There are things you know to be true about yourself once you reach a certain age. One of those things that I’ve learned about myself over the last 33 years is that I don’t like musicals. Yeah. You heard me. I don’t like them.

That can put a girl in a difficult position from time to time, especially a girl like me with an 8 year old daughter that loves to dance, sing and perform. For her I’ve sat through countless musicals on DVD and listened to their soundtracks over and over and over again.

But it’s not my darling little girl that’s caused me to see two musical theater performances in the last few months… I have this friend and somehow she’s managed to get me to agree to these asinine things.

Now babies, this isn’t like when I said I hate electronica only to be poked, prodded, argued with and eventually proven wrong. I really don’t like musical theater and it’s not just because I can’t sing and was never cast in any of the spring musicals when in was in high school. Honestly I just wanted to be in the fall plays.

Never the less, last night when Morgan asked if I wanted to go see RENT I said “okay”. To be fair the deal was that I got to go drinking afterwards, but still, I agreed.

Having never seen RENT before (because duh it’s a musical) I still went into it knowing what to expect unlike one patron who seemed to be expecting ponies and rainbows.

The production was at a small theater on Belmont, which causes it’s own set of problems, especially for me. While the cast was engaging and incredibly talented, I still found myself watching the crowd for half the show. The other problem? Ummm. My nose was itchy. And by itchy I mean I was feeling sneezy. Yep. Tiny theater. Good acoustics. Sneezy girl. Front row. Um yeah.

Did I mention that RENT isn’t a happy show? You know the thing about not being sunshine and rainbows? Yeah. So. In the climactic, rattling, heart wrenching death scene I finally lost control and sneezed.

Achoo!

And the longer you hold a sneeze in, naturally the louder it will be right?

So it should come as no surprise that just as a beloved character was passing from this bleak world into the next I sneezed causing the entire audience and full cast to stop, whip their heads around and give me an evil death glare.

Maybe.

Okay fine so that death glare part was all in my head, but still it presents another valid reason not to go to musicals.