Being an Avid Audience Member

These past few weeks have been packed with community theatre shows. Growing up, I loved being in the audience of shows. There was no feeling greater than the moment the lights went down and the actors take you into a new world for just a little while. My first memory of seeing a live performance was Disney's Beauty and the Beast on Ice. I was probably 5 or 6 at the time. I just remember being so impressed with the production. Being transported to the world that I loved so much (Beauty and the Beast was and still is my favorite Disney movie) was a lot for my little heart to handle.

As I got older, I leaned more toward concerts. I wanted to be a music producer for many years, so I ate, slept, and breathed live music. My first concert, I was 11 years old. My aunt took my cousin and I to Daryll Worley. He was a country singer in the early 2000s. He was performing inside of a theatre and women were throwing their bras at him throughout the set list. I thought it was hysterical. It was also right after 9/11 and he sang a song he wrote called "Have You Forgotten". This was his biggest hit at the time. I remember being so moved by that performance that I cried.

Since then, I have been to many more concerts. Some of the most memorable ones that I have been to are: Martina McBride, Idina Menzel, Demi Lovato, Celine Dion, and The Grand Ole Opry. Funny story about the Martina McBride concert. My dad bought me 2nd row tickets for her show back when I was 13. He ended up taking them away because I got busted smoking cigarettes. But 9 years later, almost to the date, I bought myself tickets to see Martina McBride and it was a night I will never forget. For the Grand Ole Opry, my mom and her husband took me to see Brad Paisley, The Chicks, Jamie O'Neal, Porter Waggoner, and Little Jimmy Dickens.

Right out of high school, I found theatre, thanks to Glee. I was hooked. I think in that first year of finding theatre, I went to 8 shows around Georgia. I was buying every cast album I could get my hands on. I planned so many trips to New York, and none of them actually happened. It just wasn't time. In 2018, Idina Menzel announced that she was going to Off-Broadway. Rhiannon and I bought tickets immediately and then formed the rest of our first NYC trip around that. We rushed our first show, Come From Away (which is now my favorite show of all time ever).

When I moved to Michigan, Rhiannon was in college for theatre, I started learning more about collegiate and community theatre. I was enamored. Fast forward to 2021, I worked on my first show at a community theatre as an assistant stage manager. It was a different kind of magic. One that I became obsessed with over the next 4 years. I went from being an assistant stage manager to the production manager. I left the community theatre scene in June of 2025 after producing my wife's directorial debut. It was such a great way to end the community theatre chapter of my life.

This past year, Rhiannon and I have become avid audience members again. It has been incredible to have the time to go support our friends in shows that they are doing in all of the community theatres around our town. In fact, we have seen a show for the last 4 weekends straight. I am finding the joy of sitting in a house of people, all experiencing the same story together. A sense of connection that we often lack in todays society.

In 2 weeks, we will be in NYC, again, seeing Mariska Hargitay and Lea Michele on Broadway. One show is interactive and the audience makes the show what it is. The other one, a show Rhiannon and I have loved for as long as I can remember. So whether you are connecting with your partner, the actors, or a stranger...Go see a show. Support your local theatres. Let yourself feel the joy of being transported into another world!

#JoyfulJourneyHappyHeart