Your local or high school production of beauty and the beast is far more likely to have painted backdrops and hand stitched costumes than the national tour currently running on projections and vibes. That’s value for your money right there. And the actors don’t just stagedoor; there’s an ihop meet and greet after.
The stagehands in their mismatched black clothes roll the squeaky library set onstage while the piano vamps. A book falls off a shelf; the lanky Beast picks it up and presents it to Belle with a gruff and panicked flourish. She smiles because he loves her and it doesn’t have to be perfect; he just has to try.
High schoolers giving their all to heathers or ride the cyclone. The backstage TikToks and videos where everyone is in character and being silly.
A fifty year old hamlet crying over his thirty year old dad after ‘remember me- I have sworn’t’. After some time, Horatio, an eager lad of sixteen, pulls him from those treacherous cliffs and mouthes the cherished lines to his sweet prince where he thinks I can’t see. Word perfect for the rest of the night. I still don’t know if this was stage business or a missed cue but it was beautiful.
guys busting out of fishnets and glitter makeup and having a ball bc they’ve got their whole family seated front row throwing toast at them for rocky horror.
Every little shop of horrors with big lunged urchins who can’t blend and a gigantic plant puppet that knocks the rest of the set over
I’m in the splash zone for swan lake. The music is tinned and it’s raining. This will never happen for me again
An ebullient four year old giving extra pizzazz and inner life to the role of ‘tree’ in the wizard of Oz
Hermia and Helena are making out a lot more than Shakespeare thought they ought in the fifteenth dream you’ve seen this midsommar. And yep! It’s set in a cult, we’re all outside and I’ve been given a pie to eat.
When the stage manager turns the house lights back on, Cinderella’s rags will be transformed.
I remember seeing my brother in a pretty low rent Our Town (cast bc he was tall) and stunned at how he was holding back tears by the end. He didn’t want to say goodbye yet and it was closing night.
You don’t often get that connection at the pro level. You don’t get to see people you love like that all the time.
It doesn’t matter who corpses or who blanks or who misses their cue
you have to go and be open to whatever happens.
Sometimes fireflies, sometimes fire alarms. Sometimes snoring audience members. Sometimes you are the whole audience. Sometimes Sondheim. Somehow Strindberg? Just go!
snowghoul
blakekathryn
romaincrisis
andulkaphoto
titsay
gummygunk
stormborns
