Tarab.

Right, so I stated in one of my earlier posts that there is a reason that I relate just about everything in life to musicals. The reason is that musicals have been my life, I have lived in musicals.

The reason I am or was so passionate about performing goes far beyond the lyrics of Rodgers and Hammerstein. I have been in love with singing for my entire life, I did it before I talked, I love music. Now I know, as I sit here speaking on musicals and singing I sound as cliche and as dimensional as the 13 year olds rushing to see Twilight for their 50th time this week. But really, I love music. After I had been involved in music since age 3 I began dancing and acting as well. It's a package really, you sing, you dance, you act, you look like your character type, you get perfect head shots, you make connections, and you say the right things to the right people. If all these things don't fall into place... with a bit of luck and good timing I might add... then you have a worthless performance degree and a one room flat in New York wasting away at your bank account while you work at starbucks...and maybe a few youtube videos that got some viewers! Ah, the life of a performer.

That was the life I craved, from day one. I was made for that life, I put performing above just about everything. I did show after show, year after year. I finally went to university amped about the fact that I had made it into one of the top musical theatre programs in the country... with one of the best vocal instructors around. This was it, my real career was starting, I craved this life, I needed this life.

WRONG. I didn't want it, and I don't want it. I mean, I want to perform, I will always want to perform, but I don't want the lifestyle that goes along with it. I want to travel and explore and learn and write...not hostess at a singing restuarant and spend all day in dance calls dressed in head to toe spandex with girls who have the exact same abilities I have. Well don't get me wrong... I do love a good leotard and tights and leg warmers outfit topped off with black t-strap character heels!

What made me change my mind was the fact that, I love far to many things to devote my life to JUST performing! I wanted to keep learning, I still want to keep learning... and with musical theatre all I ever learned about was music, and theatre, and dance. Well, that's about all I could focus on, and it was all I needed to know, but I want to know more. Changes- changes were necessary.

But here is why I love performing... here is the truth of it all.

As I walk on stage left from behind the thick black curtains, with my perfectly curled hair, bright cheeks, and red lips...I have turned into the ingenue. I can feel the harsh lights warming my skin in a way that feels almost toxic, yet pleasurable. I know that all eyes are on me, but I can't see those eyes, causing mystery. I know that there are hundreds of people waiting for me to say my line... but I keep them on edge as I glide into the center of the stage soaking in the heat of it all eyeing my cast members with naivety and innocence. But I am not on stage to say a line, I am onstage to convey human emotions.

The thing that makes theatre so real, is that beyond the suspension of reality, every person in that audience can understand what I am going through. No matter the situation I am playing to, I am relating to an entire audience of people through human emotion... connecting us all for a moment in time.

That is the most beautiful thing in this world I think, when a room full of people from different backgrounds, different places, different ages, different everything, can connect through human emotion and feel for another being the way we feel for ourselves. I can feel for the audience and they can feel for me... we are connected and they don't even know it. That is why I perform, because I love the feeling of connection I get... the tarab, if you will.

I have never bought into the idea that an actor "becomes" someone else, because I don't. There is always a part of myself in my character, whatever character that may be. Because I am a human just like my character, and I want to relate to my character just as the audience wants to relate to my character and me. There will always be myself in my character- that's how my character becomes a real breathing human being with thoughts and a past and a future.

So that is why I relate everything to musicals, performing has been my life, and it will always be part of my life. I can't let go of that feeling, and I hope this helps you all understand musical theatre or any kind of art or performing art in a different way. It's not just about kick lines and sparkly dresses or color combinations- it's so much more.