I began my blog almost two year’s ago with a very positive piece about my nephew and since then, even trying on many pairs of rose-colored glasses, my commentary has erupted, (see Eyjafjallajokull reference, April 18, 2010, They Shoot Arizonans…Don’t They?), mostly from the dark side.  Lest you think that I have suddenly switched off my constant IV drip of world news, I assure you that I am aware of the BP oil spill, (I think it will be sloshing into Saratoga Springs by mid-morning), Charlie Crists’s independence, the continued secession of Arizona from the 21stcentury, the bomb in Times Square, Tiger missing the cut, (and the point, I think), Greece, Toyota, Children’s Tylenol, etc., but this past Thursday, I took the train into NYC for the opening of a new Broadway show, Everyday Rapture, and for the past three days I have had mostly positive thoughts.

The theme of Everyday Rapture, the new semi-semi-semi-autobiographical musical of one woman’s, (Sherie Rene Scott’s), journey from Mennonite Kansas to Broadway, speaks to the dichotomy of being “a speck of dust” on the one hand, (or in the case of ER, on one piece of scrap paper), and envisioning that “the world was created for me!”, on the other.  This basic yin/yang premise, apparent even to someone simply auditing Philosophy 101, has never been so succinctly or downright entertainingly presented as by Sherie, in song, dance and poignant reminiscence.

The journey of the show’s history is interesting on its own, beginning as performance pieces for various NYC benefit concerts, written by Sherie and Tony nominated writing partner Dick Scanlan, growing, (through several incarnations where it was once called, You May Now Worship Me), to an Off-Broadway run at 2ndStage.  After a limited, enthusiastically received run, the producers tried, unsuccessfully to find a Broadway venue, until an eleventh-hour cancellation at the Roundabout’s American Airlines Theater prompted a frenzied five-week prep, mounting and opening, on April 29, to some of the most exuberant raves in recent Broadway memory.

The carefully chosen, highly eclectic music of Everyday Rapture, from composers as diverse as David Byrne, Johnny Mercer, Harold Arlen, George Harrison, Harry Nilsson, Tom Waits and Fred Rodgers, (yes, that Mr. Rodgers), is used to brilliantly punctuate a narrative that takes the audience on a ninety-minute roller coaster ride of personal confessions and universal emotions.  This is why God created, (although I forget on which day), theater.

I love Sherie Rene Scott!