Collective Joy

An "old timey" musical as antidote to, or at least respite from, the darkness of the world

Yesterday, my family went to see The Music Man at the Denver Center for Performing Arts. Seeing shows there is one of our favorite things to do together. As a family, we’ve been to Wicked, Stomp, Frozen, Back to the Future, The Wiz, The Lion King. We have tickets to Hell’s Kitchen and Harry Potter and the Cursed Child later this spring (I say “later” because even though it’s only March 2, Boulder spring has been springing all winter. See also: my daffodils are already up). Much of my parenting experience has been a recalibration: a letting go of what I thought it would be like, and an acceptance of what is. This is my constant work. But going to shows together is one of our best things– a rare jewel of “this is just as great as I imagined it would be.”

I’ve read that in order to find happiness as an adult, you should think about what you loved as a child. I have always loved theater– from the children’s theater we saw at American Stage Festival during the summers in New Hampshire, to going to plays at UNH with my grandparents, to my first musical love, Les Miserables, when I was eleven, followed by years of obsession with Rent. I’ve always reveled in the feeling of being swept up in a play, the audience rapt.

My younger daughter was not excited about yesterday’s play. “Is it old-timey?” she had asked me. “Yes,” I said. “Very old-timey.” She rolled her eyes.

When we entered the theater and made our way to our seats, though, the familiar magic took over. She looked at the giant drum set in the orchestra pit, absorbed the energy of being in community with the rest of the audience, and took the candy out of the purse I had loaned her. She looked at me and she smiled.

The opening notes began, the familiar overture filling the theater. I’ve seen a couple of productions of The Music Man, and watched the movie many times during my middle school musical obsession. Yesterday, I relished the full immersion into River City, Iowa, where there was no dictator bombing girls’ schools, no half-written essays that feel out of date two days after I start writing them, no to do lists or logistics. It was just us and the audience, and we were along for the ride.

I knew my older daughter was enjoying the show; she is deep into theater tech and had selected this show over a couple of other options when we got a gift card to the DCPA for Christmas. But I couldn’t tell what my younger daughter thought until she turned to me at intermission and said, “I love this.”

Watching The Music Man made me feel joyful in a way that I felt when I watched Bad Bunny’s halftime show, and watched the Olympics. It’s the joy of being in community and watching something magical, and right now, it feels like a reclamation. Even when life feels dark, we can marvel together, and this makes me feel hopeful.

One of only two low-quality photos I took yesterday