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Reading Race, Roommates, and My Review of “Wicked”
As a child born in New York and involved in various music and theater clubs, I have always enjoyed Broadway. I fondly remember a night in the early 2000s when my dad and stepmother prepared for a date night in the city to see the latest musical, “Wicked.” Typically, we attended shows as a family, but I made it clear that I would be perfectly fine with them seeing the show without me, as long as I received the CD and a playbill (two things that I collected from every show I would see).
When they returned with the goods, I eagerly popped the soundtrack of the original Broadway cast into my player and listened to it repeatedly for years. I was always captivated by the stories of misfits and outcasts, especially in musicals like “The Phantom of the Opera” and “Rent.” As I connected with more friends who also loved Broadway (and lived through the “Glee” era) my middle school and high school years saw many impromptu singing sessions between classes belting songs like “Defying Gravity” and “The Music of the Night”. These moments only made us stand out more as the “weird” kids in school.
