To be back in a real live
Honest to god theatre
With ushers
And cramped seating
And toilet lines (not bad before the show)
Show proof of vaccination and ID
Check bags
Walk through a metal detector
Finally show your ticket
Photo of the playbill and the curtain
#InTheRoomWhereItHappens

Somewhere behind the curtain
Someone has called places
(Unheard on this side)
And the lights dim
And the curtain rises
And there's a stage and a man
And the depth of it
The physical realness of it
The lights
The hazer
The place where 1 + 1 = 3
And I love thinking about all the hands that made this moment happen
You look at the set and the lights and the costumes
And you hear the words breathed into life by the actors
The way they move across the stage
Will I ever tire of watching excellent actors do what they do best?
The comedy and the drama of it
The elemental nature of it
Watching someone breathe
Watching someone eat
Watching people spar and play
The moments of surprise
The knowing winks
You know that I know that we know that this is play

To see a Black man on a Broadway stage
Say the words
"Stop killing us. Clean your house."
In a play directed by a Black woman
Written by a Black woman
In a theatre named for a Black male playwright
That hasn't seen a production written or directed by a single person of color since it was named for him 
You know that I know that we know that this is not just a play

A phone rings
And the person actually says out loud
"I'm sorry"
Who even has their phone on ringer any more?
The actors don't miss a beat

More than once I realize I'm holding my breath
A glorious set reveal
I love it when a set surprises us
It's so satisfying, so thrilling
So theatrical

To be back
To watch stories 
To tell stories 
​To reflect on our past, our present
To imagine where we could be

I first encountered Eve Ensler,
Well her work,
In my first week at university
A student production of
The Vagina Monologues.
It made me anxious.

Then whilst in London
I discovered V-Day and
Was inspired by the red-lipped dancing women
Joyous and proud

I read In The Body of the World
While walking the Camino
It was B.C., Before Cancer, but
I was still moved by Eve Ensler’s powerful, visceral writing

A year later
I was diagnosed with cancer

Now, A.C.
I found myself sitting in a theatre
With Eve Ensler herself
Speaking her words aloud
Telling her heart-breaking, gut wrenching, soul shaking story
In an extraordinary one woman show

Parts of it made me gasp
Parts of it made me nod in feverish agreement
Some parts I didn’t relate to at all
(I never wanted to be a mother
I have always loved trees
I loved being bald)

But Eve is captivating
She is who I want to be
Powerful, passionate
Emotive, articulate
A true artist connecting the dots
Between the personal and the professional
The self and the world.

The ending,
A total surprise
So beautiful and breathtaking

Eve invited us in
To walk in the garden of Ensler, and
I never wanted to leave.

I knew the Met Opera was beautiful
But in real life
It’s truly gorgeous
It actually took my breath away

The performance of opera is enchanting
The grandioseness of it 
Whole arias dedicated to expressing a single emotion 
How do they sing like that?
The history and the tradition and the skill of it

It reminded me of Abuela
She would have loved it
She took me to my first opera
Carmen at the Sydney Opera House
I was twelve or thirteen

Now I’m a grown-up and I live in New York
I gave my first solo performance last week
The thrill and adrenalin rush of it
I can’t wait to do it again
The next day, back to stuffing Playbills

Today, a matinee at the Met
Thanks to the kindness of a friend
The dress rehearsal of Il Trovatore
The scale of it all, overwhelming and incredible

The audience, mostly school kids
Made me re-see the story through teenage eyes
The characters aren’t much as role models
In this day and age
The gender politics disturbing
But the performances are astonishing

How lucky I am
To be here. ​

There are performers 
Audra, Julie, Bernadette, Liza, Patti, Chita, Barbra, Bette
Whose reputations precede them
“Living legends”
“Broadway Divas” 

It’s one thing to watch your heroes on the screen
Over and over again in your living room
To listen to the cast recordings and soundtracks on repeat 
But nothing beats the real life 
In the flesh
Live performance 

There’s always a little fear in seeing them
What if they’re not as good as they are on film? 
What if they just don’t got it anymore
You hear stories

When I saw Liza in 2013
Friends warned against even buying tickets
She had a reputation for not showing up 
And sure, her top notes weren’t what they once were
But she was breath-taking 

And last night
I got to see Bette
When she appeared on stage
The audience leapt to its feet 
The love in that room was overwhelming 
(Roxy: I love the audience and they love me and we just love each other...) 

Can Bette sing as high as she used to? 
Does she dance like she used to? 
Does she do it like Barbra? 
No. 

But Bette doesn’t need to be Barbra
She’s Bette 
And when you see her on that stage
You know why Bette Midler is Bette “the Divine Miss M” Midler 
She radiates warmth and energy and charisma 
She's damn funny 
And boy does she know how to work a room

The great thing about a show like Hello, Dolly 
Is that it’s written for an older woman
It doesn’t require huge belting because
Dolly uses her charm and humor and wits to navigate the world 
And you fall in love with her over and over again

The production is sumptuous and gorgeously realized
The costumes border on garish they are so bright
The color palette is like something out of a technicolor candy store
Are we in heaven or in danger of overdoing on sugar? 
Jerry Herman’s score is sublime. You can’t help but feel happy
The vocal arrangements gave me goosebumps
Those harmonies just lift your soul and make you want to dance
The gorgeous choreography 
Expertly executed by a delightful ensemble
It’s all a visual and auditory feast 
That manages to be a wholly separate experience from the movie 
It is uplifting and marvelous musical theatre
At its best

It’s not perfect 
While there were people of color in the ensemble 
I would love to have seen more diverse casting in the supporting roles 
The performers were truly terrific, but the overwhelming whiteness is frustrating

I dreamt about the show all night 
And woke up still on a high 
After a tough few weeks battling a particularly nasty bout of depression
This infusion of light has been desperately needed 

So thank you Miss Midler 
And your luminous team 
For doing what you do
And doing it so well.

It was with great sadness today
That I learnt of Amy Krouse Rosenthal's passing 
She is (was?) a writer and artist I have long admired 
Her "7 notes on life" 
Became guiding lights for me 

The way she played with words
Made whimsy out of the everyday 
The Beckoning of Lovely
My first encounter with The Bean 
​Money growing on trees 

She attempted a collaborative project 
A kind of pre-cursor to HitRecord
The movie wasn't great
And she owned it 
She said, "this isn't my best work. I'm going back to the drawing board"
And back she went 
And wrote wonderful books

And today I read
She has died of
Stupid fucking cancer

In the weeks before her death,
In true Amy KR style,
She penned a letter in the New York Times
Explaining why women might want to marry her husband
Her astonishing ability to capture the magic of words and life
Even as she was dying. 

And so, we shall. 

In honor of International Women's Day, here are ten female characters from the world of musical theatre that I love! 

10. Julie Andrews: Maria/Mary/Millie 
Ok, Dame Julie Andrews isn’t a character in a musical, but I grew up watching Mary Poppins and The Sound of Music on repeat, and three of her characters were a huge influence on my younger self.

Mary Poppins (from Mary Poppins), Maria (from The Sound of Music), and Millie (from Thoroughly Modern Millie) were all outspoken, forthright women, who sang and danced to make life more bearable and magical. The indomitable spirits of these characters changed the lives of the people they encountered for the better, and enchanted millions of viewers around the world. 

Julie is a writer, producer, and director, and comes across the most genuine and wonderful human being on the planet. You don’t even know how excited I am for Julie’s Greenroom. ​

Happy International Women’s Day! 

Two different kinds of posts were prominent on Facebook on Wednesday (August 26):

1. Posts celebrating dogs in honor of National Dog Day, and
2. Posts asking people to remember that, although dogs are awesome, it was also National Women's Equality Day 

In a world where women are definitely still not equal with men (representation in media, government, or pay, to name just a few examples; see TIME for a great infographic), the prominence of celebrating canines over half the human race bothered me immensely. 

Curious about the origins of both days, I did a little research. 

National Women's Equality Day became such after a Joint Resolution was passed by Congress in 1971. The date was chosen to celebrate the day in 1920 when women in the United States of America finally won the right to vote (for interest and comparison, New Zealand was the first nation to grant full suffrage in 1893, Australian women followed in 1902 (though Aboriginal women were excluded and not granted the right to vote until 1967), and as recently as this week, women in Saudi Arabia were finally given the vote. The Inter-Parliamentary Union has an interesting chronology of the history of women's suffrage). 

National Dog Day was created much later, in 2004, to bring public awareness about the number of dogs needing to be rescued each year.

According to Parade Magazine, over half a million tweets were sent celebrating #NationalDogDay. A Google search for news articles on National Dog Day returned over 26 million results. The same search for National Women's Equality Day returned 1.9 million results. 

This disparity is disturbing. Why did the organizer's of National Dog Day choose this day as their day of celebration? My guess is they simply didn't know about the conflict. As well intentioned as the organizers of the various National Women's Equality Day events and publicity were, much of it, like this National Women's History Project brochure, seems out of touch and irrelevant in today's social media saturated world.  

The best publicity for National Women's Equality Day came from Broadway. Led by Tony Award winning Fun Home (the first Broadway musical with an all-female writing team to win a Tony Award for Best Original Score), Broadway stars posted pictures of themselves imitating Rosie the Riveter in support of the Equal Rights Amendment (a constitutional amendment expressly prohibiting discrimination against women and girls on the basis of gender).

It would be wonderful to see National Women's Equality Day get the recognition it deserves, and for women to be treated equally in all spheres of life. 

I was very pleased to see the following on the National Dog Day website -  

Hopefully next year, National Women's Equality Day will be more prominent, and not because of its relation to dogs. I hope that by 2020, the 100th anniversary of American women winning the right to vote, we will live in a world where women are more equally represented in the media, in government, and receive equal pay for equal work. 

In the meantime, we have a lot of work to do.

It is a truth 
Universally acknowledged
That a woman
In possession of a ticket to Cannes
Must wear high heeled shoes

It is a truth 
Universally acknowledged
That it was men
Who first wore heels
Symbols of position, power and prestige

It is a truth 
Universally acknowledged
That today
Heels maketh the woman
She may have the vote
She may be able to drive
She may be able to choose her profession
But her feet must look good in the process

Dr Helen Fisher: 
“Heels thrust out the buttocks
And arch the back
Into a natural mammalian courting,
Actually copulatory,
Pose.
Rats do it,
Sheep do it,
Lions do it, 
Dogs do it
(Even educated fleas do it…)
It is a naturally sexy posture that 
Men immediately see as 
Sexual Readiness"

But be careful ladies! 
Not too high 
In the workplace! 
One wants to be remembered 
For one’s brains 
Not as a slut!
But don’t be flat
You don’t want to appear 
(Contrary to what you have previously been told about how a lady ought to act)
Demure

Cinderella’s step-sisters
Lopped off heels and toes
To squeeze into 
Prince Charming’s proffered 
Louboutin
But of course 
The shoe could only fit one lady
And Cinder’s married the Prince and 
Lived happily ever after 
Presumably in heels 
She never had to walk the streets again 

Wearing heels frequently
Places excess pressure 
On the knees, puts the 
Hips and spine out of alignment
Can shorten the calf muscles
And at worst, can lead to 
Ankle, knee, and spinal damage 

It is a truth 
Universally acknowledged 
That a woman 
In possession of a ticket to Cannes
Must wear high heeled shoes
It is the proper way to dress