I don’t really have any music that I head to when I’m sad or upset. I tend to only listen to music when I’m happy.

My house was always full of music growing up. My dad had eclectic tastes from Big Band to country to rock. My mom was more about the artist. She loved Frank Sinatra as well as Elvis and Neil Diamond.

My dad used to take the train to New York City when he was young to catch a matinee on Broadway when he could save up the money. He did drama in high school and passed that love on to me.

My first taste of live theatre was in a dinner theatre in Denver. I was pretty young and my parents took me to see The Music Man. It was a theatre in the round and I was hooked on musicals and other live plays.

Since then I’ve seen probably hundreds of plays and Broadway shows. Some of them multiple times like Wicked, Rent and Mamma Mia and a few that I would be happy never to see again.

We are fortunate to have several independent theatre companies here in Tucson and when things aren’t crazy sauce, we go to as many as we can. Some of the best were Hair, yes with complete nudity, August: Osage County, before the movie, and Venus in Furs. And Spring Awakening and Next to Normal and so many others that I could never list them all.

And this is on top of the ones we’ve been lucky enough to actually see on Broadway and in London. Judi Dench, ya’ll!

We’ve been watching some online through streaming services and I’m happy to support it, but there’s just nothing like a live performance.

OK, Charmer…Trouble?

Well, of course my favorite song that got me going on the theatre “bandwagon” was Ya Got Trouble. Would there be any other?