Tonight I saw the local theatre college’s production of Joseph And the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat and I had…an odd reaction.
I cried.
Don’t get me wrong, they were…mostly happy tears. I did a production of Joseph many years ago and a lot of my reaction was just happy memories overflowing out of my eyes…
But it wasn’t all that…and the thing is Joseph is not a show that makes you cry! Joseph is a bouncy, kitschy ridiculously cheesy festival of colour that is designed to make you laugh, clap and dance in your seat. All of which I did (okay, so I still remember all the words even though it’s been far too many years since I even listened to the soundtrack)…but then they hit into the beat of the MegaMix at the end, and suddenly I found that there were tears on my cheeks.
My god the energy coming off that stage. If you could plug into that energy, you could use it to power a whole city. Every live show has energy but this one was …different. You see, most of the cast on that stage is graduating tomorrow. This was their last hurrah at school, this was their last time sharing the stage with people they are both friends and enemies with (trust me, theatre school breeds both, oft times in the same person)…and that’s it. They’re done.
Everyone in that cast is probably under 25…and tomorrow they go out and they take on the world. And I can promise you three quarters of them think they’re going to walk straight on to Broadway, that they’re going to have a Tony in 10 years or less and the performance world is going to fall at their feet. I know that’s how they feel because that’s how everyone who grads from theatre school feels. I know that’s how they feel because I stood on stage just like that, in a showcase very similar and even knowing that that’s not how it works, because I had good strong honest teachers who never ever painted the field pretty shades of pink … I STILL FELT THAT WAY.
And you want to reach onto that stage and say to these people “For goddess sake hold on to that! That thing that you’re feeling right now, that insane confidence, that connection, that LIFE…hold on to it, fight for it! Because you’re going to find that life kicks you in teeth more times than you can possibly count and for heavens sake GET BACK UP! Because you’re good, you’re damn good, and always remember that success at something else is not failure…but please, hold onto this moment. Hold onto who you are right now, because tomorrow everything changes, and you don’t even know that yet.”
It’s a weird complicated thing to be thinking all of that when you’re also dancing along to one of the most insanely catchy finales in musical theatre history…
But hey…like the song says “strange as it seems there’s been a run of crazy dreams, and a man who can interpret could go far…. Could become a star!!!”
I knew it when I was in front.