I don’t hesitate to tell people that ‘Hedwig and the Angry Inch’ saved my life. At the stage door of the Belasco theater, I yelled out to Lena Hall and Andrew Rannells, “This show means the world to me!” and “Hedwig saved my life!” amidst the sea of selfies, HedHeads, and autographs. It isn’t difficult for me to make my absolute adoration of this show known, and yet the reasons why it means so much to me aren’t exactly simple to describe, particularly in under five-hundred words.
When recently prompted to explain why I chose to leave Columbia College Chicago, I came up with the phrase, “priorities realized”, which is the best way that I’ve found to express what happened. I unfortunately had my first experience with outward and frequent homophobia directed towards me while attending Columbia College Chicago particularly ignorant beliefs such as: queerness being transmittable, bisexuality being a character flaw/myth, gender nonconforming individuals being unable to be well-adjusted people, and existing as an out queer person being inappropriate for children and “normal people”. Due to the way bigotry made itself known, I found myself realizing how lucky I had been in the past to find camaraderie in theatre and community in queerness. In my search to re-find that on my own in Chicago, I wound up instead discovering Hedwig, which became my substitute for real life acceptance.
Each night as I struggled to reconcile the prevalent anti-queer words and actions I was surrounded by, with my dreams of Columbia College Chicago being a welcoming artistic community, I listened to ‘Wicked Little Town’ from Hedwig. It’s a song about being stuck in the wrong place, surrounded by cruelty, and being able to feel yourself being assimilated, yet having something to cling to in order to survive; that song was my salvation.
The night before my nineteenth birthday, in my insomnia driven introspection, I began to realize I was reverting back to being the person I was before I valued my own voice (both proverbially and literally). Upon that realization, I did what I felt I had to do; I barricaded myself in the university center practice room and sang ‘Wicked Little Town’ with the voice I could feel relapsing. I sang with all the volume and wholeness I could muster from my verklempt vocal folds. I left Columbia College Chicago soon after.
I reassessed my priorities and discovered, through ‘Hedwig and the Angry Inch’, that theatre in all its life-saving glory made me teem with more passion than anything else I've aspired towards since graduating from Saint Paul Conservatory for Performing Artists. Because of this, ‘Hedwig and the Angry Inch’ not only kept me going in times of extreme turmoil which I didn’t expect to survive, but also reminded me and reconfirmed that theatre is my calling.
Subsequently, I proudly proclaim to friends, family, strangers, Andrew, Lena, and you, dear reader, that ‘Hedwig and the Angry Inch’ saved my life.
When recently prompted to explain why I chose to leave Columbia College Chicago, I came up with the phrase, “priorities realized”, which is the best way that I’ve found to express what happened. I unfortunately had my first experience with outward and frequent homophobia directed towards me while attending Columbia College Chicago particularly ignorant beliefs such as: queerness being transmittable, bisexuality being a character flaw/myth, gender nonconforming individuals being unable to be well-adjusted people, and existing as an out queer person being inappropriate for children and “normal people”. Due to the way bigotry made itself known, I found myself realizing how lucky I had been in the past to find camaraderie in theatre and community in queerness. In my search to re-find that on my own in Chicago, I wound up instead discovering Hedwig, which became my substitute for real life acceptance.
Each night as I struggled to reconcile the prevalent anti-queer words and actions I was surrounded by, with my dreams of Columbia College Chicago being a welcoming artistic community, I listened to ‘Wicked Little Town’ from Hedwig. It’s a song about being stuck in the wrong place, surrounded by cruelty, and being able to feel yourself being assimilated, yet having something to cling to in order to survive; that song was my salvation.
The night before my nineteenth birthday, in my insomnia driven introspection, I began to realize I was reverting back to being the person I was before I valued my own voice (both proverbially and literally). Upon that realization, I did what I felt I had to do; I barricaded myself in the university center practice room and sang ‘Wicked Little Town’ with the voice I could feel relapsing. I sang with all the volume and wholeness I could muster from my verklempt vocal folds. I left Columbia College Chicago soon after.
I reassessed my priorities and discovered, through ‘Hedwig and the Angry Inch’, that theatre in all its life-saving glory made me teem with more passion than anything else I've aspired towards since graduating from Saint Paul Conservatory for Performing Artists. Because of this, ‘Hedwig and the Angry Inch’ not only kept me going in times of extreme turmoil which I didn’t expect to survive, but also reminded me and reconfirmed that theatre is my calling.
Subsequently, I proudly proclaim to friends, family, strangers, Andrew, Lena, and you, dear reader, that ‘Hedwig and the Angry Inch’ saved my life.
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