I can't believe I used to live about 100 yards off Broadway. Twice, once in Morningside Heights and once in Times Square. I grew up listening to Broadway musicals. My mom and dad had all the LPs from the shows from their youth: South Pacific, Sound of Music (with Mary Martin), King and I, Camelot (with Julie Andrews), and, my dad's favorite, Oklahoma. When I was old enough to sit still for 3 hours, at about age 7, my mom started taking me to the traveling Broadway shows, which, in addition to the classics, soon began to include new shows by Andrew Lloyd Webber, who quickly became my favorite. I listened to musicals throughout school (in addition to a major obsession with Wham!, George Michael, and Culture Club) and then moved to NYC, where I could go see them in person: the original cast of Rent twice, Donna Murphy in Passion, Glenn Close in Sunset Boulevard, Ragtime, Titanic, Lion King three times, others I'm not remembering right now. It was something Mama and I bonded over, even if she liked Les Mis better than Phantom and always liked to gloat about seeing the original casts and not the touring companies when she was a girl (because, when you grow up in the city, you go to real Broadway shows for school field trips!!!!) But we haven't been in years--I think the last shows we saw were Jane Eyre and Big River performed in ASL, meaning unlike the rest of the musical-loving world, we haven't seen Spamalot, The Producers, Mama Mia!, Wicked, or whatever is popular now.
But I am finally listening to musicals again, after a hiatus for Laurie Berkner, Raffi, and anything instrumental with an instrument that Buddy could identify (i.e. fiddles and banjos and such in Zydeco, Celtic, folk). Last week, I pulled out my Sound of Music cd, with Mary Martin (NOT the movie soundtrack) and the kids and I paraded around the house singing to "My Favorite Things" and "Do-Re-Mi." Sis did not like the "lady-o" Lonely Goatherd song, so we kept going back to the first two. They loved it and I felt like I was passing along their musical heritage: third-generation Broadway musical lovers. We're going to work our way through the canon, beginning with the classics that are child-friendly (read: NOT Rent). That way, when they see Pop for Christmas they can all sing "Kansas City" together!
And soon, though probably not as soon as we'd like, we'll travel back to my old neighborhood and see a real musical on Broadway.
I love musicals, too. I was going to suggest that Sis might like the Lonely Goatherd song better if she watched the Julie Andrews version with the wonderful puppet theater...I really like that song! But then I remembered that the tv is on hiatus.
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