by Barrie Kealoha, Guest Editorial

Three performers—one an up-and-coming ingenue, one a world-famous musician, and one… well, me—share center stage as we take our first bow of Cinderella at Diamond Head Theatre.

As I squeeze their hands and hear the cacophony of applause and cheehoos from the sold-out opening night audience, I realize that the three of us are glowing. And not just from the sweat and the lights and the errant flakes of glitter still falling around us, but from the knowledge that some small but vital part of each one of us just got hit with a burst of greasepaint-scented healing at the exact same time.

It was—to be honest—magic.

It had become clear to me over the weeks of rehearsals with these two incredible women, self-taught local phenom Christine Kluvo (Cinderella) and Hawaiian music icon Paula Fuga (Fairy Godmother), that our personal journeys had wildly divergent paths, but shared a common core, something I couldn’t quite put my finger on.

I originally wanted to write this article about how the three of us finally got to play our dream roles and what that meant to each of us (I played Stepsister Joy and got to channel my fiercest Ann Harada/Veanne Cox realness), but I realized after sitting down with Christine and Paula that the magical and transformative power the theatre and this show, in particular, holds over us wasn’t the real story. It was that something I couldn’t describe, that pilina (connection) among us. It was something that my dear friend Chelsea and I once realized in a late-night conversation: people like us feel safest around those who have not always known safety.

Many of us in the industry have always looked at the theatre as a safe place, a place where you can truly be yourself and also any version of yourself you choose, bound only by the limits of your imagination. That is why, I believe, it is so extra heartbreaking when we uncover stories of abuse and mismanagement and toxicity in our theaters, because, for a whole bunch of us, the stage is a lifeline. And that lifeline should never be sacrificed for the sake of money (or tenure, cough cough).

For Christine, Paula, and me, the theatre is an opportunity for make-believe, for stepping into a world and a character that we don’t always feel capable of occupying in the real world.

For Christine, it was finally feeling truly heard (while also being the most beautiful and beloved girl in the whole kingdom). For Paula, it was carrying on the legacy of her grandmother, the magnanimous but tough-love figure who kept her afloat in dark times.

For me, it was getting to be the silliest goose with the biggest voice and the loudest costumes, making little kids giggle uncontrollably and letting them forget the real world for a little while. But our personal victories with Cinderella went even further. In playing these dream roles in a magical fairy tale of escapism, we were also offered an opportunity to communicate with our younger selves, the children who didn’t have the luxury of feeling safe in their environments.

Through our performances, in finding chosen family in the cast and crew, and in connecting with the community at every show, we got to look our younger selves directly in the eye and let them know that we made it out okay. That, despite the odds, despite the dangers and the nos and the don’ts and the you’ll-never-be-enoughs, that we not only survived, we thrived, baby girl.

And now we have the production shots to prove it.

Happy belated Valentine’s Day to you all, and may you always know safety.

The magic feeling of feeling safe in the theater

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