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I Love Musicals!

Erika Rasso
Apr 20, 2015
2 min read

Yes, you heard correctly. I love musicals. I've loved them ever since I was a little girl, so much so that I wanted to be a Broadway star. My earliest videos are of me performing songs from Beauty and the Beast or The Little Mermaid. My favorite movie growing up was The Wizard of Oz. My mom would put it on anytime I was feeling sad or anxious, and I would sing along.

I was in every school play up until highschool. As an 8 year old I forced my way into the role of 16 year old Leisel in the community production of The Sound of Music. It must have been really silly to watch a little girl sing "Sixteen Going on Seventeen" with a fourteen year old boy playing her opposite. I also wowed my chorus teacher in sixth grade with my audition for Cinderella, and won the role of Joy, a stepsister. I was the only sixth grader to get a main role in the cast.

My love of acting dwindled after I auditioned for my local arts school and got waitlisted. Since preschool I had been enrolled in dance classes, attended arts camps, starred in local and community plays, and yet I had failed. Maybe it was because I chose "Somebody to Love" as my audition song, or did a monologue from Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf that was probably too old for my 14 year old self. I gave up after that, I stopped performing in public and I lost hope that I would ever be a star. But, I never stopped loving musicals.

I still go to as many productions as I can, and follow the Broadway circuit closely. I admit it, I loved Glee! Near the end, it really got awful, but I identified closely with Rachel Berry and I wanted her to succeed where I did not. I know the entire scores of Funny Girl, Sweeney Todd, Rent, Wicked, Anything Goes. You name it! I belt the songs in my apartment and in my car and watch clips from the shows all the time. My favorite musical is Spring Awakening and it's my dream to one day play Wendla! But I never will. I've set my life on a different course. Screenwriting is a passion of mine, but secretly I hope my success as a screenwriter will open up the opportunity to start acting again.

Being up on a Broadway stage in a revival of Funny Girl or Spring Awakening is a fantasy of mine, but until my life changes drastically, the only stage I'll be gracing is the one in my shower.