Magic

I have been wanting, and meaning, to write this post for a few weeks, and in part due to the subject at hand, time has been in short supply.  I would be remiss, however, if I did not make the time to put down my thoughts about what Abigail has catalyzed for me.  I’m writing this off the cuff; I don’t want to edit my emotions or rework them.  This is from the heart.

For those of you who don’t know, Abigail is a rock opera about the Salem witch trials; it is a completely original work, created by Michael Xavier, Daniel Knop and Kurt Brown.  This marks their first original rock opera after producing a number of successful rock opera “covers”, i.e. The Rocky Horror Show, Pink Floyd’s The Wall, Tommy and Jesus Christ Superstar.  Few debuts are masterworks, but in my estimation, this one is.  Aside from being an outstanding work of art and music, it has also been the catalyst for several momentous milestones in my life, all of which revolve around my return, in earnest, to the joy of music I thought I’d had to leave behind.

Some of you who will read this know my story; most probably don’t.  Very briefly, I have been singing and performing onstage since I was six years old.  I was active in competitive choir for my elementary, intermediate and high school years.  After high school, I joined a band called The Mimsies, which would eventually make something of a splash in Hollywood and tour North America.  I left the band under tragic circumstance in 2003, after ten years of nonstop gigging and recording.  At that point, in the words of one of my new songs, “I put down the microphone and called it a day.” 

I thought I was done.  I tried to perform here and there in the years after The Mimsies disbanded, but each time I took the stage, I was struck through with anxiety and would often break down in tears, hyperventilating and unable to complete even a single song.  I took a day job and tried to forget about music.  Music, however, did not want to forget about me.  It nagged at me.  In 2006, I started taking baby steps back onto the stage with four-minute burlesque routines for the Hubba Hubba Revue.  It was the safety zone I needed to be able to stand on my legs again.  In the intervening five years since my first Hubba, I have spent a year in convalescence, gotten married, moved back to the Bay and finally accepted myself as a legitimate artist and performer.  It’s been a long road, but all of a sudden, I’m back, and all the trauma of the past seems strangely distant, as though it never happened.

To roll back a tick, the height of my competitive choir career came in Virginia, when my Dad was stationed at the Pentagon.  I had a wonderful group of friends and we were all motivated, talented and hungry to make a mark individually and in concert.  I won Outstanding Choir Student two years in a row, even though, at that time, I had a very small, shy voice that had yet to find its wings.  Regardless of my volume, I was devoted.  I loved to sing; I always have.  When my godmother first held me in the first few weeks of my life, she pronounced, “this child is going to grow up to be a famous singer”.  I didn’t know that until well into my career with The Mimsies, but it would appear that a calling to vocal music has always been a stamp upon me.

Those years in choir were, until now, the last time I really loved being me, loved doing what I was doing, felt like a normal kid who had a great peer group and a purpose.  I would have gone on to sing with the nationally-reknowned and multi-award-winning Lee High School Madrigals choir, but after eighth grade, my Dad’s orders came through and we were shipped out to McAlester, Oklahoma.  That move took me away from my first boyfriend, from my deeply-beloved friends, and from singing.  There was no choir at either of the high schools I attended in Oklahoma.  When we moved to Hawaii in my junior year, again I was dismayed to find no choir.  The move from Virginia to Oklahoma was the most important of my life in that it introduced me to depression, a major player who did not relinquish his reins on me until this year.

I have spent  twenty-two years searching for that peer group of choir kids I had to leave behind in Virginia.  For many years, I didn’t realize that’s what I was looking for — that was the shape of the hole and the longing in my soul.  Finally, here, with Abigail and all the surrounding trappings of my life at this time (Hubba, Chickenhead Johnson, 120 Minutes, Mimsies, Zanzibar, producers, etc…), I have found it.  Finally, I am returned to a place where music is a matter of fact in my life and I am singing with other people daily.

I cannot express to you the intensity of the joy I feel at arriving here.  I love singing with other people — beyond words — there is something that changes in my chemistry when I am vibrating in harmony with other voices.  It is Divine.  Sublime.  Tapped in.  Blissful.  Joyous.  To be here — to have a second shot at this after all the water under the bridge — is nothing short of miraculous, and I am humbled by the opportunity.  The crowning glory of that opportunity has been Abigail.  There is so much love, goodness and positive energy surrounding this production, it’s a high unto itself.  I have great love for the entire cast and band; everyone is so talented and beyond that, skilled.  What is even more delightful to me is that everyone is who they are and the differences make the magic — I have always loved that.  The camaraderie among a group of individuals is what attracted me to the idea of being in a band in the first place.

Aside from returning me to vocal music, Abigail (and the people associated with it) has/have also allowed me to finally kick the trauma I experienced during my time with The Mimsies out of my psyche and reclaim my joy, period.  I have been living under the thumb of deep, black energy for nearly a decade now — that awful energy holding me on one side and music on the other, giving me glimpses of the joy and glory possible, but always keeping me separated from it, beating me down every time I’d try to return.  It held me hostage with sadness, angst and guilt.

No more.  In the rock opera, Abigail, like me, finds herself forced to relocate from a place of joy and song to a new world of guilt and abuse.  Like me, she tries to find her joy and song in this new place, and like me, she found ways of getting it that weren’t entirely healthy for her or the people around her.  In the end of her journey, however, she is embraced by a new light, a new love, a redemption.  So it has been for me.

The best is yet to come, but if I had to go tomorrow, I’d go with a smile on my face.

Michael, Danny, Kurt — and everyone in the cast/band — thank you so much for the opportunity to be a part of this magnificent and important work, and for giving me what I needed to reclaim my joy and song.  (And Ace, thank YOU. I owe you a big one, Buddy!)

Love,

case.