Student Blog: Some Shows You See, Some Shows You Feel

You sit in your seat. The quiet anticipation of the audience lingers around you. The house lights dim. The actors make their entrances. The show begins.

You watched a performance, and this one you feel deep in your bones. The curtains close.

Some Shows You See. Some Shows You Feel.

Audiences come and go. Applause rises and fades. But every so often, a show reaches beyond the stage into something deeper. It is not just acting, singing, or movement. It reaches into your heart, grabs it, and rearranges your heart strings in a way you cannot forget. The air still vibrates with the echoes of a note or a scene. A moment of silence leaves your chest tight. The story of someone else becomes your own. It lingers. It whispers. It changes you. You carry it long after you leave, in the hum of the city, and the space between one heartbeat and the next.

The neon lights of Broadway glow. Flashy musicals, dance numbers, and high notes leave audiences breathless. They make us cheer, delight, and marvel. Yet there is another side of Broadway that lingers long after the lights have dimmed. These are not the shows we merely see, they are the shows we carry in our hearts forever.

The ones that allow us to see ourselves reflected on stage, our fears, our joys, our heartbreaks. The ones that make us think, feel, and question who we are and what the world can be. Those are the shows that change the world. Emotion is what makes us human, and these performances awaken it in all of us. They remind us that stories are not just entertainment, they are mirrors, lessons, protests, and prayers. They show us the parts of ourselves we try to hide and, in doing so, they give us permission to feel.

Some shows are easy to celebrate. Others, quieter and sometimes uncomfortable, are often overlooked. These reflect the real world. They confront our fears, our biases, our deepest emotions. They remind us that theater is not just a performance, it is a living, breathing experience that reaches across the audience and takes our heart by the hand.

I understand why some turn away from them. Their subject matter can be uncomfortable. Their stories challenge the way we think. They make us internalize. And yet, it is precisely because of this that they must be celebrated. These are the stories that make us pause and remember that our lives are fragile, precious, and extraordinary. They ask questions we cannot answer easily. They force us to consider injustice, love, grief, joy, hope, and despair. They may make us feel uncomfortable, but more importantly, they make us feel. They capture what it means to be human.

Theater is often described as an escape, a place to leave the world behind. And it can be that. But the most powerful performances do the opposite. They remind us of what it means to be human. They make us laugh until our face hurts and cry until we can no longer form tears. They invite reflection until our thoughts spiral and linger long after the curtain falls. These stories cultivate empathy, spark understanding, and open conversations that reshape how we see the world and through these shows, the world itself becomes a little better.

These are the performances that stay with us, the ones that reflect us back to ourselves, raw and unfiltered. They are not merely entertainment, but living history, revolutions of thought, memory, and feeling. Even when they are not celebrated, their impact is undeniable, whispering to us throughout our lives. They haunt and heal us in ways we cannot fully explain, reminding us that being deeply moved by art is not weakness, it is living.

Perhaps that is the greatest gift theater can give: the courage to feel. The proof that our emotions matter. The reminder that our shared experiences, the sorrow, the joy, the heartbreak, the triumph, connect us. These shows are important because they do more than entertain. They transform. They give voice to the unspoken, highlight the unseen, and honor the overlooked. They hold up a mirror to society while holding our hearts in their hands. They demand that we witness, care, and feel. They change us as human beings, and they change the world.

I want to encourage people to go to the theater, to sit in the dark, to watch a story unfold before their eyes, and simply feel. Feel the music rise in their chest. Feel the actors’ voices pierce through the air. Feel the stories, the heartbreak, the joy, the love. Feel every emotion there is to feel. In that moment of feeling, they will remember why Theater Matters. They will remember why emotion is everything.

They will leave changed, even if just a little, and that is enough. They will leave with a show imprinted in their mind and heart for as long as they shall live.

So in the words (or stage directions) of the show that lives forever in my heart, “John Proctor Is The Villain”:

“Then, when the song starts to go in that slower moment at the end, Beth stands up. She looks a little surprised at herself. The other girls see her. We see them. She takes a step toward them. Is she going to dance? She might. She just might. Blackout. End of play.”

And as an audience member, that is the moment that stays with you. You feel Beth’s courage. You see her choose to rise, to step forward, to risk something small and enormous at once. You hold your breath with her. You want her to move, to try, to dance, and even if she doesn’t, the act of standing is enough. It is her bravery that lingers, her quiet defiance that stays with you long after the lights come up. Watching her, you understand what theater can do: it lets you witness someone finding the courage to be seen, to act, to be inspired, and to exist fully in a single, fragile moment.

Some Shows You See. Some Shows You Feel.