Tuesday, February 10, 2015

Do You Remember When I Was In a Movie Musical?

It's been awhile since I've done an installment of Lori's Crazy Dreams. I mean, really, it's been awhile since I've written much about anything aside from my broken heart. But last night I dreamed a totally bizarre little fantasy. Before I start off with my actual dream, let me explain something to you.

Long before the entire world knew the name Idina Menzel/Adele Dazeem, I knew it. Don't get me wrong, there were still a lot of people who knew who she was, but she was a theatre person name, not a household name. I heard her voice ring out of my speakers on a Broadway original cast album and I fell head over heels in love.

At that point, in the fall of 1999, you could find a small amount of information about her on the Internet. She hadn't been Elsa yet. She hadn't even been Elphaba. She was just a Broadway actress. This was long before she won a Tony. Long before I flew to New York City to see her in an off-Broadway show. Long before my husband and I saw her in concert. Still, all of those things happened long before she Let It Go and became a name that everyone except John Travolta knows.

On the one hand, I'm happy for her and obviously it shows what good taste I have in artists. But, on the other hand, I want to be like, "WHERE WERE ALL OF YOU "FANS" IN 1999? GET OFF MY THEATRE BANDWAGON YOU MAINSTREAM DISNEY HACKS!" But, well, mostly I'm super thrilled because I'VE LOVED HER FOR SO LONG.

Okay. I'm climbing down off my soap box now. So, the dream.

You guys, I was in a movie musical with Idina Menzel! This is absolutely and utterly ridiculous. I mean, I woke up and for the first time I didn't think, "I'm a sad mess because my daughter died." I thought, "That was gut-busting hilarious. How ridiculous." So what we've learned here is that Idina Menzel has magical dream powers that move me a fraction of a step in the right direction on the grief timeline. But, also...gut-busting.

Listen. Idina Menzel has an incredible set of golden pipes. Her tone is often so gorgeous that it sends chills straight down my spine. Oh to be able to sing like that. (And I am hardly referring to Frozen here but to her body of work as a whole.) My pipes are like rusty sewer pipes that, when I'm not being self-deprecating, are passable at best. They allowed me to be cast in exactly one musical in college. In this dream, I did not suddenly sing well enough to be cast opposite Idina Menzel. Nope. She had her voice and I had mine and somehow we were in a musical together.

That's not really even the dream though. The dream took place at the very end of the very last day of filming and even though I had spent weeks filming with my Broadway girl-crush, I suddenly felt very much like I needed to have my picture taken with her. But I did not want it to come across like I was the weird fan girl that I am and so I tried to be all nonchalant about it. "Idina, why don't we take a picture together to commemorate this last day of filming..." so that I can hang it on my wall and pretend that we are best friends forever and also show it to my friends and family and great-grandchildren for always and FOREVER! And Idina was like, "Yeah, sure." Because, while I'm quite positive she was also wondering how I'd managed to be cast in this movie musical, she was, at least, being a professional and we had spent the last many weeks as coworkers.

Here's the weird thing, though. (Because nothing else about this dream has been so far at all.) We were in the middle of the desert. The entire film crew was gone. There was one dude left and I think he was from craft service. All I had was my phone and at first we were trying to do a selfie together. Which, was cool because I HAD MY ARM AROUND IDINA MENZEL AND MY FACE PUSHED UP AGAINST HERS AND EVEN THOUGH IT WAS A DREAM I MIGHT NEVER WASH MY FACE AGAIN. But it was simultaneously not cool because part of my face was missing or one of our heads looked enormous while the other one looked tiny or every other selfie problem. I could sense she really wanted to go and so we snapped another one but it somehow only had her hair in it and I said to myself, "No one will believe I made a movie with Idina Menzel if only her hair is in my phone selfie." So. Never mind the fact that WE MADE A MOVIE TOGETHER ON ACTUAL FILM THAT WAS ACTUALLY GOING TO BE SEEN IN THEATERS.

Then Idina Menzel said, "I should go get Walker." (Walker is her son, for those of you who haven't Internet stalked her in the ways that I have during these past 16 years.) And then I was like, "Oh. Yeah. Me too. I mean, not Walker. I don't have a kid named Walker. But I do have my own sons to get back to. I have sons." She laughed, "I know." And she kind of pushed me a little bit like we were actually friends because, well, we'd been filming together for weeks. So it would seem, in this dream, that Idina Menzel somehow thought of me as a coworker and/or friend while I somehow thought of myself as an awkward stalker. So she started to walk away and I shrieked, "Hey...Guy...come take our picture!" (You guys, I was SO painful.)

So then, this poor craft services guy comes over and tries to take our picture and for whatever reason, he could not figure out how to use my phone. He was bumbling around with it and accidentally calling people and I kept trying to show him how to make it work and then Idina started laughing and then I was laughing and suddenly I wasn't SUPER FAN GIRL PRETENDING NOT TO BE SUPER FAN GIRL anymore. I was Idina Menzel's friend. Albeit, her much less talented friend.

From now on I'm going to say things like, "Remember when I was in a movie musical with Idina Menzel?" And you are all going to reply with, "Yes we do!" Because it has dramatically improved my mood today and I'm going to go ahead and take what I can get. After three weeks of waking up every day and thinking about how Kate is gone, I woke up and thought about what a geek I am and also how cool it would be to make a movie musical with my most favorite Broadway star.

So, do you guys all remember when I was in a movie musical with Idina Menzel?

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