I love musical theater, and am always a little wary of those who say that they hate it. I remember well the day that Tony Macarome, - one of my brother Steven’s cool jazz musician friends - patronizingly told me why he hated musicals. “People don’t just burst into song.” He praised the ironic detachment of jazz. For him, that is what life was all about: cool.

“Cool” made no sense to me. In my world, people did randomly start singing. I certainly did. I watched West Side Story, riveted - that opening number with the finger snapping and the fancy footwork was pure hotness in the guise of cool. But, admittedly, it took me awhile to find others like me. As a gay boy putting on a brave face in Windsor Park, a typical suburb of Winnipeg, I knew that I’d never quite belong there, that I had a secret that differentiated me. And then there are the touchstone moments in one’s life. I remember the 1980 Grammy Awards, and seeing a strangely costumed Patti LuPone singing “Don’t Cry For Me, Argentina” from Evita. She was so strange and larger than life and made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. I understood the yearning in the lyrics and the striving in the lyrics.

I wanted so much more from the world - oh, how I wanted it. I started taking the bus to the downtown Winnipeg Public Library and took out every cast recording I could get my hands on. I remember being eleven years old, listening to “Soon, Now, Later” from A Little Night Music, and as the gorgeous counterpoint swelled, I understood what each of those people wanted. The “I want” song is generally one of the first songs in a musical. Admittedly, when I was growing up, these songs of yearning were always my favorite, but nowadays they are the ones most likely to make me quietly sob into my tie. I pine in desperation for Cinderella to get her prince, Sweeney Todd to get his revenge, Sally to get her moment in the spotlight, Bobby to get whatever the hell it is that straight men want, Maria to get her Tony as Juliet wanted her Romeo. That’s when I sorted out that we all want something - and our lives are about seeking that thing. But in life as in art, it turns out that you don’t always get what you want - and that there are others who actively don’t want us to get what we want.

Those are the people you meet in the murky middle of musicals as well as in life - the witches, the greedy businessmen, the tyrant bosses, the domineering mothers - witness the intrigue, the complications. How they stand in your way from fully being who you want to be. The bullies, the corporate stooges, the vampires who undermine your spirit and sow despair everywhere they turn.

The theater taught me that there was always a way to defeat these people. There is a way to defeat despair, whether it comes from without or within. Now, every night I can steal away, I learn it again, whether I am in the front row of the theater or in my basement by the hi-fi ready to scream warnings and spoilers that might help the hapless characters avoid all the pain and confusion.

Nobody writes the murky middle songs better than Stephen Sondheim. Consider the lyrics of “On the Steps of the Palace” from Into the Woods. Cinderella sorts out the possibilities for herself as she sits stuck in the pitch that the Prince has spread on the steps:

It’s your first big decision,

The choice isn’t easy to make.

To arrive at a ball is exciting and all—

Once you’re there, though, it’s scary.

And it’s fun to deceive when you know you can leave,

But you have to be wary.

There’s a lot that’s at stake,

But you’ve stalled long enough,

’Cause you’re still standing stuck

In the stuff on the steps…

Because from Cinderella’s dilemma - in her fear and uncertainty of how to act - comes the realization that it might just be possible to get what she wants… but it won’t be easy. She is going to have to work the prince before he works her over. That is where Sondheim’s lyrics contain such insight and such complicated wisdom.

The older you get, the murkier the middle becomes. The struggles mount and the confusions increase. And, to be clear, all these struggles take their toll. And so many people let you down along the way. We can only take so much before our spirits sink and, to quote the Baker, also from Into the Woods, plead for less of the troubles that face us: “All the witches, all the curses, all the wolves, all the lies, the false hopes, the goodbyes, the reverses… all the wondering what even worse is still in store. Please, no more.”

Now, as I settle into my mid-forties, there is a type of song that newly resonates with me in a much more profound way: the song that I long for, albeit hesitantly: the eleven-o’clock number. Our plucky heroine finally allows herself to let loose, to truly reckon with what she has learned in the struggle - the last chance, as it were, to get what she wants - or to understand what the act of attempting to get what she wants might cost: for Rose in Gypsy, her turn on the stage; for Dot in Sunday in the Park with George, helping George to trust his art and to articulate what’s next; for Desiree in A Little Night Music, to finally get her clowns but not the man she loves. In that moment, I always hold my breath, waiting to learn the lesson. Teach me, please. Show me the way. The greatest teacher I’ve ever had, Kay Unruh des Roches, taught me at the University of Winnipeg that the world falls apart daily, but it also might just come back together. I live in that “might” - the gift that we have all been given. The artists who have created these moments for us have been brave enough to engage in our world, to bare themselves in front of the doubters, the cynics and the too-cool-for-school types.

I learned from my fellow disciple Sharon at the tender age of sixteen. She and I sat in my basement and first thrilled to the complicated adult world of Company. We were so sophisticated. We became wise beyond our years as we struggled to make sense of Sondheim’s vision of being a grown-up.

It was Stephen Sondheim who woke me up. He taught me that there is a way to survive all of the moments in the woods. Two songs in particular have buoyed me through my life: From Company, the eleven-o’clock number, “Being Alive”: “Somebody crowd me with love. Somebody force me to care. Somebody let me come through, I’ll always be there, as frightened as you to help us survive, being alive.” And finally the song that I sing inside my head every day of my life: the final song between Georges Seurat and his muse from Sunday in the Park with George: “I chose and my world was shaken, so what. The choice may have been mistaken, but the choosing was not… Anything you do let it come from you, then it will be new. Give us more to see.”

Stephen Sondheim, you gave me the conviction that art just might save us all, as your musicals saved me. I am truly blessed and duly grateful to have had you as a guide - to see what can happen if you fully try to engage, and how to deal with those who are waiting to smack you down. From your songs I have learned what I thought I wanted, and what I actually want.

What I most need from you - as I need from all artists - is for you to stay true to your vision, to keep doing the heavy lifting, to show me what’s next. Thanks for writing the greatest articulation of faith in the American musical tradition: West Side Story’s “Somewhere,” which reminds us “There’s a place for us, somewhere.”

For me, that’s in a theater, or in my childhood basement, experiencing a Sondheim show. Thank you, sir, for giving me what I want.