This past week I had the privilege of seeing Bernadette Peters in concert at Mercyhurst University. I’m so glad I had this opportunity. For a while there, it seemed like I wouldn’t be able to, but as luck would have it, the stars aligned and at 7:21 on a Thursday night I was sitting in the balcony for the first time ever, snapping a pic of the stage and posting it on Twitter. I was alight with excitement, and in my mind I was trying to think of what she was going to sing.
The concert was amazing. There’s just something about pure talent that makes the time fly. Theater and music and entertainment are often said to be used as an escape, and this was no exception. I wasn’t worried about the paper due the next day. I wasn’t thinking about the weekend, the stressful rehearsal I had just run from to get there in time, or the pile of things I had to do tomorrow. I was in the moment, marveling at the talent of the singer and the trio. She sang two songs I was definitely expecting (“You Are Not Alone” and “Children Will Listen” from Into the Woods, the piece of theater in which I first discovered her) and many from past shows, but also songs that meant special things to her. She had an encore, where she sang a lullaby she wrote to put in the back of her book about animals. Well, that one made me tear up.
So it was this “brush with celebrity” that made me think about how we view celebrities. I’ve touched on this before, if not on here, then in conversation, when I saw Starkid’s Firebringer last summer. That was a completely different experience. In there, I was closer to the stage. The setting was smaller and more intimate. The actors and actresses were closer to my age, and I had been watching them for many years. And afterwards, my friend and I waited in the lobby for them to come out. They changed into street clothes, carrying backpacks, ready to take pictures and sign autographs for fans. They were…normal. Just like me.
Yet it was a different sort of experience leading up to watching Bernadette Peters. We were talking about it all day, whether when I was trying to work on that paper due tomorrow or waiting for a class to start. People were talking; they had seen her, they had heard her. And what do you mean you’ve never heard of Bernadette Peters? She is a celebrity, elevated, idolized. That’s the mindset I had when I was sitting, waiting for it to start. There was the small part of my mind that was saying, “Five days ago, you were on that stage. You’ve been on that stage many times before. And now…someone you’ve only seen on video is there. And every other time you’re on that stage you can know Bernadette Peters has stood on that stage too.”
I’m not saying we should stop elevating celebrities, or giving them the respect they deserve. I just feel like sometimes we go way over the top with how we act or think or view them.
(Hey, I’m guilty of it too. Reread my inner monologue above.)
