Something Stupid

Some things are just too perfect to pass up. Such as...

Surfin' Safari?

Something Good

An excerpt from Julie Andrew's book "Home: A Memoir of My Early Years". I always hoped I'd grow up to be her. This is probably one of the better attempts at describing what it is for those of us who have been so deeply involved in the theatre. (Oh yeah: Julie Andrews, Home: A Memoir of My Early Years, Copyright 2008 Julie Andrews, Hyperion Books, New York, New York, first edition, Jacket design by Phil Rose, also available on Hyperion AudioBooks, isbn 978-0-7868-xxxx-x, sku # 9 78xxxxxxxxx59)


"...Backstage, midst all the hustle and bustle and the hum of chatter from an audience, there is a sudden moment of absolute silence, and one is aware that the conductor has raised his baton. The overture erupts; there is no turning back.

Once in a while I experience an emotion onstage that is so gut-wrenching, so heart-stopping, that I could weep with gratitude and joy. The feeling catches and magnifies so rapidly that it threatens to engulf me.

It starts as a bass note, resonating deep in my system. Literally. It's like the warmest, lowest sound from a contra bass. There is a sudden thrill of connection and an awareness of size - the theater itself, more the height of the great stage housing behind and above me, where history has been absorbed, where darkness contains mystery and light has meaning.

Light is a part of it...to be flooded with it, to absorb it and allow it through the body.

The dust that has a smell so thick and evocative, one feels one could almost eat it; makeup and sweat, perfume and paint; the vast animal that is an audience, warm and pulsing, felt but unseen.

Most of all, it is the music - when a great sweep of sound makes you attempt things that earlier in the day you might never have thought possible. When the orchestra swells to support your voice, when the melody is perfect and the words so right there could not possibly be any others, when a modulation occurs and lifts you to an even higher plateau...it is bliss. And that is the moment to share it.

One sense the audience feeling it, too, and together you ride the ecstasy all the way home.

...Then I think there is no more magical feeling, no one luckier than I. It is to do with the joy of being a vessel, being used, using oneself fully and totally in the service of something that brings wonder. If only one could experience this every night.

It is as great as sex...that moment before climax. It is as overwhelming as the mighty ocean. As nurturing as mother's milk to an infant. As addictive as opium."

And that, my friends, is that.