The red velvet curtain swung open to make a fishtail. The spotlight fell on four sharply-suited doo-woppers who clicked their fingers to the swing of their hips, as they belted out ‘Big Girls Don’t Cry.’
For the next two hours, we were swept into a dramatized slice of American life. A behind-the curtain peek into the live and times of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, set in New Jersey in the 1950’s-60’s. I had gone with my parents who were in New York for a long weekend to celebrate their 60th wedding anniversary. I glanced over to the check their expressions and quickly swung my head back to the stage, so I didn’t miss another second.
Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons closed in 2021, but the experience is one we will never forget.
Unlike other forms of escapism, there is no hangover with theater. Just a prolonged happy buzz that flies around your head in infinity circles for months and years to come. According to Statista, live performance theater sales in the United States rebounded almost 21% in 2022, climbing to 8.4 bn U.S. dollars and anticipated to increase in 2023 to reach 8.7 billion.
My hat is off to anyone who works in the arts. The producers, writers and performers who all make small amounts of money to do the creative work they love. If you have ever visited the Starlight Diner in New York City, you know what I mean. The wait staff stand on tables as they charm you with Broadway hits in the hopes that a talent scout will “discover” them.
The Netflix Musical, Tick Tick …. Boom! looked at the life of musical composer Jonathan Larson, who wrote Rent and tragically died before the musical’s first showing. His own experience living on the bread line as an aspiring composer led him to write songs about marginalized people living with HIV/AIDS in the 1980’s.
Rent was a musical I saw in the 1990’s at the Bushnell Theater in Hartford. The back story and stomping musical feet are still with me.
I have taken both my kids to the theater, and their all-time favorite was the Lion King. My older son Sam used to belt out ‘He Lives in You’ in our living room and still remembers the large-limbed animals who walked through the audience at the Bushnell.
Whether you are moved to tears at the loss of Eva Peron in Evita or feel like boogying in the aisles to Mamma Mia! every night at the theater has its own story that will enrich you for eternity.
On A Mission 
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