Theatre Development Fund – TDF: I first fell in love with Broadway musicals listening to the original cast recording of Lin-Manuel Miranda's In the Heights in my house in Puerto Rico. I was enthralled by the opening notes of the title song, marked by the beat of the palitos right before Miranda raps, "Lights up on Washington Heights." It reminded me of the lively Puerto Rican Christmas songs I grew up with. I've been hooked on Broadway ever since.
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There are too many things in this article that I can sympathize with. Broadway had been a plane ride away for the most of the time in my life. I listened to soundtracks, read reviews and summaries, and watched advertisement videos with a lot of short cuts and imagined what would the rest of the scenes be like on stage. I remember feeling radiant watching Legally Blonde: The Musical with the original cast, also via MTV. Currently, although I get enough allowance from my parents, I save money by cooking for myself in order to watch Broadway shows visiting Pittsburgh. One thing different about me from the author might be, luckily, there is a musical industry that is big enough in Japan for me to experience many shows live in living color. Since I grew up in the Japanese theatre industry, and in the country where people consider being able to speak English is a special ability, I do not feel so suspicious about being a foreigner and not fully belonging in the audience on Broadway. That being said, it is also an indubitable fact that theatres in general becoming more diverse, not only among nationalities, but among ethnicity, psychical states and genders, is a great thing.
I relate to many things that the author of this article wrote about. Broadway is so inaccessible to people who don’t live in the states in terms of location. But since tickets are always so expensive, it’s inaccessible to people who are short on money too. So far, I’ve only managed to see one broadway show just because New York was so far away from home, so expensive to fly to, and tickets booked online in advance are generally pretty expensive. I was always satisfied with listening to the official recordings of musicals online or just reading the play and digging up pictures. So in many ways, I related to what the author talked about in the first half of the article. I also think it’s so important that the writer brought up her feeling not represented as an individual with disabilities. I remember reading an article a month ago about a dance show that involved amazing choreography with wheelchairs, performed by people with disabilities. I’m hopeful that the industry will grow into representing more and more kinds of people.
It was so encouraging but also saddening to read this article. Growing up in a society that the whole theater industry is underappreciated and outclassed by filming medias, it was not an smooth path to work towards the craft I would like to master. As much as the author described, the very beating heart of commercial theater is always seemed far away, but meanwhile it is such a vital factor the distance is for doing and learning performing arts in every aspect. Despite all the difficulties, I am so glad that the author went strong and held on her dream. Only after one really tried hard enough to work it out then the true problems the person seen would be critical. The issues mentioned in the article are all important and urgent, including the racial imbalance, physical limitations and pricing. All three are the questions that need our collective effort to solve. I am hoping that our society would work them out in near future.
Another thing she doesn’t mention is how being the “migrant” puts a dent on your budget. Going back home, to yours and your land becomes a financial priority. To this day I have yet to go see a Broadway show. The amount of financial effort it takes, its out of my scope, and I know there are affordable tickets, and I could find a place to crash with friends that live in the city. But the guilt of not going home, and doing something like booking a trip to NYC to see shows, feels ”selfish”. Especially when there are people waiting for me at home. There are also many more limiting factors in the island itself. There aren’t any musical theatre training programs at a college level. Artists from PR that migrate to NYC trying to “make it” are behind on training, because the theatre education provided is not par with the industry they're trying to break into.
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