Posted on July 26, 2007 at 10:30 pm
Sometimes on long flights, the person sitting next to me will notice that I’m editing music on my computer and ask what sort of music I write or something like that, and after I explain that I write musicals, that person will inevitably ask, “Oh, anything I’ve heard of?”, and I’ll smile and say that it’s pretty unlikely. But then what often happens is that some other person on the plane, usually in their late teens or early twenties, will nervously come over to my seat and ask me to sign an autograph. At which point, I have to explain to my neighbor that while I am anonymous to the vast majority of the planet Earth, I am in fact really famous to about four hundred people.
I’m not entirely comfortable with my celebrity, in part because it’s so unpredictable. If I were being followed all day by paparazzi, I would know that people were watching me and expecting me to be “on,” and while I doubt I would like it, I would know how to act. But instead, I get hit by fame sideways – a couple of weeks ago, I was out for lunch with my wife and daughter at a little diner near our house and I heard someone say my name and then, “Well, I’m not going to go bother him when he’s out with his family.” I was at that moment entertaining my daughter with a Cookie Monster puppet. I won’t say it ruined lunch for me, but it made me extremely self-conscious.
I am almost pathologically uncomfortable in social situations, which you wouldn’t know from watching me on stage, but if you saw me at a party reading the spines on the bookshelves or sitting on the hood of my car by myself, you’d recognize all the classic signs of a personality disorder. I’m not good in crowds, I’m not good with strangers, I am not easily assimilated. I don’t have very many friends (except on Facebook) and I don’t have a whole lot of interest in cultivating more of them. Obviously, this complicates my ambitions to be a public figure. In this as in virtually all of my daily interactions, I am a maddeningly contradictory and ambivalent soul.
You may be thinking, at this point, “Wow, it must be some kind of fiesta to be married to you.” You’d have to ask Georgia how she handles all of it, but she does occasionally attempt to broaden my social scope, much to my immense discomfort.
We all went on vacation last month to Wrightsville Beach, NC, where Georgia’s mom’s family was having a big reunion. We had lots of fun at the beach, my daughter got to spend time with her great-grandmother, and I got a great excuse to procrastinate any further writing for Honeymoon In Vegas. It was all going well enough until some of the folks returned from a game of Putt-Putt Golf with the information that they had seen a poster for a production of The Last Five Years that was opening in Wilmington (ten miles away) the very next night, and they had decided we all should go.
Georgia, God bless her, managed to talk the family out of buying twelve tickets for the opening night, even though they must have thought I was strangely ungrateful (“He doesn’t want to go see his own show?”). It was instead agreed that we would all stick to our original plan for that night, which was to go have a lovely family dinner in town. (I’m sorry to the company in Wilmington that I thus deprived you of twelve admissions. From what I understand, you were very well sold for the run of the show anyway.)
The next night, our wonderful dinner was over at about nine-fifteen, and Georgia asked me whether the show would still be going on; I replied that they would probably be in the middle of “Nobody Needs To Know.” Georgia took this as her cue to grab my hand and drag me five blocks to the theater. She wanted me to meet the actors after their opening night.
Surely some of my discomfort with my limited celebrity is my inability to formulate the correct response to people’s impressions of me. Often when people come to the autograph table after one of my concerts, they’ll confidently make eye contact and then instantly sputter and giggle and try vainly to collect themselves before apologizing and then wiping tears from their eyes. I never know what to do at these moments: here’s me with a Sharpie in my hand and here’s this person I don’t know having a nervous breakdown. When I entered the theater in Wilmington, as the audience was filing out, I was introduced to the musical director who, upon realizing who I was, began hyperventilating and then grabbed on to my arm with sufficient force that I still had a bruise there four days later.
l to r: Jacki Booth, director; Gray Hawks, “Jamie”; JRB; Heather Dahlberg, “Cathy”; Chiaki Ito, musical director. Thalian Hall, Wilmington NC, June 28, 2007.
The cast and the director came out, everyone was understandably shocked that I was there (and sorry/grateful that I hadn’t actually seen the performance), but they were all really sweet and very generous and so genuinely honored to meet me and to be able to tell me what a wonderful experience they were having working on my show. So I smiled and took pictures with them and signed autographs and we all traded stories, and then Georgia and I headed back out into Wilmington and they went off to their opening night party with a truly wild story.
What I couldn’t express, what is almost impossible for me ever to express in that situation or pretty much any other, was how profoundly, how deeply moved and grateful I am that people want to bring my work to life. The completely random coincidence that a show of mine should be premiering in the very town in which I’m vacationing with my family seems almost comical, like it should be happening to someone rather more famous and successful than I am.
I want to explain all that to the person next to me on the airplane. I tend to underplay my success because I assume that when people hear I write musicals, they immediately think I’m trivial, or that my work is trivial. And maybe it is. But I’m so proud and so amazed that right now, somewhere in the world, someone is singing one of my songs.
If you bump into me and I seem brusque or superior or aloof or “over it,” I don’t expect you to forgive me for it or cut me any slack – I’ve never been all that good at ingratiating myself to the larger world and I can’t imagine that I’m going to blossom now that I’m thirty-seven. But I’ll take this opportunity right here to thank you for loving what I create. And to you folks in Wilmington, thank you for taking such good care of my work. I think Georgia knew that’s what I wanted to tell you. Honestly, Chiaki: I treasure the bruises.
25 comments
Quite a charming blog post.
Don’t worry, when you feel you’re being “aloof” you’re probably just being perceived as being humble and modest.
None of it matters, anyway. You were both unlucky and lucky to be born in the era in which you were.
You’re unlucky because musicals are a tough sell to today’s general public and you’re probably not as famous as you actually should be. A person’s fame is rarely equivalent to a person’s talent, anyhow.
And you’re lucky because you get to be one of the people to breathe life into a timeless genre of entertainment that is unique and like no other. And you’re doubly lucky because you get to bring your original voice to people who truly appreciate it.
I deeply enjoyed reading that post. Only because the two times I’ve met you, you were one of the nicest people I’ve ever met so it seems a little odd to me, I guess, that you describe yourself as socially awkward. It never really mattered all that much to me whether a performer I liked was nice when I met them or not but it definitely improves my impression of them. As I already regard you as very very talented, knowing that you’re also one of the kindest people made me respect you even more.
Anyway, loved the post! I’m so sorry I won’t be able to fly out to London to see Parade. College takes a toll on the bank account.
I would like to third the fact that was a really lovely post–it’s a relief to know you don’t think we’re freaks when we want to meet you (or, in my case, sprint down four flights of stairs in Green Bay, WI, before you finished the exit music from PARADE to catch you at the front of the pit).
My favorite part through? This line: “I am not easily assimilated.”
Thank you for that 😉
What an incredibly sweet, lovely, post.
As one of the four hundred people to whom you are famous, I would say that “famous” doesn’t explain it. A poster that you autographed for me hangs next to my bed, and every time I see it, I am amazed that I actually met the man who wrote the some of the most beautiful music I’ve ever heard.
First off, I have to say…I love how you snuck in a Sondheim reference in your entry!
I quote The Last Five Years and Parade both in papers and in conversation quite frequently. Most of the time, though, they’re not familiar with your work. But if they do, we’re automatically kindred spirits in my book. It’s my gauge of whether someone’s cool or not.
Honestly, it’s hard to know how to react in a lot of situations, and all art is trivial, when it comes down to it. I listen to certain songs from Songs For a New World when I want to be happy. I listen to Parade if I need some understanding that I’m not the only one who doesn’t belong in the South (despite having grown up there). I listen to The Last Five Years when I want to remind myself why I don’t bother with relationships. HAHA! Just kidding on that one, but seriously…to say that these shows don’t matter is an enormously false assumption. These are shows that help me find who I am, help me accept who I am and what I’m going through because these ficticious characters are who we, your audience members (and die-hard fans who quote you at every opportunity and become extremely thrilled at an opportunity to see a play of yours performed), are, and to say that, to put a name to it, to give those of us like your characters solace in the knowledge that someone else is going through this too, is the most important thing to do of all.
I enjoyed the Sondheim/Candide references in this post. 🙂
Anyway, I really enjoyed reading this blog…and I am certainly one of those four hundred to whom you are famous, you are one of my favorite composers.
I regret not being able to fly out to London to see Parade, but I’ll be entering college next year and a flight across the Atlantic just isn’t in the cards for me right now. However, I wish you the best of luck with that production, and also with everything else you’re doing (I, for one, am very excited for Honeymoon in Vegas after hearing “Anywhere But Here” at your concert in February).
I hope you don’t mind me sharing here… I hope I won’t sound patronising – I realise we’re quite different people and your experiences will be totally unique and diffrent to mine. I love many of your songs but this flood of memories and feelings that come reading this post of yours might be why I find ‘Nothing In Common’ so nostalgic and beautiful.
…
‘…At a party reading the spines on the bookshelves’ rings such a bell. I used to do ‘observing things’ when I didn’t fit in at school and I’d stopped trying. The worst times were waiting for the class to start and the teacher is late. The way I tried to make myself as invisible as possible was to stay quite still and to try and look occupied by observing objects (but not people, because I wanted to be as normal as possible – not freaky or needy by staring at them and be even more alone and uncool).
Never mind how I ended up playing the role of alone and uncool, nobody is really to blame except possibly myself for giving into it (I tend to act guilty when people become suspicious of my actions even if I was totally innocent). I was quite normal before I was in that school, and I was again normal in the school after although damaged psychologically and social skills wise so never liked parties. It took a long time to get out of this habit of going into frozen state pretending not to be there whenever there was awkward silence in a group situation. I’m sure I still do this once in a while. Though I don’t know what I’m doing exactly on a dinner table, friends/strangers have in the past asked ‘are you ok’?
I sound quite disturbed but I lead a good healthy life with vibrant, responsible, sweet, intelligent caring friends (many of them very cool though none of them arrogant) who would be surprised to read what I’m writing here (I think??).
I’m not sure I have such a point here but I wanted to share it with you… I think it’s all very cool, Jason!
Thank you so much for all your music. I am so fortunate to be living this generation blessed with your songs.
[Just for records, my other strong favourites are ‘Music of Heaven’, ‘I’d Give It All For You’, ‘Christmas Lullaby’ and every song in The Last 5 Years… nothing to do with the patch of disturbed childhood!]
This was a truly humbling and great blog. Knowing that you are so completely famous to so many people, and help people get through life with your music, and that you are just so carefree about that you’ve come so far.
I met you in the “Making It On Broadway” intensive, and I just thought it was an absolute honor meeting you. You’re so kind. It was awesome.
Thank you.
Mr. Brown, I’m Marvin from the Philippines and I just wanted to let you know that, YES, even in this remote part of the world, people sing your songs. They are truly inspiring and uplifting to hear. In fact, i’m listening to one of ’em right now. Keep up the good work, and I assure you that Filipinos will continue to love the honesty you inject into your songs.
Then the 400 of us are pretty darn lucky to realize how great you are!
Thanks for the great post…now i will go to bed singing Candide!
Hey man,
If you want to join powers, I’m trying for a knock-off Lohan-esque sense of celebrity. With that combo, I’m sure we could scale the walls of “Is that him…?” and storm into “Would you sign this copy of your mugshot?” seemingly overnight.
I’ll give up three cheers for you having the privacy to a dinner out without distraction.
And, for your heads-up, there’s a production of L5Y going on here in Osaka, Japan, in September. The run (?) is one night, and it’s been translated into Japanese…so I don’t know what’s going to happen there. I’ve got the poster. The actors are very pretty.
Peaces,
Dan
You have a small but mighty following because you don’t stoop to the people-pleasing crap that most theatre composers write. Your unquestionable candor is what draws people to you. Not everyone, though, because your music requires a person to stop, listen, think, and feel. It’s visceral AND cerebral, which, sad as it is to say, is nearly unique in the theatre world.
You put yourself in your music, in your lyrics, in your blogs, and in your teaching. That’s why those who know your stuff love it, because we are thirsty for honesty and sincerity. Keep it coming!
What a brave blog! Not many geeks in the world would admit to the feelings you so eloquently write. Most are hesitant to expose their soft underside. My opinion? I think that it is an illusion that there are more cool kids in the world because they make more noise. Thanks for your courage.
It’s funny.
I read this post, and thought of myself. Granted, I’m not a composer, but I do consider myself an artist, and oftentimes, in front of the general public, I feel like I should downplay my abilities, because I too feel like the general public views my career as “trivial.”
I often have to force myself to realize that a lot of people enjoy theatre, art, music, etc. A lot of people understand it, and want to talk about it.
I guess it comes with growing up in a small town.
I hate crowds too.
I don’t really go to cast parties, or opening celebrations. They all leave me feeling out of place and exposed.
Thank you for this post…
It’s nice to know that you’re not the only weirdo out there…
:-p
I’ve always thought it to be interesting, the level of fame that people associated with musicals achieve. In the small theater community, there seems to be no more than one or two degrees of separation between everyone involved, as opposed to the usual six.
As for the people that recognize you, theater people tend to be a little crazier than the average folk, so I can only imagine some of the stories you have of fan encounters. All I can say is that from all the stories I’ve heard of people meeting you, I’ve heard nothing but good things. I think ‘social awkwardness’ often comes across as simply humble in most of these kind of situations. This was a lovely, honest post!
What a very human post! And wow, can I sympathize. I’m great with people I already know, but it’s very hard for me to talk to strangers. So we’ll probably never get to know each other! Neither of us will ever know what to say. What a shame!
I’m SOOO excited about Honeymoon in Vegas. I loved the song you played for us at that little gig in the Valley (ANMT? Something like that). It seems every time I hear something about that show it’s wildly positive. And I’m thrilled your getting the great Mister Butz to work with you again. Boy, do I love his talent.
Try to learn that you are loved by so many, and if others don’t love you it’s only because they don’t know you or your work. Relax. Breathe. It’s just life.
I love this story! And I understand completely as I had a moment of fear before tapping Jason Robert Brown on the shoulder outside New York’s Palace Theatre to tell him how moved I was by the Lincoln Center production of Parade. We had both just exited the “Gypsy of the Year” show and Jason was wearing his Parade cast jacket. I immediately recognized him from the back, but as he was visiting with a few friends I hesitated before eventually intervening. I live on the West Coast, so every year when I visit New York I try to see as many shows in a week as possible. On only two occasions have I been so overwhelmed by a show that I returned for a second viewing. The first was Parade. (The second was Spring Awakening this past December.) I totally fell in love with the score and rushed to Tower Records to purchase his only CD (Songs for a New World) available at that time. I look forward to seeing the new works and am trying to determine if I can manage a trip to London this fall to see the Donmar production. If not, hopefully it will be recorded!
What an interesting caption of your celebrity. I can’t imagine the “unpredictability” in your fame, and how that would really catch you off-guard at times. This blog really gives us a peek at that reality. Thanks so much for continually sharing with your fan base, whether it’s your ground-breaking music or just a straightforward entry at a day in the life of you.
Just curious…I guess a rhetorical question…how do you find refuge from it all? Is it mostly at the page for you? Maybe a jog in the park? I just finished a wonderful book called “Eat, Pray, Love” by Elizabeth Gilbert and I feel like sharing it with everyone (especially those of us in this wild business of the Theatre). It’s her best-selling account of her journey towards balance–between pleasure and devotion. She’s a lovely writer, and I thought you’d enjoy that, as a fantastic writer yourself. An affirming, charming, funny read, especially for the long plane ride to London 🙂 I suppose the balancing act is an ongoing effort for us all…I appreciate your perspective on this side of the teeter-totter!
And
I’m sure the cast in NC was so honored you came on your vacation time, just to visit :)–Love that.
This is the first time I’ve clicked on a link in your email, and I’m glad I did. That’s an awesome story and you’re a great storyteller- duh.
What a really wonderful thing to share. 🙂
A lot of us here in Vermont think you’re great…and it’s awesome that you’re so modest about everything. I think you are truly a genius and you have written what is, without a doubt, some of the best music I’ve ever heard.
I must admit that I would be the fan hyperventilating if I were ever to meet you.
I honestly don’t think you are aware of what a celebrity you are! Anyone who is a true fan of Broadway/Off Broadway musicals (or knows anyone who is) should know who you are.
While I’m sure that the cast (of two) did an amazing job with The Last Five Years, it was probably a good thing that you didn’t attend the production… I’m sure the entire room was filled to the brim with in-town JRB-heads who would have attacked you and your party of twelve.
Try to enjoy your celebrity-ness; there are so many people who would do anything to be in your shoes… or you could always put a paper bag over your head and be known as “the paper bag man” rather than Jason Robert Brown… up to you.
Jason! I have finally mastered “Moving Too Fast”…it has taken me so long! And absolute beauty to play although I had to try and improv the middle bit not written in the score! Looking forward to seeing The Last Five Years at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival…any idea what the rights are here in the UK? Gary J
I’m delighted to hear that you’re not a fan of meeting new people. I work in the theatre too (albeit in a very small and insignificant way…) and I hate how it is naturally assumed that we’re all desperate to be the centre of attention and the life and soul of the party.
Thanks
x
…Awww!!
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