Twenty years ago, I was starting at a new Middle School. Naturally, I gravitated toward some familiar extra-curricular activities to ease the transition, one of which was chorus. We sang a medley of songs from "The Phantom of the Opera," a musical. What was a musical? I was about to find out. I was an alto, but loved the tenor lines (the Phantom's lines) so much that the day of the Fall concert I asked if I could sing them and was allowed. Then I worked behind the scenes on the Spring musical, "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat." It took me forever to memorize that whole title, but not long at all to decide that this was what I wanted out of life: musical theatre. And who was responsible for these two pieces of art that had brought about this epiphany?

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