I was a ThesPian in high school and so I went through this rather alienating period where I listened to only Show Tunes. Les Mis! Phantom of the Opera! The Last Five Years! Little Shop of Horrors! Maybe I didn’t have very many cool-cool friends at that phase of my life, but I’m not sure if I’ve ever been happier. Try it.Listen to “Do You Hear The People Sing?” from Les Mis while you’re doing chores and tell me if you’ve never been more inspired as you are mopping the floor.

At 17, one of the local rap radio stations changed frequencies, and to get people to stop listening to 107.5 or whatever it was, they started playing show tunes instead. I think that’s when I realized that my musical preferences were socially unacceptable, and I gradually transitioned into liking “Emo Music,” a much more enduring option, I know, and definitely a mood-lifter.

So I stopped listening to Show Tunes–actively anyway–but my little love lay dormant only to explode in full force last night at the Kristin Chenoweth Concert.

First of all, I adore her as a person (Here is an arsenal of clips so that you can love her too. Kristin Pranks, Kristin with Bangs, Kristin on Ambien and Twitter) so I knew the concert was going to be hilarious if nothing else. But secondly, the lady launches this 10 foot tall voice from her 4’11” frame and she just brings me back. As she sang “Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again,” I remembered with fondness singing Phantom into my hair brush and butchering the high notes. And when she sang “Bring Him Home,” I felt home, fully nested in my love for the genre. My favorite–surprisingly not “Popular” or “For Good,” though she did choose a random audience member to sing Elphaba’s part–but I loved “Maybe This Time” from Caberet.