Oh Honestly!: Musicals

Monday, June 07, 2010

Musicals - Day One

I'm completely inspired by "Glee" and music and singing and all that junk. This inspiration has transferred to the blog and this week will be dedicated to MUSICALS! My favorite musicals.

Can you even stand it?

Some background:
When I was a kid, my mom made us watch musicals. She probably said it was to keep us cultured, but I think it was more to feed her desire to partake. She made us watch some doozies (State Fair, The King and I, Oklahoma) that I really didn't enjoy but others like "Bye Bye Birdie", Beach party movies and Elvis movies became family sing alongs.

My parents were even in charge once of a church musical - the directors/producers and my sister and I spent what felt like months sitting in the gym watching the same lines be repeated over and over again.

"Keep your eye upon the donut, and not upon the hole."

So to start the week off with a bang, I'd like to dedicate the day to RENT! A million years ago, when we still lived in Mildred, my childhood home, and bought music at the record store owned by one of our neighbors, I discovered the story of RENT. The playwright who died right before the show went live on Broadway, the sensitive topics of HIV, AIDS, and drug use and the even more sensitive topics of gender relations. My sister and I bought the soundtrack. We listened in the car. We were nervous what our mom would think about all the "f-bombs."

Even so, we were brave and played the music for our mom. She was okay. She liked some of it even. Next, it was time to see the show live. I've seen it three times and the touring group is coming to town a year from now. I'm sure my sister and I will see it again.

To commemorate - here are a few of my favorite songs - from the movie "RENT".

La Vie Boheme - one of my favorites

Take me or leave me - yes, it's two girls singing to each other, but I sort of thought of it as my personal, split-personality theme song back in the day (Can you believe I just said, "Back in the day"?)