2010-01-10

My answer to the question.

My friend and coworker Todd posted an interesting question to the Huntington's blog recently: "What play changed your life?"

It didn't take much digging around, mentally, to come up with the answer. There aren't many plays that I would consider "life-changing." Life-AFFIRMING, certainly. "Into the Woods," which I had the great fortune of seeing on Broadway my senior year in high school. Our production of "Shining City" blew me away. I loved "Hedwig & the Angry Inch, one of the few plays I've seen more than once, because I loved it so much and took so much away from it each time.

But life-CHANGING? Just one. And it wasn't on Broadway, it wasn't one that I saw come together from the ground up here at work, it wasn't even a professional production. It was 23 years ago, and it was at my high school. "West Side Story."

I'd been in plays before. But I'd never been so involved in the life of a play, from the first rehearsal on, before. I got the role of "Anybodys" and I was beyond thrilled. It was the first time I was truly able to bring something to the table, and be recognized for it. Coming as I did from several years of being bullied and told that I was a fat, ugly loser, to be accepted into this world made all the difference to me. Things outside that auditorium may not have been that great, but for a few hours every afternoon I BELONGED somewhere. I didn't want it to end.

It was more than that, though. The kids I acted with in that production are still my friends, all these years later. And when one of us fell not very long ago, the rest of us were immediately there to remember, laugh, and hold each other up.

My friend Renita ("Graziella") presented us each with a DVD copy of the production, which she had graciously replicated from the old VHS tape she'd found at her parents' house.

I laughed. I cried. It was better than "Cats."

Four of us paid tribute to that production when our drama teacher and director retired a couple of years ago. At his party we performed "West Side Story" in just under five minutes, with the four of us playing all the parts. It was chaotic, completely insane, and arguably the best part of the night.

I've been in, and seen, countless plays since "West Side Story." They've all fed my spirit and fired my imagination in some way. But they wouldn't have come along if I hadn't been in that one, I'm quite sure of it.

lisamcc at 3:33 p.m.



2 comments so far
Dave DeMaggio
2010-01-11 00:46:14
Lisa, I have say I agree with you. That year was hugely pivotal for me in many ways. I had alot of stuff thrown at me. You along with the others in that show were the few things that kept me together. I left that year angry, but the older I get the more I find myself looking at the good things of those years. I closed alot of doors at the end of that year. Too many.
-------------------------------

missi
2010-02-13 16:24:12
Lisa, this was a great time for all of us. We were jouniors and had our senior yar to "look forward to" but I remember our last production of 'West Side Story' on that stage, there was a teriblre storm outside, and in the final scene when Tony is carried off, there was this HUGE gust of wind that blew over us, we could hear it on stage and I think a chill, then a sence of peace and accoplishment went through us all. It was like....I don't know.. the right thing and the right place. Everything came together. For all the right reasons.
-------------------------------

previous | next