(Image: Smith Center for the Arts https://thesmith.org/event-calendar/les-miserables/2018-07-14/)

By: Krystal Leung

My early experiences with musicals were unfavorable.  

I remember sitting on my living room carpet, staring up at my TV that almost always played Disney Channel when I had control over the remote. Every time High School Musical re-runs played, I instinctively switched the channel to literally anything else.  

Don’t worry though, I wasn’t uncultured. I was a fan of the classics: Mulan, Beauty and the Beast – heck, I even adored VeggieTales. While my friends obsessed over Troy and Gabriella’s fated romance, I was too busy playing video games because I was “unconventional” like that. So, you heard it here first. My fourth-grade self was FAR ahead of the good ole “I’m not like other girls” trend.  

My entire perspective on musicals changed, however, in December of 2012 when my parents and I went to see the Les Misérables movie. Typically, I wouldn’t have been interested, but hey, I was a huge Anne Hathaway fan, so I at least had to see it if only for my homeslice Anne.  

That night, I left the movie theater in awe. The swelling overtures and passionate soliloquies of Claude-Michel Schönberg’s masterpiece captured every millisecond of my attention. My YouTube watch history for the following weeks was comprised of Broadway recordings or miscellaneous performances of Les Misérables. Eventually, I happened upon my favorite rendition of the musical amid my YouTube expedition.  

In hindsight, perhaps it was unfair to the entire musical community to use High School Musical as my benchmark for quality. Though I think we can all forgive my younger self for not figuring it out sooner. 

You never really know what exists out there – be it in the realm of academia, art, music, etc. –until you stumble upon it through Google searches, Wikipedia deep-dives, friend recommendations, or pure chance.

You don’t know what you don’t know, and that’s a scary yet beautiful thing.