So Much Sondheim. Too Much Trump and Elon.

A night on Broadway, a trip through memory, and a reminder of what we’re fighting for.

Manhattan Theatre Club’s “Stephen Sondheim’s Old Friends” on Broadway with Bernadette Peters and a stellar cast blew me away last night.

I had no plans to go. At 7pm, my wife—who has a subscription—told me she couldn’t make it. So I went in her stead. Begrudgingly. You know, once I’m home, settled in front of my iPad and a good Columbo from 1974, I’m hard to move.

But one of life’s underrated blessings? I can make it to a Broadway theatre in 15 minutes flat thanks to the Bentley of E-scooters, which glides over NYC’s often lunar terrain like it was designed for it.

On the way there, I found myself grinning at the absurd (and deeply satisfying) feud between Trump and Musk. Now don’t get me wrong—both have done their fair share to shred the fabric of civilization (depending on your perspective)—but I was pulling for Musk. Finally, someone with the gall and the wallet to stand up to the Sith Emperor himself. Chapter 2 of that mess plays out today, but I digress…

I arrived, sat down, the lights dimmed—and the magic began.

You see, I had a life before the life that was before my current life. In that life, I was an actor (not great), a singer (pretty good), and a dancer (an embarrassment). Still, somehow I landed in an Off-Broadway show, Strider: The (Chekhov) Story of a Horse, which improbably moved to Broadway.

So when I look at a Broadway stage, I remember.

It didn’t take long—not even the first number—when Bernadette Peters emerged, the current First Lady of the American stage, looking (from my seat at least) just as she did forty years ago. The stamina. The voice. The grace. It was insane. She inspired me.

But while the show unfolded—song after stunning song—my mind drifted.

I thought of my Broadway days. Of the actors beside me. The excitement. The rehearsals. The fatigue. The ritual of showing up, staying strong, giving your best night after night. I thought about who I was back then—fresh out of college, curious, uncertain, broke, and full of fire.

I thought of being a straight guy in a world that was, to me, newly queer and vivid and alive. It was a different time. I didn’t always understand what I saw, but I never judged it. It was life. It was theatre. It was real. And yes, at gatherings, we all sang—Sondheim. Always Sondheim.

One night, Stephen Sondheim himself came to Strider. So as an actor in that cast, I had a moment with him. He saw me parading across the stage dressed as a gypsy. And a horse. Wow. What a memory!

And as these memories surfaced, so did the present. The chaos. The headlines. The small tragedies and large-scale absurdities of our world today.

Why can’t the world be a Sondheim musical?

Why can’t we all just be characters in some exquisitely orchestrated tale—delivering clever patter songs and devastating ballads, full of yearning, humor, heartbreak, and hope? Why must we endure so much idiocy and cruelty, when we could be bathing in harmony and meaning?

Watching Old Friends gave me something I didn’t know I needed: joy. A deep joy. One rooted in excellence and care. In talented people giving everything they’ve got—night after night—to remind us what it means to be human.

And as I left the theatre, I thought:

This is the world that once was for me. That still could be—crafted with care, complexity, and humanity.

Not the rage-driven circus we’re drowning in. Not the cheap spectacle. Not the endless shouting match led by narcissists and sociopaths with Twitter accounts.

The world I saw on that stage had harmony, depth, grace, wit, heartbreak, and joy.

The world outside the theatre door feels like a fever dream from which no one wakes.

So I’ll hold onto Sondheim’s world a little longer.

Because in a time of too much Trump and too little truth, maybe the only revolution left is to keep singing, in tune, in time, and on purpose.

Shabbat Shalom!