long (very
long)- about the angel cast...
Juliana
The familiar chords of Seasons of Love begin to sound. You get excited and stop talking to the people behind you about the show, and you look at the stage and watch the cast members walk out. And even though you've already figured out which cast member is going to be in front of you, you still get excited when you're right in front of Christian Anderson. Or at least I did. But really it didn't matter who was in front of you, because the point is, they all connected with you at that moment.
The angel cast told me this story once in 1997 in chicago. It was this amazing story, and it was told with passion and emotion. From the moment Christian stepped on stage (as Mark) and spoke in his semi-raspy voice, "We begin on Christmas eve, with me, Mark, and my roommate, Roger,..." and Danny (as Roger) would look up, I was hooked. They had already brought me in, and I already cared about these people, these characters.
So I fell in love with the show. And I got tickets again in February, and I dared the cast to do it again. I didn't think they could tell me this story again with that same emotion. But they did.
And the next time, I rushed for the first time. And they did it again. And each time, they did it with even more passion. They told the story even better.
Then they left Chicago, and I thought seeing Rent was over, but I went to Cleveland, and there had been so many cast changes since I had last seen it. Sylvia and Simone and Manley and Amy were all gone. And Christian was now Roger, and there was this guy with *dark* hair playing Mark. But they were amazing. And they were still telling that story in the same way, and it was kind of a different story with different interpretations, but it was the same story, told in the same way. And it was the same way in St. Paul.
Each time I saw the Angel Cast, I
cried. I cried because they made me care about the characters.
And after the shows, they made me care about them as people. They were all amazing to talk
to after the shows-happy to answer questions or just take a picture.
I love the angels so much. I haven't seen them since November. And I'm not going to see them again. And yeah, that makes me sad. Seeing the Benny cast, it was always a comfort that the angels were still there in San Fran, touching people and causing them to come back to see if they could do it again. And that's why I could enjoy watching Rent told by the Benny's, because the angels were still there. But now I like the benny cast on their own.
So, yeah, I'm sad that the cast is
done. But there is this other cast out there telling the same story and maybe it's not my
favorite way to tell it, but it's still my favorite story.
Sorry this was so long,
Juliana