When is a theater performance over? Is it when the final line is spoken? Or when the actors take their final bow? Or when the audience stops talking about and thinking about the show? Winnie Holzman’s Choice makes a convincing case for the latter.

What is it that makes us simplify ourselves for others? How hard do we follow the dream of being uncomplicated, free of our mess of contradictions, so that we might have a story about ourselves, and about a world we’re sure we know how to change?

Different hair, different woman, different decade...but it hurts just the same. And that right there is the key to women’s country music—thank you Dolly! The details might be different, but it’s all the same story, and that story is by, about, to, and for other women.

Whether looking at a painting, reading a poem, or going out on the town, we encounter inspiration that moves us, oftentimes literally. I was reminded that the identity of ‘dancer’ has no barriers, no prerequisites. As long as we are moving, we are dancing. 

Applying an economic perspective to Dreamgirls adds depth to analyzing the allure of its characters and their potential success. The musical invites academic curiosity by raising questions about demand prediction. For me, it also illuminates the importance of human values, raising an issue not typically pondered: Must we resign ourselves to frustration and conflict if we anticipate being less desired in the marketplace?

This October, we shared  a temporary, never-again-to-be-experienced musical rendition in a shared space, shoulder to shoulder with our fellow audience members. Live music is a full body experience, Coco is a full emotional experience, and theater-going is a fully shared experience.

Most of us will never receive the gift of a neat third act that tidies the loose ends of family mysteries and answers questions we have carried with us. We learn to live with our unknowns, carrying them, sorting them, and passing them down. Some of us carry histories of violence, trauma, and dehumanization. Others of us struggle to find a place to belong, our feet placed in homes separated by oceans and/or geopolitical borders. Some of us yearn for dreams we cannot articulate, hopes we cannot speak aloud because no one has cared to listen before.