This was written as the introduction for “Spotlight on Freedom”—a revue of songs and scenes from Broadway plays and musicals examining human rights performed by members of Livonia Community Theatre. It was well-received and the participants and some audience members requested a copy. I printed a few, but decided to share it here as well. Please feel free to share widely. The director of the revue decided she was going to share it with her students in the CAPA program of Livonia Churchill High School. In my humble opinion, I think it should be shared with theatre kids of all ages in classrooms and community theatre rehearsals everywhere. They should understand their responsibility and their influence as teachers, sharing the lessons of Broadway every time they step on a stage.
Modern-day Broadway has captured our collective imagination since the early 1900s. Plays and musicals entertain us—make us laugh, cry, cheer, and boo.
Going to see a show is a way to escape from everyday life and the struggles and complications that all human beings encounter as they move through the world. It’s riveting to watch actors play their parts, to see them sing and dance, to hear the orchestra play, to marvel at the worlds built by set designers, costume designers and makeup artists. We are taken through the lives of people much like us in those few hours of silent communion, sitting elbow to elbow in theatre seats.
Everything that goes into a production takes us further into the world that the writers and composers have created in their books and scores. There is, however, something else that happens when you go to a Broadway show.
It’s very easy to watch a performance and experience it at face value, just like reading a novel. We lose ourselves in the story and we close the book or step through the doors of a theatre feeling entertained. But Broadway, like literature, has never been just entertainment.
Not ever.
It’s also social commentary and education. Playwrights and composers tell a more meaningful and universal story beyond the tale of the characters on stage. They address larger, sweeping themes about humanity and existence. We are introduced to the lives and struggles of people we may have never met, never considered, or worse, chosen to ignore.
Show Boat, which is often considered the first modern musical, was not only groundbreaking in its form, but in its themes and content as an examination of racism in the United States. From the very birth of Broadway there have been deeper, thought-provoking themes at play.
Today we’ll show you how Broadway has explored and examined the lives and struggles of minorities, the marginalized, and the vulnerable as they seek to be treated as equals in society, to live freely:
- We’ll show you racism made manifest against blacks and Puerto Ricans.
- We’ll explore the centuries’ long struggles of the Jewish diaspora.
- We’ll see how children have been treated not only as less than adult, but less than human throughout time.
- We’ll peek into the lives of women struggling for equality and the right to live on their own terms.
- We’ll show you what it means to be LGBTQIA+ in this world.
The struggle for equality, for all of these groups, is ultimately the struggle for the true American dream. The true American dream is not the dream sold to us through commercials and advertisements: a house, a car, and two children. The true American dream is freedom. Freedom to move through society freely, freedom to vote, freedom to love out loud, and freedom to live your truth.
Broadway, like all great art, has always held up a mirror to humanity showing us our true selves. It shows us at our best and at our worst. It has the ability to take us into the past while examining the relevant issues of the day. Broadway plays and musicals are not just entertainment, they are activism.
So please, sit back, relax, and be ready to be entertained and educated.
