#guess who got into starkid about five years too late

[spiderfroggo]

rise up like a natural disaster

[widonotts]

Thanks For Ten ❤️

Starkid has been such a constant fixture in my life that it’s strange to think it’s only been around for ten years. At the same time, I remember the first time I watched A Very Potter Musical, a couple months after it went viral. I was in third grade and had read about it on some Harry Potter fansite, so I pulled up Act 1, Part 1. But I was an eight-year-old nerd who hadn’t yet realized I could be both the Smart Kid and the Theatre Kid—I didn’t see High School Musical until I was in high school myself and thus never learned from Gabriella’s arc—so I was actively suppressing my love for musicals. There’s also the fact I didn’t understand some of the jokes, which I’ll attribute to my youth and purity and also my lack of High School Musical knowledge. I decided the show wasn’t for me and promptly forgot about it.

A couple years later, though, I was raving about Harry Potter to a Girl Scout camp counselor who asked if I’d seen AVPM, and when I told her no, she acknowledged I was probably too young for it. I didn’t take it as a challenge immediately, but that conversation sat in the back of my mind for a while before I revisited it. The second time I watched it, I fell in love, and I fell hard.

So many of my memories of early adolescence involve Starkid, and I look back on those memories with so much fondness. I remember my friend and I unabashedly singing “Granger Danger” during science class; I remember another eleven-year-old friend approaching me at the lunch table, shell-shocked, and when I asked what was wrong, he told me he’d tried to watch Me and My Dick. I remember when the 2014 Summer Season was announced, and somehow (that is, through nonstop chores and yard work), I got to go. I went on GIMP and made my very own T-shirt design by dragging the Brush tool to spell out “Meet me at my place, the Fortress of Friendship!” in block letters inside a crude Superman logo, printing it out on that iron-on transfer paper and carefully applying it to a craft store white t-shirt. I wore it to Ani, where I asked Brian Holden to sign it, and it became my pride and joy.

Everything about the Summer Season was, for lack of a better word, totally awesome. Waiting in line for Ani, a group of older girls were kind enough to talk to me and my mom. She acknowledged that she’d worked in theatre herself, and therefore had seen a lot of risqué performances, and asked them “if there would be anything she’d blush at”; for some reason, those girls and I insisted there would be nothing of the sort. I can’t believe she didn’t drag me out at the first mention of Death Star boobs. But I loved the show, and I adored Trail to Oregon the next day. The Dikrats may have their official canonized names now, but to me, that family will always be Bitch Tits, Little Shit, Rico, Genghis Khan, and Jeff Blim Bacon.

Meeting the Starkids after the shows, though, was by far the best part of the experience, and I don’t know if I really have all the words to describe it. It was beyond inspiring. They all treated me with such humility and kindness; it still stirs me every time I think of it. A couple of them even seemed surprised that I asked for a picture. To know that each person in this group I adored so dearly was so grounded and kind… It was amazing, and looking back on those photos makes me smile despite myself; I was an awkward, gangly, anxious, overeager kid, but in every photo, my eyes are shining with happiness and my lopsided grin is wider than ever.

After a while, I fell out of complete hyperfixation, but Starkid’s shows stayed present with me. I sang the songs, referenced the jokes, dreamed of playing the characters, and watched AVPM every year on July 31st, but it wasn’t the degree of obsession I had in my early teens. I watched Firebringer the moment it was released, and I raved many times about how incredible it would be if they released the rights—and here we are!

Even though a couple years went by without hyperfixating on Starkid, my love for it stuck with me through years of difficulty with mental illness, and that means everything to me. I remember a very hard day when I didn’t know what to do or how to go on. I listened to “Not Alone,” and I cried, and even though I felt isolated and small, I felt at the same time that I was loved and that there was hope for my life and my future. That one moment has stuck with me, but it is not the only time Starkid truly helped me save my life.

Even with all the impact it had on me, it wasn’t until I watched The Guy Who Didn’t Like Musicals that my hyperfixation returned in full force. I had been anticipating its release for a while; when it was announced, I was about to leave my home city to go to college in Chicago, and I was so pumped to see that I would finally be living in good old Chi-Town when a Starkid show was released… only to learn that it would be playing in Los Angeles. But I guess I forgive them for not catering to me specifically, because seeing TGWDLM for the first time (and the ten times since) was extraordinary, and I was immediately in deep.

I’m The Starkid Girl again, and this time, I’m not self-conscious about it. When I was younger, I usually hid my passions, fearful of judgement, and my love for Starkid was no exception (except, of course, for that wonderful impromptu “Granger Danger” karaoke session in the middle of science class). I was a nerd; I knew what it was like to have people make fun of me for the things I found awe-inspiring, so I kept myself hidden, singing “The Coolest Girl” day and night but never quite having the courage to put myself out there in real life. Now, though, I’m going back to Starkid, and I’m not afraid to show it.

It’s wild to be in Chicago now, to live in the same city where so much of Starkid’s work was created. The first time I went to a counselor whom I now visit weekly, I took the L, got off at Belmont, and was amazed to see that my new counselor’s office was one single block away from Stage 773, where I had been so struck with awe at Trail to Oregon and Ani five years before. Every week, I walk past the giant “773” with reverence, and before I get back on the L to go home, I walk past the station to get a coffee at the Starbucks right past the Annoyance, where so many Starkids have performed. Typing it out, it seems silly, but it truly instills me with so much joy and inspiration to know I live in the same world as these people who have done such amazing things, people for whom I hold so much respect and admiration.

Because I myself am now a year into college, I’m even more struck at the ingenuity, dedication, and talent of the college kids who produced a hilarious Harry Potter musical ten years ago, and even more grateful that they took that success and continued to create and perform and inspire people with their productions. Whether it’s with Starkid, associated companies like the Tin Can Bros, or unrelated groups, the work all of these people has done never ceases to embolden me not only as an aspiring actress and creator of art, but also, most importantly, as a person. Starkid is a group of wonderful people who have done wonderful things, inspiring so many people along the way, and I cannot thank them enough for it. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you.

This has been far too long a note, so I guess I’ll wrap it up before it gets too late. I just have one more episode left in my rewatch of Choose Our Destiny.

— Lelah