So much music, so little time!

I need to choose a song to walk to for the Theatre Senior Ceremony on Friday night, and it's NOT easy.

There are so many good songs to describe my five years in college, and the two and a half I spent as a theatre major. Not to mention my music tastes are so incredibly eclectic. I like almost everything.

I would offer up some "La Vie Boheme" from RENT, but I think it'd be a little too cliche for anyone's tastes right now.

I'm thinking "Swim" by Jack's Mannequin. Any suggestions?

There's a fine, fine line...or is there?

Recently in my blogroll I stumbled upon this post by Carrie Dunn which discusses the roles of popular musicals in high schools, and addresses the problems some schools are having staging shows with less-than-appropriate content for parents to be watching their children portraying on stage. It got me thinking.

Here's an example. A new edited version of RENT was approved by show creator Jonathan Larson's estate this year so that high schools now have rights to perform it, but the new version still addresses the same hard-hitting themes of homosexuality, drug addiction, and coping with H.I.V. that the original does, probably because these elements are such integral components of the characters, and to remove them would dehumanize the show and frankly leave you with nothing more than a sad plot and empty, emotionless songs.

Now, let's be logical. As much as I've already confessed my undying love for this in-your-face rock musical, I can't quite say I'd want my mom watching me shoot heroin at age 17 on a high school stage. I'm not sure a show containing such strong coming-of-age, finding-your-identity issues can ever really be edited well enough to be appropriate for a high school to perform.

Consequently, three schools have already canceled performances of RENT: School Edition, and debates about the show's provocative content have sparked up all over the country.

As someone who's performed in some not-so-PG shows in the past, I sympathize with Dunn's point of view and with parents who are concerned about the messages these shows are broadcasting. Take a popular high school favorite, Guys and Dolls. Um, gambling and alcoholism, anyone?

Or for that matter, try Grease, everyone's favorite day-in-the-life-at-Rydell-High movie: "The stage show might not have all the explicit back-seat fumbling," Dunn writes, "but it's certainly innuendo-laden: Summer Nights, where Danny brags about his sexual prowess, is pretty unequivocal, and Rizzo still confesses that she might be pregnant – and Kenickie isn't the only one who could be the father. As for the show's overriding messages – that you must smoke, drink and abandon all your principles to get a boyfriend and thus be happy – it's hardly life-affirming stuff."

Should high schools have the freedom to perform such promiscuous shows, or should we demand something more appropriate? Perhaps this is the reason Disney found immediate success in its cleverly-named High School Musical.

Since HSM has taken off as one of the most popular productions being done in high schools these days, I'm almost positive there are schools in the Baltimore area who are performing it. If not, there are most likely schools staging West Side Story or its other provocative counterparts mentioned above. I'm going to see what I can find and try to get a perspective on it from people involved in the productions. I'll report back here when I do.

I remain your Drama Queen.

Measure your life in love, seasons of love.

Last night, I had the immense privilege to see the Tony Award-winning Broadway musical (and one of my favorite shows of all time, up there with Les Miserables), RENT, for the umpteenth time. But what made this night better than any others was that the roles of Mark and Roger were played by none other than the original cast members, Anthony Rapp and Adam Pascal, respectively.


Now, let me preface this by saying that I'm not one of those saw-the-movie-and-jumped-on-the-bandwagon-omg-RENT-is-awesome people. No, indeed.

I am a RENThead.

A RENThead is a person who has been a supporter of the show from when it got its start in 1996 and has loved everything about it ever since, who saw the trailer for the movie and nearly screamed in the movie theater, who saw the movie the night it opened and sang along to every word, who could pick out which songs were left out of the movie but went back to see it again anyway, who has seen it performed on stage several times and never gets tired of it. You get the idea.

Anyway, so yes. I'm a hardcore RENT fan. I sing it in my apartment, I sing it in my car, I sing it with my friends, I sing it everywhere.

But this post is hardly about me. As I mentioned, two of the original cast members reprised their roles for a short run in Philadelphia at the Academy of Music.


Both Anthony and Adam were in the movie, and they both were in it on Broadway for much of its run before it closed in September of 2008 (a travesty, but an issue that will be saved for another day).

I'd seen the show performed at the Academy last year around this time, and it dazzled me as it always does as I sit there in my seat, singing along under my breath.

This time, the original cast members, knowing it like the back of their hands, completely stole the show. From the cheers that greeted them as they ran on stage to the shouts of approval they garnered after such powerful Mark-and-Roger anthems as "Rent" and "What You Own," the experience was totally surreal to me. I sat in my seat wondering how many people were seeing the show for the first time ever, and how many have seen it 20 times and are still coming back.

Regardless, usually shouting appraisal at the actors before the end of the show is not considered the best theatre etiquette (again, a topic for another day). For any other show, it wouldn't be appropriate to cheer and clap in the middle of the song after a heartfelt solo. But what I've found over the years of loving this show in all its pieces and as a whole is that RENT creates this unbelievable community the moment the show starts. And this goes back to the basic idea of theatre, that it is meant to be an art that unites a spattering of diverse people in one moment in time. During the song most people (RENT fans and non-RENT fans alike) associate with the musical, "Seasons of Love," the entire audience clapped with the cast. This usually happens in every performance (it has at every one I've been to). Something like that just gives me this incredible affection for my passion, and I'm amazed that one musical by one talented man who didn't even live to see the first performance of his worldwide sensation could have that kind of power over an audience that can fill four balconies and a ground level.


I may as well admit one more thing here, in case you haven't already realized how crazy I am about this show. During "Without You," the song that pulls on heartstrings as Angel dies (if you don't know by now, shame on you!), I was bawling.

It's things like this that make my passion worth pursuing, no matter how small they are.

Until next time, I am ever your Drama Queen.