DO YOU HEAR THE PEOPLE SING?

I do.  I hear them all the freaking time.  Of course, most of it is in my head, a sort of movie soundtrack/music video to go along with all the images passing before me at the speed of life, but what can I say?  I've always been a sort of geek, musical theatre speaking- and there are often moments when I will see something, experience a feeling or observe people, and some song from one play or another pops into my head, and boom, the soundtrack/playlist continues.  When I was first seeing my wife, we would often take walks in the park early in the morning, and it felt to me like there was a bright, golden haze on the meadow, and the sounds of the world were like music, so I'd sing, loudly and probably not so much on key, Oh What a Beautiful Morning.  How could I not.  It's a great song.  Just ask Wolverine.

It made total sense to me.  And Lisa, my wife, smiled.

But I don't just hear and/or sing happy songs.  This very morning, I got news that the mother of an old friend passed away, and in my mind I Kristin Chenoweth singing to a green Idina Menzel:

"I've heard it said
That people come into our lives for a reason
Bringing something we must learn
And we are led
To those who help us most to grow
If we let them
And we help them in return
Well, I don't know if I believe that's true
But I know I'm who I am today
Because I knew you."

Geeky and lame, I know, but what can I say?  That's how it goes with me.  

And of late, the musical that keeps playing in my mind the most is Les Miserables, the mega hit show from the '80's that has been parodied, reviled, and beloved by people since it first opened.  What makes me think of Les Mis?  Occupy Wall Street.  

In Les Mis, the world is unfair, and the powerful don't really take care of the less fortunate- the ones who work in their factories and fields.  The rich keep getting richer, and the poor keep getting poorer.  The lower ranks, the 99% of pre-revolutionary France, sing "at the end of the day your another day older, and that's all you can say for the life of the poor... and the righteous hurry past, they don't hear the little ones crying".  Eventually, a large group of mostly students get pissed off and start camping out in the biggest city in the land, demanding equality and justice and a new way of doing things.  The voice of the law, a dude named Javert, thinks the lord is on his side, and that somehow Jesus wants the wealthy to stay wealthy and the poor to stay poor.  Can you imagine that?  Anyway, the students build a bunch of barricades, and sing "do you hear the people sing, singing the song of angry men?  It is the music of a people who will not be slavess again.  When the beating of your heart, echoes the beating of the drums, their is a life about to start when tomorrow comes".  

Why don't the rich and powerful ever pay attention to history and/or musical theatre?  Don't they get it?  People are angry, and if they don't change their nasty, greedy way, things are going to get ugly and uglier.  

Here's a suggestion for you, wherever you are.  Get a copy of Les Mis, listen to it, and then go to your local Occupy movement (seems there's one in every town now) and see if it doesn't provide the perfect soundtrack for what's going on.

That's about all I have today- please remember, if you're in NYC, I have a reading of my latest play RIDDLE LOST  Saturday Nov. 19 at 5pm at ART/NY.  For more info, go here:

http://boomerangtheatre.wordpress.com/2011/11/14/three-questions-for-kelly-mcallister/

Also, we're about 75% of the way to our goal for the short film STRONG TEA.  For more info on that, go here:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/169962067/strong-teahttp://www.kickstarter.com/projects/169962067/strong-tea