Give my regards to Broadway

There's a song for everything, right?

I'm fairly certain that we have the theater to thank for that, because lord knows that contemporary and/or secular music revolves around sex, drugs, money and rock n' roll.

On June 10 (just over a week ago) I sat down to watch the Tony Awards. I'm guilty of not keeping up with the ongoings of the theater world. I was much more active in it during high school, where I served as the president of the drama club and went to as many high school productions in the South Florida area as humanly possible.

Yet I found that even though half of the musicals were new to me and I didn't know most of the lyrics during this year's award ceremony, it was more enjoyable to me than say the Academy Awards that I watched just a few months ago. I cried when the award recipients cried. Emotion-provoking to someone who was largely detached from the Broadway world, who'd have thought?

It makes me question: what is it about live theater that makes it so superior to that of the "big screen" entertainment to me?

This question was intensified this weekend when I went to go see the film version of the musical Rock of Ages. It's so much harder to feed into the energy of the music. It's like the screen create this giant barrier that prevents me from getting the experience of a musical performance. It just wasn't nearly as enjoyable as I felt it should be. I would have been happier with the soundtrack, because at least with my stereo system I can adjust the bass and feel something.

With that, I answered my own question: feeling. Broadway, off-broadway, live people...have feeling. Energy, emotion and an innate ability to literally bring life to songs and characters.

So with this blog post I salute the men, women and people in between who put their blood, sweat and tears into a live production. It is a sincere form of entertainment that does not get the amount of attention and credit it deserves.

Give my regards to Broadway!