Well, it has been over two months since one of the best shows of my life opened. It feels like yesterday but also like a million years ago already. And it’s gratitude day and I have some books I need to write about so I guess it’s finally time to wordvomit these feels.

As mentioned, I was already so excited to work with two folks I appreciate as director and music director, and to be reunited with two of the best people from the last time I did the show. Getting cast in a role I have been obsessed with since at least 1997 [I don’t remember, exactly, when my hs bff saw the show and shared the OBC recording] was a great perk, but the best part of all… was the entire experience.

This cast was a dang delight. RENT is a story of community and it was such a treat to work with a group who truly embodied the term. Everyone was there to *work*, leads and ensemble alike, and was so focused on creating the best production possible. Justin and Gretchen have a wealth of directorial and performing experience and are the definition of “leader not boss”. We had an abbreviated rehearsal process, but it was if we had been together for years. The group chat is alive and well, and a bunch of us may or may not be getting coordinating tattoos.

Not only was this show incredibly special in a general performance way, I was lucky enough to do a part I never dreamed I would. When I first learned the show, long before I learned to do what to do with my voice, I was obviously drawn to Maureen. Adult Ann may have some… thoughts… about Idina Menzel’s performing but there is no doubt she is directly responsible for the uptick in bright pop rock belt on Broadway, so thank you? And for Teen Ann, a perky extrovert longing for the big city, Maureen and her big belt were hashtag goals. Not that she knew what a hashtag was.

Back in the day, you couldn’t be older than 30 to audition for the show on Broadway, and I am, well, not close to 30. I am also considerably less perky and extroverted and absolutely hate the thought of doing solo performance art. But Maureen. Maureen is definitely still a part of me. I’m a Gemini, so she’s the balance to my wannabe librarianness. I’ve played a lot of classic musical theatre leads but there was a lot more pressure to this one, one that is so much younger and so much different than my usual self.

I was terrified every single night to step onstage for her five-minute monologue — a piece I have had memorized for nearly 30 years. It was an out of body experience, being so scared, knowing that most of the audience also had it memorized, but every single night, watching them come along for the ride. I might not be Idina, but they were there for it anyway. Jonathan Larson did such an amazing job writing such an unlikeable character; all I had to do was, in the words of history’s foremost belter, Ethel Merman, just open my mouth.

This collaboration with the audience followed through to the big Maureen/Joanne duet toward the top of act II — which had way less to do with me and way more to do with my amazing Joanne.

Dwyla was in my audition group and I knew she would be a serious contender for the role. It turns out, IT WAS HER FIRST MUSICAL AUDITION EVER. Joanne is a wonderfully meaty character, a lawyer from a privileged background who has a thing for a hot mess commitmentphobe and gets drawn into her messy, bohemian world, and Dwyla managed to hit all the notes, no pun intended, while sounding effortlessly amazing.

During “Take Me or Leave Me”, I wanted to cheer for her so much, to be all “listen to them!! This audience LOVES you”, but I had to keep it together and channel that energy into Maureen’s irritation. Thank GOODNESS I was facing upstage at the end and then got to lean over a railing dramatically for the next group number.

Besides a happy, collaborative rehearsal process with no offstage drama, the other personally rewarding piece was getting to perform for the high school bestie who got me into it in the first place. It was special enough that the only other time she has seen me onstage as an adult was the first time I did RENT, in the ensemble, but I could barely keep it together for this act II after the text she sent at intermission, especially seeing her sing along with her boyfriend and his sister at the end.

And I mean this not in an egotistical THEY LIKED ME sort of way I mean it in that whole “RENT is a story of community” way, I mentioned at the top. On top of the fact that I wouldn’t have fallen in love with the show so early had she and her family not seen it so soon after it opened on Broadway, and besides the fact that I sounded nothing like this in high school, Hurricane Helene had just torn through, cancelling our show the night before, and there was a chance she might not make it; her boyfriend had to walk off of his property to meet her to drive to Greensboro because there was suddenly a river running through it. But they did make it and I got to show off in gratitude. Yeah, ok, I guess that is egotistical in a way, but I did say Maureen was a part of me so here we are.

I have done a lot of shows. This one wasn’t just fun, it was good. CTG’s executive director said she applied and was denied rights for several years, but now was the clearly time we were meant to do this show. Together. We brought community to each other and to the audience through honesty, vulnerability, and, yes, talent. But talent means nothing without honesty and vulnerability. This was a special one. To paraphrase its creator, “there is no future, there is no past, we lived this moment as our last.”

Also…… just to tie all of this in to the other shows I mentioned in my last post: for the Piedmont Opera/Music Carolina Broadway show, all the ladies wore scarves from Mama Pauline, as a way to represent that she should have been there.

And she was there. It was terrifying (a theme this fall, apparently), being the token musical theatre person in this opera concert — especially as multiple soloists were capable of doing both — but I saw Pauline cheering me on from the balcony, especially as I started the last and biggest of my solos, “Shy”, from my choral seat.

For each of my songs, there were plenty of chuckles (in a good way!) and many people said lovely things after, not just to me, but allegedly also to the director in the weeks following, so that is nice.

After the concert, Pauline’s husband not only insisted we keep the scarves we wore in the show, he offered more, and the second scarf I took, I wore for “Seasons of Love”, the classic Act II opening of RENT. I also wore one of her floral pins that he gifted on my coat for the next scene, the New Year’s Eve party/break-in.

I first met Pauline at a CTG audition for a show I didn’t book — I knew I wasn’t getting cast as her daughter when she ended a reading with an adlib calling me “tall girl” haha — so it was quite meaningful and special to wear her things in this show. To quote Winnie the Pooh, “how lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard.”

Oh, and that third show I mentioned last time… well, luckily, I only ended up doing *two* shows back-to-back. And that is all I have to say on that subject. Online anyway (;