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

The last time I was at
The Majestic on Broadway
Was 2008
A lifetime and a half ago
Pre- covid, cancer, Fort Collins, Aaron, London, smart phones, and walking the camino
Still Kris

Our first time in NYC
We floated into the city
Literally and metaphorically
A huge storm had hit and
The water was lapping at the bottom of the taxi from the airport
I felt from the first moment I was home

It was still the time when hotels had maps of the city
On tear-away pads in the lobby
And the receptionist/concierge would circle the hotel
And the landmarks and the theatres
And tell you which subways to take

I think every place we stayed in over two years
Was shut down
For violating codes of various sorts
Relics like the paper maps
Replaced by smart phones and
Boutique hotels and air bnb’s with wifi

Back then
Phantom felt like a relic
Tired, in need of refreshing
I, rather sacrilegiously, thought it needed new orchestrations
Something to bring it past 1988
I didn’t mean slashing it to 12 players

Later, still The Before Times
I preferred Phantom in London
Where it felt grander
More opulent
​
Tonight I’m back at the Majestic
With my friend Paula
(post cancer, pre- covid times)
The theatre has been dark for over 500 days
The longest Broadway has been dark in history

I’ve already worked Springsteen
Right across the street
The first night I handed out playbills in the lobby
I hadn’t been in a room with so many people in over a year
It was overwhelming
The sound of that many people
The look of joy on the faces of the audiences
As they stepped inside a theatre for the first time
Vaxxed and unmasked (the rules were different then)
All that has happened in between

To be back in the theatre
As an audience member
Surrounded by people
(Masked and vaxxed - the rules have changed again)
The roar of appreciation when Sammi Cannold
Stepped out onto the stage
The delight of a surprise Josh Groban
Singing “Could We Start Again, Please”
Could we?

I’ve spent the past year and a half
(And longer)
Championing theatre on screen
Here we were
A live in-person audience
To watch theatre on a screen
A new documentary
The Show Must Go On
Joined by people watching from home
On six different continents

The film itself was moving, beautiful, inspiring
The crazy bravery of all those people traveling to South Korea at the beginning of the pandemic
For Theatre. For Art. For Profit. For Story-Telling
Because what else is there to do?
(I want a documentary about all the artists who streamed theatre during the pandemic
Broadway and the West End may have been dark
But theatre didn’t stop
It just shifted form)

Seeing the process
Actors getting sweaty, doing their drills
The hundreds of hands behind the scenes
Sewing costumes
Rigging sets
Spraying and wiping every surface and even the air with disinfectant
I'm not a Cats fan, but even goddamn “Memory” had me crying
The Korean culture of acting for the whole and not the individual
A strange concept in the land of the free and the home of the brave
That it was all British and American musicals that stayed open (at least as depicted in the film)
The love of The Theatre.

A phone rings! We're truly back!
I get chills watching the audience on screen watching the actors on stage singing and dancing to the people in the seats
The roar of the crowd
The final credits. The curtain closing.

The curtain re-opens with a baby grand
And the candles from Phantom flickering all around
Kristen Blodgette at the keys
Sierra Boggess with mic in hand
Former Christine Daee
I don't know why I'm frightened
I know my way around here
(chuckle)
Adrienne Warren, Ariana DeBose, Ali Ewoldt, Shereen Pimentel
The chorus made of up cast members from
The Phantom of the Opera world tour
It’s as if we never said goodbye
Could we start again please
A truly beautiful arrangement
I don't want it to end
I want more

Outside, I check my phone
The world is dangerously rapidly warming
Covid is raging
What is the point of all this singing and dancing and pretending to be cats?!
It's all changing
It might not be here tomorrow
What would the ancient Greeks have made of our theatre?
Or our early ancestors beating their animal skin drums and dancing around the campfires telling stories of their ancestors?

The show must go on.