Musical Risk Taking

Hello everyone. Sadly, I did have to edit the time of today's entry so that it would fall before midnight. At least it's the weekend, and I'll have Sunday night to get back on schedule.

While I've been winding down for the night, I thought on a whim "I want to listen to some music from Les Mis". I listened to some videos from the 10 year anniversary concert, as well as some amazing audition pieces for Britain's Got Talent that used some songs from the musical. For whatever reason, the word that stood out when bouncing between videos was "risk".

Going back to the 1980's, I'm sure the entire endeavor of a musical based on a novel set in 19th century France including the June Rebellion was a huge risk for all of those involved. Obviously, we know now that the musical has gone on to be wildly successful (including the original production currently being the fifth longest-running show on Broadway), but apparently the initial reviews were negative towards the literary adaption. Fortunately, the public was more supportive of the musical in its infancy, but I can only imagine how difficult it would have been to read those first reviews knowing the time, effort, and money that went into the production.

Switching to the Britain's Got Talent videos, those performers also had to encounter risk by putting their talents to the test in front of large crowds with high expectations. One of the videos was Susan Boyle's first audition with "I Have a Dream" and it's so easy to tell that before she started to sing, no one believed in her. Even still, she told herself that she has what it takes and ended up becoming a world-wide star. The other video was a self-proclaimed "boy band" that used the song "Stars" to bust the perceptions the judges had about them, despite the risk.

I know that a lot of factors can cause someone to make those leaps of faith, but I'd like to think that one of those reasons is someone realizing "yeah, I'm done being complacent. Let's do something new" and then they went off and did it. I've had that mental revelation before, although it's had less-than-magnificent follow-through. I know that it comes down to making that decision day after day and seeing what you can do to avoid the stagnation and simply push the limits. It can be a scary thought, but at the same time, it's also not worth to simply skim by with life and not expand more.

I didn't do anything too significant for a particular holiday today, although I did think about the license plate game. Michelle and I play it when we visit one another, although it's more challenging in Ohio because there around a handful of pretty common plate designs from Ohio alone. Normally, when we play the game, one of us spots something really out there like a Canadian province or a non-North American country, but nothing that momentous has happened since the summer. Looking at tomorrow's holidays, we have Hug an Australian Day, Mother, Father Deaf Day, and National Pretzel Day.

DFTBA