A Bite of the Big Apple: Broadway and Inspiration
The Big Apple, the Concrete Jungle, the City that Never Sleeps. All nicknames for the bustling, chaotic melting pot that is New York city. I have visited it many times, mostly because my parents were born and raised there, and we have visited family in New York since I was a kid. However, in the past three months, I have had the wonderful opportunity to go back to the City of Dreams (twice!) as an adult, with my best friend Chris.
Chris and I have long been obsessed with musicals and Broadway. I can remember belting out the soundtrack to Teen Beach Movie with them in middle school, and as we got older, we continued to sing songs from Hamilton, Be More Chill, Dear Evan Hansen, and more in our beautiful off-key harmonies. Now, as adults, we can experience Broadway in the flesh, just the two of us!
The first time we travelled to New York together was in January 2025. Chris called me up, told me I was going to the city with them whether I wanted to or not, and whisked me away. We packed as many Broadway shows as we could into our short trip. We saw Hadestown, Romeo and Juliet, and The Great Gatsby. Nothing could have prepared me for the incredible experiences of those shows. I cried, I laughed, I gasped, and I even yelped once.
This time, on our April trip, we saw Moulin Rouge and Little Shop of Horrors. It was as though I had never left the dark theaters of the shows in January. I was right back in front of a brilliant stage, beautiful sets and talented actors unfurling a story before my eyes with passion and beauty.
Leaving the theater is like emerging from hibernation. The city air hits your face, the smell of smoke and food trucks rolling through the streets, and the bustling of cars, busses, and bikes blends with the chatter of the exiting audience. Bright lights and moving billboards flash around you, but nothing can distract from the fullness you feel. That bubbling joy and excitement of having just seen a Broadway musical with your best friend is one that is impossible to distract from. And I should know, because I happened to be extremely sick for the trip in January, and even still nothing could have quelled the joy of seeing those shows with Chris.
* Funny side note, because I cannot tell the story of the January trip without TRULY telling it: I was SO sick. I was throwing up in planters and bags along the streets, in a bag in the corners of the Broadway museum, and even on the plane and in the airport. I also had a torn tendon in my foot, which was definitely horrible timing as we walked everywhere we went, as well as an aggravated back injury. And yet, we walked to every show, I made it through each one without vomiting, and I now have a funny anecdote that I obviously tell everyone that will listen about my first NYC trip with my bestie. That just goes to show: if you want it badly enough, you will get there! Okay, back to the scheduled program. ;) *
Chris also happens to be a writer, which meant that after every show, we could talk for hours afterward about the explosive talent and creativity of the shows and stories, these discussions often ending only because we could no longer find any more ways to say, “I’m inspired”.
While neither of us are - or plan to be - playwrights or directors, Chris and I still glean inspiration from the Broadway shows we have been so lucky to experience. As writers, we (meaning you, too!) can and do draw inspiration from anything and everything. You might be wondering; did the Broadway shows inspire in you a story? Did the song lyrics spark a plot point? Is your next protagonist going to look like the lead actor in the show? While these are all valid and entirely plausible inspirations and ideas, It is not necessarily what I mean when I say that I came out of those shows inspired.
The creativity and passion of the show itself, regardless of the plot or song choices, is what truly crawls under my flesh and nests, waiting for my reaction. From the moment the lights go off and the stage brightens, my mind is alive. The music, costumes, and dancing reach out, tempting my mind with their tendrils of passion. The feelings a show can wrestle from the audience, the ways in which a story can be told through music, costume, and twirling, leaping bodies across a stage is where the true inspiration lies for me.
After watching a Broadway show, it is all I can do to sit silently and allow my brain to whirr. The pure energy of the performance is what truly grabs me, I think. The dazzling energy of the show entices me, and all I can think is how someday, maybe, I would like my writing to make someone feel this way. Watching the vigor and joy with which the actors perform only influences me to find joy and purpose within my own creativity.
I think it is a beautiful thing, how inspirational many forms of art can be to artists, even if the media is so different. A surefire way to begin crawling from the ashes of a writing slump is to consume media, in my opinion, and I was lucky enough to do so with my best friend, in NYC, watching Broadway shows!
Now that I’m home from the trip, fully satiated and Broadway- full, I feel such an urge to create. It’s funny how no matter how different Broadway plays are from writing a novel, the two somehow converge and shake hands in the territory of my mind. So thank you, Chris, for making those trips possible AND for making them incredibly fun and totally unforgettable! And thank you for providing me with more inspiration right when I needed it!
I will forever carry with me the feeling those shows left me with, and I feel that I will spend my life chasing that high so I can share it with my own audience one day.
See you next time, Broadway!
