How to Pray Like You’re On Broadway

Apple Music Spotify YouTube Playlist

I think I finally understand prayer.

It is what the imperfect protagonist sings alone on stage. It’s Jean Valjean from Les Misérables singing “Who Am I?”, looking for inspiration to make the right decision. It’s Evan Hansen from Dear Evan Hansen taking responsibility for his web of lies with “Words Fail”. It’s Pierre Bezukhov from The Great Comet of 1812 questioning his mortality with “Dust & Ashes”. It’s Charlie Porter from Kinky Boots realizing his shortcomings and admitting his hubris in “Soul of a Man”. It’s Winnie Foster from Tuck Everlasting, unsure what to do in “Everlasting”. It’s Celie from The Color Purple belting out “I’m Here” and choosing to take control of her life.

None of these themes are foreign to me. On Yom Kippur, the imperfect protagonist stands in silent prayer for hours on end in introspection, questioning, repenting, and admitting hubris and shortcomings. He realizes that he may die this year, and he thinks over his actions of the past one. But somehow, sitting in the front mezzanine gives you a different perspective on the process than standing in the synagogue. By the time in the show that this song is sung, you both empathize and identify with the singer’s struggle.

Prayer can also be about sanctifying time. We can make a commitment for one day. Both “Seasons of Love” from Rent and “One Day More” from Les Misérables reflect on both the macro and micro level on the value of every amount of time. Unless we appreciate the moment, we cannot aspire to do better the next.

At times, prayer is sung together by the cast. Like the cast of Rent singing “Will I?”, all realizing that they have the same fears, wants, desires. Or the cast of Hamilton questioning each one of our legacies, what we all want to know, “Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Our Story”. Or even the cast of Spring Awakening singing “I Believe”, effectively praying for souls of the lovers, as they sinned, by repeating their own credo.

In each of these cases, they are personal prayers layered one atop another. They work even if you isolate the track of each individual singer. But when listened to together, they provide a truth that reminds us why we stand together in prayer, that the chorus of our hearts is beautiful.

There is the prayer of a parent (or parental figure). It is Hannah from Come From Away, singing “I Am Here” while praying for her missing son. Or Jean Valjean asking God to bring Marius back to Cosette in “Bring Him Home”. Or Tevye and Golde from Fiddler on the Roof praying for their children in “Sunrise, Sunset”.

One of the most poignant prayers in the Bible is of a different Hannah praying for a son, and indeed, it is remembered during the Days of Awe. The mother’s prayer is more than just a trope, it is the purest version of a request one could fathom. The prayer of a mother or a father is about putting aside one’s own needs and caring only for another.

Prayer can be full of wisdom, instructive to the next generation. Like “No One Is Alone” from Into The Woods. Or “When Your Feet Don’t Touch The Ground” from Finding Neverland. Children look up to adults and create a perfect world in their minds which exists of a black and white fiction. It’s the job of the adult to teach the children (and remind themselves in the process) than the real world has a million shades of different colors.

Some prayer is about forgiveness. Like Elphaba and Glinda from Wicked in “For Good”. Forgiveness isn’t perfect, nor is it logical. It’s Alexander and Eliza Hamilton in “It’s Quiet Uptown”. It’s Deena and Effie from Dreamgirls in “Listen”.*

Part of forgiving ourselves is forgiving others. Not focusing on the facts, on who hurt whom, who was right or who was wrong. It is realizing that you are better with the other person than without them. That they bring out a special part of you, and learning that you appreciate that part of yourself. It’s about learning your own limitations.

Prayer can also be about embracing the uncertainty of the future and embodying hope. Like Amélie Poulain and Nino Quincampoix from Amélie in “Where Do We Go From Here”. Or the cast of Dear Evan Hansen in the “Finale”.

Because at the end of the Day of Judgement starts a new day, with its own challenges and opportunities. It’s about moving on, freshly forgiven, being open to endless possibilities.

The protagonist may finish the show still imperfect, but the prayer, insight, and forgiveness they experienced throughout leave them more enlightened, more at peace, somehow more whole, than when the curtain first rose.

*I know that “Listen” wasn’t in the original Broadway version of Dreamgirls. But it has been in the touring canon since 2009, so deal with it.

Thank you to all the people who suggested songs and read drafts of this, including Leah Jones, Duvi Stahler, Gedalia Penner, Joshua Conti, B Dean Skibinski, Eddie Chabbott, Daniela Bronstein, Osh Ghanimah, Aaron Weinstein, and David Djemal.

A very special thanks and an extremely speedy recovery to Leah Jones, without whom I wouldn’t have even had the initial idea. It was only sitting next to her during “Dust & Ashes” that I realized what we just experienced.

There are many, many, many, many songs missing from this. A few I know, and just couldn’t figure out how to include them. Others I just don’t know. Please share additional songs in the comments.