Ten Minutes to Showtime

Do you know what has always bothered me about The Wizard of Oz? Don’t get me wrong, it is a tremendous film filled with valuable life lessons, a catchy soundtrack, and one of the most elaborate examples of world-building put to screen. But here’s the thing, Dorothy is dropped right into this gorgeous dreamscape and besides when she first pushes that door open, she never truly takes it all in. As soon as she’s skipping down that yellow brick road, it is go, go go until she ends up right back in Kansas. I know that’s the point but how can you not be at least remotely curious about a place this magical?

I guess my issue with this stems from my own experience growing up. I’ve witnessed a lot of rapid change in my life. Right after getting my black belt, I left my karate family behind to give my all to a newfound passion, musical theater. For my freshman year, I decided to leave everything I knew to attend a trade school filled with a completely different set of classmates, structure, and curriculum. Even college has been a lot the same. I go from production to production, class to class and now that I’ve reached senior year, I feel like it’s gone by in a flash.

What interests me most about these moments we all go through is our reaction to them. We tend to lash out and push people away to avoid the fact that it’s coming to an end. We’ll burn our bridges during the last trimester of the school year. We’ll dive deep into our work to avoid hanging out with our friends. We hide away. The one that’s been bothering me recently is my last theater experience, Seussical the Musical. I remember finding solace in my character, Horton, and burying myself into the role to avoid the fact that it was all coming to an end. I was too distracted to enjoy the last “break-a-leg”. The last cast circle. The last ten minutes to showtime.

I want this film to be a reminder to take it all in before it disappears. Because, at the end of the day, Dorothy is right. There is no place like home.