the girl in the front row

Good theater destroys my posture. It's just a fact. The more into it I get, the more my arms fold in on themselves, my spine rounds, and my shoulders creep up until my whole being is reaching towards the stage in front of me. I am not a passive audience. My face in engaged, my mind is engaged, my heart is engaged. That actor must have worked so hard to make that movement so smooth. What must that character be thinking?

Good theater never lasts long enough. It is my greatest critique about the art form. Sure, I'm familiar with the theory that all good things must come to an end, I remember my father saying something about union laws, and my mother pointed out that at some point the performers have to go home, but still. It's like having the most beautiful snapshot flashed in front of your face and then being asked to simply hold on to the memory forever.

I once heard that every time we remember something we are in fact only remembering the last time we thought about it, which means that every time we recall our favorite show we are changing it just a little bit more from the way we experienced it the first time. I hate this idea. I want to be able to preserve the memory in my brain forever; pristine and unchanged. I think this is where my  habit of needing radio silence after a show comes from.

After a good musical, I don't want to listen to anything. Not the show's album, not un-intrusive elevator music, not humming. Nothing. Just the memory of the performance that I just saw. I just want to sit cross legged by myself on my bed and recount the night. Which is what I am now doing. Except this time I'm letting you in on the process.

For those of you who don't know, the Hamilton lottery, or the Ham4Ham, as many affectionately call it, is kind of the highlight of the theater world right now. The show's creator, the brilliant Lin Manuel-Miranda, noticed that the show's lottery (a free name-drawing experience where 21 front row seats are given away for ten dollars cash each) was attracting hundreds of people every night that were going home empty handed. He decided that he wanted to do something for these fans that believed so strongly in him and his show.  Before each lottery drawing he and a few members of the cast would come out in front of the theater and do a small five minute performance. Gradually, more and more people from many of the Broadway stages came to perform.

I have gone to the lottery about five to seven times. It is unbelievable how many people show up for the chance to see this show, and rightfully so. I read somewhere that the statistically if you enter the lottery around 15 times, chances are the odds will turn in your favor.

My chance came unexpectedly, when my cousin came to town, and decided that it would have been silly to get tickets to go see anything else. We sat in the very back row of the mezzanine. From an arial view, the show is magical. From any view, I'm sure.

The thing about Hamilton is that I haven't really been able to express the over all good that the show does. It's not just that it is good. There's more to it. And since I can't find the words to appropriately convey that yet, talking about it at all feels almost sacrilegious. Even this feels wrong.

Anyway. It was a good night. We got to meet the cast afterwards and Jasmine Cephas Jones told me she liked my hair. I feel like I've mentioned that one before.

I ran home and bought the album. I called my family and told them to listen to it. I went back to the lottery.

Eventually, a friend came to visit. We tried the lottery a few times, but think about the luck we would have needed to succeed. Eventually we grabbed a couple of the extra Playbills off of my shelf and headed to the Richard Rodgers theater anyway right around the time we knew the show would be letting out. Armed with unmatched enthusiasm and the knowledge that my friend would only be in town for a few more days and that she loved the show more than most of the people who had been in the audience anyway, we stood by the stage door and waited.

Jasmine Cephas Jones told me she liked my hair. Again. Jonathan Groff said that he liked my hat. Daveed Diggs agreed with him. My friend informed Daveed, the actor who plays Thomas Jefferson, of my childhood crush on his character in the show (weird, I know, but very true. We won't go into it. Except to say that he was a 6"2 redhead who invented the swivel chair and once thought he embarrassed himself in front of a girl and gave himself a migraine for two days. Anyway). He was... let's say... intrigued? Nah. Weirded out. He was weirded out.

My friend went back home. I went back to the lottery.

This weekend my parents are visiting. My mom and I decided to go to the lottery together. My dad tagged along, but he was already planning to see a friend of his perform in a venue up a few blocks. My mom had set up tickets for us to see a different show, just because of the unlikely nature of the lottery. Or any lottery, for that matter. When we arrived at the scene, the line was down the block. And then it curved around into the street. Twice.

"I still think we're gonna win," my mom smiled. I laughed. Whatever the outcome, the Ham4Ham show was always worth it.

Eventually, after we had dropped our name in the infamous Hamilton bucket, we ventured into 46th street to try and find a place to stand. NYPD roamed the streets, trying to corral the people into an area behind a few gates so that the traffic didn't have to stop. It wasn't working. There were so many people in the street that trucks stopped to yell at them (us? We tried to stay out of the way) with a few colorful choice words that don't need to be repeated here.

The first ridiculous thing that happened was that we ran into a college friend of my mother's who now works at NYU Tisch, in my studio. That in itself was a wild coincidence. The next sentence I hear is

"I just gotta say, I love Triptych."

I whipped my head around. The man talking to me was probably in his mid to late twenties. He was looking straight at me, and I was pretty sure I hadn't misheard him. All I could do was stare with my jaw on the ground. Triptych is the band I have back home with my boyfriend and my little brother, and it's been a while since we've played out. The fact that someone in another state knew us by name was... a little on the unlikely side.

"I saw you guys play at 3rd and Lindsley," he said, referencing a bar in downtown Nashville. "I think I also saw you in a show down in Dickson... A Christmas Carol?? I'm not stalking you, I swear," he laughed.

Turns out he recognized my parents on the street and then recognized me, and he had had a friend in A Christmas Carol, too. What kind of a minuscule world is that?

Our conversation was cut short when Lin Manuel-Miranda came out of the doors of the theater, followed by the entire cast of Broadway's On Your Feet. After a wonderful (if not a little challenging to hear--a product of the hundreds of people and angry drivers) performance of a song from In The Heights, the man behind the table in front of the theater started pulling names.

And--we all know where this is going-- I won.

I didn't even register the first time they called my name. Just as I had all the other times, I was merely there for the fun of it. For the electric thrill of hearing other people scream when they hear their name against all odds. The idea that the name would be mine hadn't really occurred to me. I was listening as if I were at someone else's school graduation. But there it was: my name, hanging in the air in front of the Richard Rodgers Theater.
Well, sort of.

"Kayla Wooten?" the man behind the table called.

"Huh," I thought. "That one sounds familiar."  Then my mom screamed.

"Kaila that's you!" She yelled, and I felt two hands guiding me through the crowd towards the table.

Then it hit.

I remember all of my breath falling out of my lungs like one gigantic waterfall.

"Whaaaat?!!?!" Who knows whether it was a yell or a scream. I half walked half fell towards the theater. My hands were shaking.

I stood in a line of eleven people on the steps of the theater while they checked our IDs and took the ticket money. We exchanged excited stories about how sure we had been that we weren't going to win anything today. My parents cheered me on. I was downright jittery.

A man walked down the line, handing out wristbands with the date on them and a tiny Hamilton star.

"You can take these off after intermission," he said, dryly.

"But... can I just wear mine forever?" I asked. Immediately I kicked myself. Play it cool, you dork. The man laughed.

"Yeah, it's totally up to you." (It's still on my wrist)

The front row of the Richard Rodgers theater puts you at eye level with the floor of the stage. I could touch it from my seat. Sitting down. (I did)

Here is a misconception that I had about large theaters: I formerly believed that in a gigantic theater, the lights are simply too bright for any human onstage to see the people sitting in the audience. This seems to be incorrect.

The first thing that Anthony Ramos did when he walked out onstage in the first number was look me straight in the eyes. I was not ready.

I thought I was imagining it at first, but by the third time I was convinced. Next was Lin. His nervous nineteen-year-old Hamilton kept making eye contact with the girl in the front row. Then Andrew Rannells sang at me. Then a boy in the ensemble. I turned to my mother during intermission.

"They keep looking at us. Are they looking at us, or is it just me?" I asked her.

"They're looking at you," she told me, which was just a little more than I could handle.

I want to take a moment to point out that I am not italicizing the term Hamilton for the sole reason that it feels like it is something bigger than just a musical and I'm not sure what is grammatically correct in a situation like that.

After the show we waited at the stage door.

Daveed didn't even remember the Thomas Jefferson debacle (Did you know that he loved vanilla ice cream and had mockingbirds? Actual mockingbirds.), so I guess I didn't scar him too badly. Jasmine didn't mention my hair again, but I suppose we can't have everything.

And then Anthony Ramos walked my way.

"You were the girl in the front row, right?" he asked. I know that breathing is supposedly a normal thing that we all just know how to do, but I swear in that moment I forgot how.

"Stage right?" he asked. I nodded. "I loved your energy--you were giving me life. That's dope!" (He says 'dope' a lot. It's adorable.)

I know that I said enough words to get him to take a picture with me, but I can't for the life of me remember what they were. I hope they sounded normal.

Then Lin came out.

"Hey!!!! Front row!" he grinned at me. "You were the best audience--you had the best facial reactions!"

I kid you not, Lin Manuel-Miranda then proceeded to imitate my facial reactions to his performance. He put his hands on both cheeks and tried to make his face look like mine. He said more words too, (He spoke actual words in reflection on his memories of me, because he has those now. Memories of me.) but to be honest, I'm having a hard time remembering what they were, because of the fact that my heart was racing and I was having an extremely hard time keeping a handle on my emotions.

Basically, this is another episode describing the ridiculously amazing ways in which the universe is taking care of me, as I hope it has been taking care of us all. I hope it knows that I am extremely and eternally grateful.

Your obedient servant,
K. Woot

(^ Get it? A Hamilton reference? Yeah.  I'll see myself out.)