divine angst

Mr. Angst is a dream.

Let me explain. See, I majored in a performing art in college (well, for one of my majors, at least). But over the last several years, I got sort of disillusioned with the performing arts. Particularly theatre. There was lots of terrific small theatre in My Old City. But the professional scene was very small and incestuous. I got tired of seeing posters for various shows touting “Joe Smith” as the lead—”Joe Smith is Frank N. Furter in Rocky Horror!” or “Joe Smith is the Emcee in Cabaret!” or “Joe Smith is God of our Local Theatre Scene in Our Local Theatre Scene!” (OK, maybe not the last.)

You get my point? Going to see a professional show in My Old City involved seeing Joe Smith play the male lead. Or seeing one of four or five directors or stage designers. Granted, I probably missed out on a lot of other terrific theatre because of my disillusionment with that one aspect of the local stuff—after all, our local big university has a top-something Theatre program. And I have many friends doing small local theatre there. But I couldn’t do it. So I haven’t been to see a play in ages. And I miss it, seeing good theatre that’s not the same as the last good theatre I saw, or imported from Broadway on tour.

Anyway. Mr. Angst and I knew we’d be moving to a bigger and more bustling city for school, and one of the things I got excited about because of that was the possibility of a larger and less insular theatre community. Not to get involved in, but to go see. And there’s good theatre here in Our New City™. Since we’ve been here, we’ve looked up how to get rush tickets for some of the big-name stuff; we also have student discounts, too, that we will take advantage of.

All this to say that, tonight, while some of my classmates are reading and some of my classmates are at Bar Review, we will be seeing a terrific show. One that I am excited to see. And this is my birthday present.

Mr. Angst is a dream.