Last weekend, I went to see Drury Lane Oakbrook’s production of Ragtime. It was just amazing. I think I cried about 10 minutes into it and didn’t really stop till the end. The script is based on a fabulous book. The music and lyrics were just perfect. The direction was spot on. The cast was at the top of their game. But, what I cried about most of all… was the opportunity that was being presented to everyone on that stage and how lucky I was that I was there to see it.
Back in 1987, 150 Hoosiers went to NYC for the first time. I was one of those high school seniors. I had saved up, I think it was, $500 dollars for me to go for the week….my parents paid the other half. We stayed in the Milford Plaza in the very seedy (at the time) Times Square. I saw my first prostitute, my first porn on the “normal” channels broadcast into our rooms and my first Broadway shows. We saw Broadway Bound, A Chorus Line, The Fantastiks, Blithe Spirit with Geraldine Page (she would go home after the matinee we saw and pass away in the night!) and we saw Les Miz.
Les Miz had just opened. Everyone was still in it…Colm Wilkinson, Randy Graff, Judy Kuhn and Terrence Mann. It was magic. The first show we saw upon arriving. I remember when the revolve started. I began crying and didn’t stop. I cried for the piece sure. But, I cried mostly for the amazing opportunity that was being given to those performers. They weren’t being paid to do the 10,000 performance of Joseph…they were doing something special, something important…they were doing ART! I was so envious of the experience for them.
I remember doing Laura in the Glass Menagerie. I was amazed that someone was going to pay me to perform that character in that masterpiece. Not once did I break into jazz hands. I have never felt more like an actress.
Most of us in this business know that 3 out of 5 times, we are up there for the paycheck. It’s a job. But, those 2 times we perform and the gods are with us, those are what we dream of. Either it’s because the cast is just amazing, or the director is brilliant or the piece, the script, is perfect…or, it’s those rare times when everything fits together. The cast, the director and the script are the best they are ever going to be…those are the times we live for. We are creating ART. And Ragtime was ART.
