ESSAY • YOU. ARE. CREATIVE // WELLNESS, WORK, ART, MEMOIR
This year, give yourself permission.
Andrew Garfield as Jonathan Larson in Tick, Tick…Boom! Photo via Frame.io Insider.
I was 20 years old when I first saw the musical Rent. At the Royal Alexandra Theatre in Toronto, there was a promotion for students and “starving artists” where if you lined up for tickets, you could get a seat in the first three rows for just 20 dollars. My friends and I sat in those first three rows and we were transfixed by the performance of this bohemian musical — we were so close we had to dodge the saliva that bounced from the singers’ mouths as they sang Jonathan Larson’s words.
Forget regret, or life is yours to miss…
This musical experience changed me. It began to unlock something inside of me that I think I’ve been trying to open up my whole life — the key sometimes gets stuck, but I’m still working on it.
A few years after I saw Rent, I found myself in a large gymnasium somewhere in Toronto with three rows of trained singer-dancers who actually knew what they were doing in front of me. On either side of me were a few people like me who could carry a tune, but could barely keep up in an aerobics class, let alone in a dance audition.
This was round two of auditions to be a summer performer at Canada’s Wonderland, a theme park just north of Toronto. We back row “dancers” had been praised for our singing (round 1), and just mere moments ago narrowly survived learning the steps that we would soon be asked to perform to the sounds of Prince’s “Kiss”. We looked at each other with fear in our eyes and when the music started to play, we just went for it.
You don’t have to be cool to rule my world
What happened next was akin to what you might see at 1:30 a.m. on a wedding dancefloor or in a jazz class full of toddlers. While the trained dancers around us stepped and gyrated perfectly in time to the sounds of Prince’s sultry voice, it was all we could do to not trample each others’ toes or tumble to the floor.
I was bolder back then — and something inside told me to just go for it.
When the song ended, we knew it was over for us. There was simply no chance we’d be spending our summers singing for families and kids in between their roller coaster adventures and funnel cake snacks. As the other dancers stretched, sipped water, and jogged quickly across the squeaky floor to the sides of the room, I remember simply standing and looking in the eyes of one of my back-row buddies, who playfully raised his eyebrows in defeat. I answered him with a quick shoulder shrug. No words were needed as we both burst out laughing and collapsed into a hug that told each other “well, we tried.”
Looking back, I don’t know how I had the audacity to audition for such a gig. I have never been good at following choreography — and I’m not even a trained singer! A youth spent singing around summer campfires, on a high school stage, and a few performances at university open mic nights had led me to believe I could sing pop covers and get paid for it.
I was bolder back then — and something inside told me to just go for it. I hadn’t yet heard this quote at this point in my life, but it was as if I was hearing the words of Dr. Wayne W. Dyer who said,
Don’t die with the music still in you.
I’ve always had the “music” in me — call it creativity, art — whatever you call it, it’s been there. I can think back to many moments throughout my life when my “music” was sometimes tapping, other times banging on the door for me to let it out. Sometimes I’ve silenced it, tried to dull it, or was simply too stressed, anxious, or depressed to even hear it. But here and there, my art overpowered me and simply had to be let out. It took many forms: a coffee table book, a poem written for a friend, a jump into acting classes, or something as simple as a beautifully decorated dining table.
The decision to give yourself permission to be creative, to be an artist, to share that music inside of you doesn’t have to start on the 1st day of the year, but perhaps the first step inside your mind to access your gifts and begin to muster up the courage to share them could.
I hope this piece inspires you to start that journey within.
My own journey to embrace and share my creativity has been inspired by the work of other artists, in film, literature, and so many other mediums. I’m drawn to stories about artists who do whatever it takes, at all costs, to let their “music” out. The film Tick, Tick… Boom! tells such a story — and I dare you to watch it and not feel inspired to go and create your own art.
Creativity is in all of us, but for those of us who feel called to share it, the hardest part is having the courage to put our art out into the world.
The film is based on the life of musical theatre genius songwriter Jonathan Larsen, so it’s chock full of witty, thoughtful, passionate, and timeless songs. It stars everyone’s favourite celebrity boyfriend Andrew Garfield, who gives his all to every single frame — he also learned to sing and play the piano in order to play the role. Also, Tick, Tick…Boom! is directed beautifully by perhaps the only other musical theatre songwriter who could possibly imagine even a small part of what Jonathan Larson himself might have done if he directed it: Lin Manuel Miranda.
For me, however, the best thing about this film is that it allows viewers (and listeners) to go inward and access that creative part of themselves, to call forth the “music” that is inside of them, and start to reflect on how to embrace their own creativity, and to simply try.
In her book, Big Magic, Elizabeth Gilbert states it plainly:
If you’re alive, you’re a creative person.
I think about this quote a lot. So many of us seem to seek some sort of permission to be artists, to create — when really the only permission we need is our own. So many of us don’t even think we’re creative at all! For me, creativity can come in so many forms, not just through traditional artistic mediums. Art is everywhere — it’s in the art of a conversation, the creative thinking it takes to solve a problem, and the empathy people access when they help others. Creativity is in all of us, but for those of us who feel called to share it, the hardest part is having the courage to put our art out into the world.
Back to Tick, Tick…Boom! for a moment — Garfield as Larson sings,
Cages or wings, which do you prefer? Ask the birds. Fear or love baby don’t say the answer, actions speak louder than words.
This piece is my attempt to begin again to take more action. To write more, to create more, to dream more, and to work to continue to bring my “music” into the world. My most obvious tool seems to be the pen (or the keyboard) — but I look forward to seeing where my pen leads me this year and every year after to explore creativity in many forms.
To quote another favourite creative actor, Ethan Hawke,
Art is not a luxury — it’s sustenance — it’s the way we heal each other. In singing our song, in telling our story, in inviting you to say hey, listen to me and I’ll listen to you — we’re starting a dialogue…and when you do that, this healing happens. There's no path until you walk it — and you have to be willing to play the fool.
So, let’s walk that path — and see where it leads!
All I know for sure is that I don’t plan to attend another dance audition, but I do look forward to continuing to find new ways to share my “music”.
Yours playing the fool,
Heather
Medium, January 2023.