how gay was I…?

This is a game that I am going to call How Gay Was I…?

Think along the lines of, "OMGs! How did my parents not know…?"

During dakoopst’s visit, the topic of showtunes came up. I forget which one of us was at fault… That was when I had the horror of learning that he was entirely unfamiliar with A Chorus Line.

*gasp*
Kids these days!

I was a drama-fag in high school.
Big surprise.

Either just before or just after a class trip to see a live travelling company perform A Chorus Line in downtown Cleveland, I picked up a copy of the original Broadway cast recording. Yes, on vinyl. Those shiny things did not yet exist.

*gasp*
I know! This post is full of shock and horror.

This album was my survival kit for high school in white-bread suburbia.

You see… I already knew that I didn’t fit the mold, that I could not blend as easily as the other kids that eventually would grow up to become aging fat armchair quarterbacks, marry their high school sweethearts, have two point three children and never leave white-bread suburbia for the remainder of their lives.

A Chorus Line saved my teenage life, giving me hope for color in a dismal world.

And gay-among-gay, the songs that did it were the torchy women’s songs. One in particular speaks of escape from rotten childhoods. (Although mine was far from rotten, it felt the part.) This song weaves together three very different women’s stories of youthful torture-at-home and how they found escape watching the ballet. How they found a way to be happy, a place to be pretty, and a moment to let the imagination run wild.

At the Ballet.

I found a YouTube video with the original cast members recorded on the Phil Donahue Show in 1990:

This is how gay I was!
How gay were you…?

P.S. I never realized that Grandmama Gilmore was the bitter aging chorus girl, Sheila, from the original cast. She has some pipes plus she could really throw those legs around. There are some related clips that show the original cast…