that’s what it turns out to be—as dress rehearsals often suggest it might. But if you wrote it and it is happening because you decided to do it, opening night drawing nigh can seem like a leap of faith into a dark abyss with an old frazzled bungee cord. Yet it works: the performers come through and do well. It’s a wonderful feeling … when it’s over. And I would like to thank the various casts over the years for bearing with me the burdens and fears and joys of the loosely organized pandemonium!

My recent pastime of writing musicals has prompted many questions. We’ll address only those asked by others (not those I ask myself).
Q: Is the enjoyment for the audience worth the work? A: Maybe not, but we can pretend. That’s what theater people do, you know.
Q: When do you find time to write them? A: O there is no time to write them. The way I do that is to think up plots, lines, lyrics, and music while doing something else that I have to do anyway—walking, running, weeding, driving, and sitting in meetings—then I jot down the ideas between meetings.
Q: Do you do them for the money? A: (I try not to fall to the ground with laughter as I say) I have come within $200 of breaking even. It’s a community service.

Q: So why do you do them? What brought you to this? A: I started out as a shy quiet kid the first 45 years of life, so even my family is miffed as to what came over me. Years of being a college instructor first encouraged me to try to talk more than others in the room, which I am now able to do on good days. And when I really get wound up, I could be mistaken for an outgoing conversationalist. After overcoming my shyness in a mere 45 years, I decided we need to have more fun in our drab, duty-filled lives; and few things are more enjoyable than laughing at something funny and listening to entertaining music.

So the real reason I do them is to have fun and to make people happy. Doing duties may contribute to happiness, but those long-term connections need some help along the way: home teaching and handing out homework assignments evoke so few squeals of delight. But musicals scatter squeals of delight all over the auditorium—or at least I assume the events on stage were the sources of them. Many people are depressed. Then we stare at a future packed with drudgerous duties and it is enough to make anyone depressed who isn’t already. So it doesn’t hurt to lighten up a little, laugh more, enjoy some fun music, and figure out how to make life a little more fun sometimes. Rehearsing for a comedy is fun for the cast, and watching it is fun for the audience—a win-win financial loss.
Q: Isn’t it a lot of work? A: You have no idea—enough to question my sanity every time I do one, but that was in question long before I started writing musicals.
Q: What do these musicals do you for? A: Community theater has changed my life: the image of a self-respecting college professor is gone forever; and previous illusions of self-esteem are hardly recoverable. But it is enjoyable working with wonderful people in doing something fun.
Q: Would you recommend community theater for others? A: Certainly! If your life is the usual humdrum dullsville, and you want a thrilling adrenalin rush to wrench you from your ruts, do community theatre! Afterward, most families will still claim you … given some time.  Mine has … most of them.