Getting to know Tracey
Ever since I was a young girl growing up in a small town in New Jersey, I’ve loved live theater. I lived close enough to New York City to attend plays on Broadway. My mom and dad enjoyed plays too so tickets were a regular for Christmas, birthdays, and special events. In high school, I had a teacher who would buy blocks of tickets to off-Broadway shows, load us up on a school bus for the bumpy stinky hour-long commute and take us in to the city. Once in a while we got to meet a cast member.
Now that I’m an adult, I still love live theater. I’ve been attending productions at theaters around Hollywood for over twenty years. This was the first year I purchased season tickets to the Broadway series at The Pantages.
Seeing eight live theatrical productions may not land on the “ordinary” side of my grateful equation, but here’s why it’s important to me: My family loves live theater too. I met my husband, Tom, when we worked together on the 1994 Primetime Emmy Awards, and he spent nine years as the Head Carpenter at The Kodak Theater, also in Hollywood. Over the years, we worked on a few shows together and, once in a while, when he wasn’t backstage, we sat next to each other in the audience. Now, our daughter loves live theater too. She’s a sophomore in high school and has been performing since she was in second grade. She’s my date for every show.
What could otherwise be just another day at the theater, an enjoyable day to be sure, is a day we share a common passion. Each day we see a show is a day we sing show tunes in the car at the top of our lungs—usually the Wicked or Pippin soundtracks—and share those tunes with friends who also love them. We commune over a meal, almost always at Miceli’s near Universal. We compare favorite moments. In other words, we connect. We connect on a deep level. The hours we spend taking in a show, on any other day, might be hours she spends texting her friends and I spend writing at my computer. Instead, we spend them mindfully engaged with each other and, gasp, together!
I’m thankful for so much that live theater has brought to my life, but nothing more than the connection it helps me forge with my husband, my daughter and with dear friends.
The ceiling of the gorgeous Pantages.