"And now whatever way our stories end, I know you have re-written mine by being my friend"

My story isn’t that unique. Wicked: The Musical played a huge part in my life as a musical theatre kid. It came out my freshman year of high school and our theatre department was utterly obsessed! I’ve seen it seven times on stage and I thoroughly enjoyed the first movie for what it was, of course.

A wicked promo image featuring Elphaba on her broom reaching down towards Glinda


*ahem* Back to a younger Kacie... 

It was the end of Spring in 2007. My senior project was singing Elphaba’s part in “For Good” at our end-of-the-year banquet which almost didn’t happen as my duet partner got sick. Luckily, we had a guest performer there that night who had been in Off-Broadway productions and she graciously stepped in to sing it with me. As they say, “the show must go on,” so we decided to just wing it and I was a nervous wreck! We killed it, though, and the standing ovation still pops up in my memories every now and again as such a thrilling moment. 


The seniors had opened the banquet with “Seasons of Love” from RENT and I will never forget hearing my Calculus teacher hoop and holler my name as I did JoAnn’s riff. It was in that moment as an eighteen year old that I just “knew” theatre was what I wanted to do with my life.


As for Wicked, I never participated in the "which cast did it better" discourse, as I was just fascinated and in awe of each Elphaba's choice for vocal inflection during "Wizard and I" and loved watching each of the quirks that the Glinda's would highlight during "Popular" on the bootleg videos we'd find on YouTube.


I've personally been in love with Cynthia Erivo since I first heard her sing on the Terrell Show on Youtube, watched her absolutely OBLITERATE "I'm Here" from The Color Purple revival, and I've followed her work ever since. I thoroughly enjoyed her Elphaba in the first movie and I can't wait to hear her versions of all of my favorite Elphaba songs in the second movie. 


I won’t be out there battling the opening-night chaos or staying up for a midnight premiere, but you better believe I’ll be in a seat letting younger, sparkly-eyed theatre-kid Kacie soak up every ounce of magic as it dances through life across the screen.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

My Disney Career (part 2) - The Disney College Program

Image
What did you do for your internship? I was a Wildberry Poptart! Oh, the life of a Walt Disney World College Program girlie... I was lucky enough to be housed at Patterson Court, which was one of the apartment complexes reserved solely for DCP participants and it was the newest of the complexes. It was pretty quiet and I only had one roommate despite our apartment being set up for four, which was fantastic. (She even left the program early so I had a whole bedroom to myself!)  I was able to keep my financial aid at my school - the University of Minnesota - because I took online classes through them and I took two classes that Disney offered. I even got my "Mouseters Degree" at the end of the DCP classes.  The Entertainment Show Production was my absolute favorite because we got to go backstage and see how so many of the shows were run! The Fantasmic day was by far my favorite as it was one of the best shows on property and I wanted to see how they did all of the stunts and the...
Read more

Finding Joy on Tough Days

Image
I've been in and out of therapy over the years and when I decided to start this blog, I combed through my box of endless notebooks that are barely full with years worth of therapy notes, quotes, etc. Each of them reflects a different point in my life, (and a reminder that I'm really bad about finishing notebooks!) but the overall theme has remained the same: How do I get through these rough patches? Of course, nothing I wrote is particularly groundbreaking, but I like to add some personal examples to each thought of things that have really helped me. For example, a thought from last year was: " With dealing with depression, joy can feel hard to find. On the toughest days, it might seem like happiness is out of reach, but small moments of light are still possible. " Underneath this thought, I wrote " Coffee, sunshine, laughter, community, cheering on friends." Most of these are small things we take for granted, while the community and friendship is something ...
Read more

Blank Pages: Rewriting my Story

Image
"As a writer, I see the blank page as a source of inspiration. A moment of reflection to gain more self-awareness and to discover more about what I know. " -  Nifemi Aluko, Medium I mentioned that I recently took out all of my therapy notebooks and was astonished at how many there were... most not even halfway filled in. Why do we get so excited about fresh starts? Blank pages, character creators in video games, a new room to decorate—what’s so inspiring about a blank slate, and why is it so hard for someone like me to actually finish the project?  As someone with a creativity-fueled brain, I feel like I am constantly searching for that next creative outlet. I remember my childhood desk was filled with markers, crayons, colored pencils, etc. Over time, my creative focus shifted toward music—I found myself singing at every opportunity, playing the French Horn, and eventually diving into the world of theatre. When I got into gaming, I always wanted to play something where I cou...
Read more