Exactly two years ago, last week, I saw my first Broadway show at Studio 54 - Roundabout Theatre Company.
Exactly two years ago, She Loves Me entered my life and I have never stopped being thankful.
...
I should go back to how this trip came about, though. It is important to start at the beginning.
Near the beginning of January 2016, Zachary Levi shared a photo on his Twitter of the poster for She Loves Me. How I knew of Zachary Levi had little to do with his work as an actor. I knew him more for his faith than his acting.
I researched the musical and became more excited about it, seeing that the cast also included Laura Benanti and Jane Krakowski. I began to hope and pray that I could see this musical. That I should be so lucky to see this musical. It was a musical my mom would also love, and maybe it was an experience we could have together.
I sat down at the dining room table just a couple days later, and asked my mom if we had any plans in March or April. My parents were waiting to find out if they were moving back out west, and living in Pittsburgh put us within driving distance of New York City. I asked her if she had any plans and she looked at me in the way mothers do and responded, "Not that I am aware of right now. What do you want?"
"There is a musical opening on Broadway called, She Loves Me. It is the musical that was inspired by Shop Around the Corner and led to movies like, You've Got Mail. Zachary Levi is in it, but I think we could have a good time."
My mom and I talked about it and she told me to keep her posted on when tickets became available. We bought tickets. I researched hotels and we found one a few blocks from Times Square. I requested the days off from my full-time job and my last day at my second job was just one week before our departure. We bought seats on MegaBus to provide us transportation.
Our time was set. Our trip was planned. We were going to be experiencing New York City together, as a last hurrah before my family left the Mid-Atlantic. My mom and I were both excited. I had not yet been to New York City, despite my 10 year residency in Pittsburgh, and my mom had not been since my little brother marched in the Macy's Parade in 2009.
...
Flash forward to the things I can tell you happened while we were in New York City.
On Thursday - we took the bus from Pittsburgh to State College to NYC. We walked from the bus stop past the Fashion Institute and Madison Square Garden to our hotel at 40th and 8th in Midtown.
On Friday -
I got hit on by a guy dressed like Iron Man in Times Square. I did not take a picture with him.
I bought a Sophia the First dress for the little girl I babysat on a weekly basis at the Disney store.
My mom told me we had to go to M&M World. I told her we had to go to Rockefeller Center. We did both.
My mom and I bought umbrellas in the MoMA gift shop. I made her go inside Rockefeller and stand in the lobby with me, so I could stare at the ceiling and walls for ten minutes.
We went to Nintendo World. I bought a Starfox t-shirt. Under the hem it says, "Do a barrel roll." It is still my favorite shirt.
We went to a quilt store my mom wanted to visit. Our hotel was two blocks from The Drama Book Shop and Midtown Comics. I dragged my mother into each.
On Saturday -
We got up and took a cab down to Dominque Ansel's Bakery for a cronut and pavlova. (My mom bought me a cookbook this year for Christmas on meringue. She wants me to learn to make pavlova for her -- and she confirmed at least one recipe was included before buying me said cookbook.)
We walked to a pencil shop a few blocks away in SoHo. We saw the Flatiron Building by accident.
We took a cab back up to Rockefeller Center. We went to see the windows at Saks 5th Avenue, which had Outlander costumes on display. We went inside and hunted down the bridal salon, because I was going through bridal sales consultant withdrawal.
We went into St. Patrick's Cathedral, because it was across the street and I am obsessed with church architecture. It was also raining, and provided shelter.
We walked to the Empire State Building, Grand Central Station, and the Chrysler Building. (One of my favorite television shows is White Collar, and I had to see those places.) I stared at the ceiling in Grand Central and declared Chrysler more impressive than Empire State.
We walked back through Rockefeller Center and had dinner in Times Square.
On Sunday - we took the bus from NYC to State College to Pittsburgh.
On Monday - I had included the extra day off work to recover from traveling. I finally saw a sports medicine doctor, other than my ankle surgeon. Diagnosis - concussion without loss consciousness.
The fact that I successfully navigated New York City with a concussion I had been battling for a month at that point still amazes me. My head was throbbing almost constantly and we were out of the hotel for hours at a time. I had traveled to London six months before to see Hamlet, and was sick, and now had traipsed a decent portion of New York City with my head feeling like it might split open at any moment.
This is the part that is important, though. This is what I wrote all of this about, and is proof, I think, that a musical can save your life.
During the entire performance of She Loves Me, not once did I think about what I thought was only a horrific month long migraine. Not once did I think about work, or what work I would still have when I returned. For the entire performance, I sat in Studio 54 and was a witness to a musical revival that would go on to be nominated for eight Tony Awards. I listened to the orchestra and I heard the actors sing their songs, dance, and I fell completely in love with the story and all the work everyone put into telling it. Without finding my ticket, I do not remember if I went to Friday or Saturday's show, but does it honestly matter? No, I do not think so. I was there and that is what matters.
Did I stay for part of stage door? Yes. Zachary Levi came out and set up speakers on a chair and played us music, since we were standing out in the cold. He signed my ticket and we talked about Broadway and how his first musical, First Date, had been re-staged in Pittsburgh a month prior. And then I was cold and my mom and I caught a cab back to the hotel. She asked if I was sure I was okay leaving, because he was going to go back down the line taking pictures with anyone that wanted one, and I told her I was more than okay. I would have offered to take pictures for other people, because I did not need a picture with Zachary Levi to remember She Loves Me. I was going to remember it. How was I going to forget? I had fallen in love with Broadway and New York City. My mom had created a monster.
Are the events of that weekend a little out of order from how I noted them above? Most likely. I was concussed after all. (Do not wear flip flops in the rain and wipe out on pavement in a grocery store parking lot in mid-March. It hurts a lot and you can significantly concuss yourself without ever smacking your head off the ground.)
None of that is important in the scheme of things. I can go back and look at the dates on my photographs and pull out a calendar and put it all back in proper order if I ever need to. The point is, I fell in love with She Loves Me, and the entire Broadway experience. I even emailed the theatre, asking where I could send a letter telling the cast how much I loved it and the artistic director emailed me back and told me if I mailed something they would post it where the cast could see it.
I never wrote and mailed that letter. Vestibular therapy took over, and I forgot about committing that letter to paper, because my brain hurt trying to remember every day things. But that changed nothing. I bought the soundtrack when it came out, and I listened to it all the time. I learned the words to the songs and would sing them in my car or around the house. How could I not?
Fast forward to November 2016. On Black Friday, I was driving home from post-work errands and star-gazing, when a driver pulled out on the road I was on, to turn left, right in front of me. Even with attempting to swerve there is still that split second acknowledgement where you know your are going to collide. Within fractions of a second the new car I had bought just one month after returning from NYC deployed 8 of its 10 airbags upon impact, and came to rest off the side of the road, in the shrubs in front of railroad tracks...totaled.
Police called it, improper entrance of a highway, and declared it the other vehicles' fault. Sprained left ankle. Sprained left hand. Severe lower leg contusion. Closed head injury and whiplash from the airbags. I took my first ride in an ambulance that night - I do not recommend it. The emergency room staff would not give me any pain killers or braces until I asked for them.
In layman's terms, sore and re-concussed. I had only been discharge from physical therapy a month prior, and I was about to do it all over again.
But do you know what happened less than a week later? BroadwayHD broadcasted She Loves Me in theaters. I had seen the show once with a concussion, how would this be any different? I sat in my local theater, after it battled with technical issues, and once again forgot about anything beyond She Loves Me.
The second time was different, though. I finally got to see Laura Benanti in the lead female role. She had been out sick during the weekend my mom and I were in New York. Her understudy, Laura Shoop, was amazing, but seeing and hearing Laura Benanti perform was brilliant. I may be a soprano when I sing, but I am not a soprano like Laura Benanti.
One of my great loves has always been listening to music in my car with the windows down and the volume up, but in the wake of the accident, I could no longer do that. Anything higher than volume level 7 out of 38 hurt my ears and my head. I could not listen to Christmas music, because Sleigh Ride had been playing when the accident happened. I could not listen to the radio either, because I no longer felt safe singing in the car. I listened to She Loves Me often throughout December and January. It was the one of the only things that drowned out the recovery process.
My ankle surgeon told me in an email after the accident, before I was able to get in and see him, to be sure I took time to rest, relax, and heal. I told him I did not know how. Seeing She Loves Me was a step in that direction. It felt like I should not be spending the $20 to see it, but at the same time like I had to.
The car accident took a lot from me. Even though my injuries were mercifully minor since my car was so new, the accident turned my general anxiety into a full blown anxiety and panic disorder. It has been a year-and-a-half and I am still finding balance between medication regimens and counseling. I am still working to recover financially from losing a brand new car, and I am still learning to accept that a car is just a car.
Do you want to know what saved my life, though? She Loves Me. I never got to write the cast my letter in April 2016, and maybe it was important that I did not write them then, so I could write these words now (also my handwriting is always in cursive, so it is not a letter they would have been able to read quickly in passing).
To the cast and crew of She Loves Me, I want to say, "Thank you." Thank you for being my inaugural Broadway show. The weekend I saw your show, the weekend of April 8th and 9th, not only did you push aside the concussion I had, but you also re-wrote my association with April 9th. You took it from the day a student attacked fellow students at my high school alma mater, to the weekend I first got to experience New York City.
Not only did you do that, but you helped me in the wake of my car accident. I started singing in the car again to She Loves Me, which was no small thing a year ago. I was not sure I would ever sing in the car again, and if I am not singing in the car, I would rarely sing and I absolutely love it. If I had any acting or dancing ability - which I do not - I would dream of Broadway. Instead, since I can only sing, I will sing with you instead. Well, the recorded you.
She Loves Me introduced me to the Laura Benanti of Broadway and I learned that the woman who I had seen in a couple Law & Order episodes had some pipes. I will forever be jealous of your vocal range, appreciated our back and forth concerning the designer of your wedding gown a little more than a year ago now, and you also gave me a deeper appreciation for your background and talent. I hope I get to see you live on Broadway next time I am there for a show. I am so thankful you took care of yourself during She Loves Me to recover.
She Loves Me gave me more of you, Zachary Levi, and even my mom told people when we came home how impressed she was with you. She only knew what I had told her, which had more to do with your faith and who you were as a person, and less to do with the acting projects you had been in over the years. I saw how much you care for your fans by being willing to stand out in the cold with us, talk to us, and dance with us. Even though I was not there for the entire time you were outside, we were both impressed. You continue to impress me every day and your social media presence is actually a delight.
To the other cast and crew members of She Loves Me: Gavin, Jane, Nicholas, Byron, Tom, Peter, Scott Ellis, David Rockwell, and so many others to name right here - it would not be the show I love without you. It would not be half of what I fell in love with without the portrayals you breathed life into, the sets you created, the costumes you designed, and the music you played to accompany those on stage. I suffer an extreme bias that your Tony nominations were set against the likes of Hamilton.
I guess someone might say that it is ridiculous to put forward that a musical can save your life. Maybe I should credit my faith in God more. Maybe I should credit my family, friends, and the medical professionals that have dealt with my very real aftermath. But, music is a universal language. And I think musicals can be, too. I believe it was a blessing I was able to see She Loves Me on Broadway to begin with, and again in theaters eight months later. How many people can say they get to revisit one of their best experiences at a time when they critically need the positivity of it?
All of you are my dear friends. I do not know what my life would look like without She Loves Me. How can you ever repay the cast and creative team behind the musical that taught you to sing again, to turn up the volume just a little bit higher, and roll down the windows again for just one song at a time? How do you properly thank them for being the best sort of first time Broadway experience two years after it happened?
I am not sure if there is a way I can tell you how much I love you all. But maybe, right here, with these words two years late, not written in cursive, or put up in a place where you all might see it, is a place I can start. And maybe one day, I will run into each of you, or get to have an extended conversation with you over coffee or drinks or food, and I can tell you what it will mean then even more than it means right now.
Yours, Dear Friends,
Sheridan Hughes
