These are my friends

It is September 3rd, 2009.

This means that three years ago, I was coming to New York with wildly varying emotions to see the Broadway revival of Sweeney Todd close. The story of what Sweeney Todd in general, and this revival specifically, did to my life is a long one that I'm not going to go fully into right now (if you're curious, ask me). What I will say is that I spent that night with some of the most hilarious, brilliant, loving people I've ever had the pleasure of meeting. We met primarily online discussing Sweeney and this revival and became fast friends. We come from all different walks of life, some of us are theater majors, others are theater enthusiasts, some are from New York, some are not (one's even not from the US), some of us were in high school, others in grad school, some had been die-hard Sweeney fans for years, others were first exposed to Sweeney by this revival, but we were brought together by the shared love for this musical that had changed our lives.

These are the people I lovingly refer to as my Sweeneyfamily.

I think it was a miracle for all of us, finding each other. I know for me, it was a relief to find people who cared as much as I did about this musical, who would discuss for hours the most ridiculous details of Sweeney, who not did not think it was stupid that I wrote a paper on the use of chairs in Sweeney Todd, but thought it was awesome, read it, and shared their own observations. While in high school my classmates were constantly telling me, "Colleen, shut up about Sweeney Todd, no one cares," I found the people who did and do care, who have always challenged me and supported me and been there. (And who will be intricately involved whenever I finally do direct Sweeney Todd.)

We are a very tight-knit family. We take care of our own. For members of the Sweeneyfamily who live outside of New York and need a place to stay, our doors are always open. (This is largely how I came up to New York so often my senior year - I had places to stay.) We recommend shows to each other all the time, because we have similar theater tastes. We'll support each other by going to see shows others are working on. I've even watched us come together to show enormous amounts of love and support. One of our number, one of my dearest friends, Jess, lives in Colorado, and was unable to see the revival due to an unfortuate combination of financial difficulties, poor health (very poor health that also makes it impossible for her to go to college or hold a job), and snow storms that prevented her from flying out of Colorado even when she did remarkably have tickets. (She was at the airport, ready to go, and no planes were flying out.) The tour of the revival came to Denver, and all of us were so excited because it meant that she could go - until she told us that they did not have the money for it. Behind her back, we raised enough money for her and her mother to go, pay for gas, and sit front row. Why? Because we knew the power this piece held in Jess' heart. It holds the same place in our own. We couldn't change the weather when planes were not flying out of Colorado, we can't make the doctors figure out how to cure her, but we could give her this. Watching all of that come together was one of the most intensely moving experiences of my life.

A year after closing, I had just moved to New York and was starting classes on the 4th. The anniversary of closing weighed heavily on all of our minds and hearts, and one of our number eventually said, "You know what? We can all sit alone in our apartments and dorm rooms and be sad... or we can celebrate!" And thus, all of us in the area traveled to an apartment on the Upper West Side for the first annual Sweeney Todd Sing-a-Long. It was modeled after Rocky Horror Picture Show screenings; we had a live cast (us), goodie bags filled with ridiculous things to throw at the screen, and themed food. We laughed, we cried, we remembered parts of the blocking that the Broadway actors had forgotten ("I stuck my tongue out at her?" "Yeah, at the end of 'God, That's Good' when she chastised you for hitting the Beggar Woman with your violin bow."). It was pure celebration.

Now, clearly, this has become a tradition... and also quite possibly, my favorite night of the year. So tonight, I'll be packing up my Toby gear (because I always play Toby) and heading uptown to be silly and loving with the Sweeneyfamily once again. They are truly a blessing in my life.

Of course, before then I'll have to practice a little bit. We always wanted to see the tooth pulling sequence performed, so at the first Sing-a-Long, our Pirelli and I performed it. Last year, though, she started college and couldn't attend, so they made me do both parts, by myself. Those lyrics get tricky.