Come To The Cabaret

Cabaret was one of my mom's favorite movies. I couldn't even begin to tell you how old I was the first time I saw this movie or heard the songs. It seems funny looking back, my mom didn't like us watching the Three Stooges because of the violence, yet Cabaret was no problem. Go figure. My mom loved Liza, just as my Grandpa loved Judy. The theater was a family tradition so to speak, so it was only natural as a little girl I clung to Cabaret like a star to the sky. Most of the plot was lost on me at that young age, but the music wasn't. I knew a great showtune when I heard it. Even then.

Man, I wanted to be Liza! "Divine decadence darling". Yea, someday I was going to be on Broadway and be in a great Fosse show, just like Liza. I spent elementary school through high school doing school plays and taking years of drama. No matter what else changed in my life during those years, I always had a drama class listed on my class schedule. Through Junior High and High school I actually had the same drama teacher, who also produced every play I was in during that time. She was awesome.

By the end of my senior year, it was obvious I wasn't going to college. My drama teacher gave me a brochure for AMDA, The American Music & Drama Academy in New York. She even offered to write me a letter of recommendation. For that moment, it felt like it was a real possibility. Run away to New York and become a star on broadway. After graduation I filled out the application, sent my transcripts, and my teacher sent a letter of recommendation.

I got scheduled an audition in San Francisco, but I flaked. To this day I'm not sure why. It could be that New York just seemed too far away, or that the money was too much. Maybe I just didn't want it as much as I thought I did. Maybe I was just too scared of failing that audition. I guess I'll never really know. I don't really regret it, after all I'm pretty secure that I'm heading down the path fate has laid out for me.

But whenever I hear Liza beckoning, "Come to the Cabaret old chum", a little part me always wonders if maybe, just maybe, there was a light on Broadway, that was supposed to have been mine.