Song & Dance Man

For someone who can't sing & can't dance, I've got an inordinate love for Broadway musicals.

I think this is because one of the first films I fell in love with was "West Side Story." I saw it when I was in elementary school and thought the Jets & Sharks were ridiculously cool.

Growing up with Disney movies like "Mary Poppins", where people bursting into song was commonplace, helped develop the necessary suspension of disbelief to buy into musicals. It didn't hurt that I was taken as a child to the Cumbeland County Playhouse to see live versions of shows like "The Fantasticks", "The Music Man" and "Bye Bye Birdie."

So naturally, I grew up thinking that nothing could be better than getting the opportunity to sing & dance onstage. And then, life played the first of its many cruel tricks: I discovered that not only could I not sing well enough to fulfill that dream, but also that rhythm had also been genetically bred out of my family pool. Oh, cruel fate how you mock me!

So I'll never be a Broadway star. But I'll always be a song & dance man at heart.