Brilliant Lessons Learned from Smash and Bunheads

I am sometimes stunned at the lessons imparted in seemingly light television.  On the surface, neither NBC's Smash nor ABC Family's Bunheads appealed to me, and yet over the last year, I have routinely tuned in and learned a lot.

When last week's network upfronts announced Smash is going off the air, I felt compelled to explain why I will miss this show.

Smash gives glimpses into my life as an actress in NYC: auditioning at Telsey + Co., rehearsals in various rooms around the city, and acting in shows on Fourth Street in the East Village.  I totally geeked out at that cameo from Frank Dilella of NY1's Onstage (a show deserving of an entire blog post in and of itself, if not a FringeNYC play in which I play Donna Karger)!

Last week's Smash episode about book writer Kyle's death truly touched me.  In flashback, he tells Debra Messing's character that he remembers when Wendy Wasserstein died and the lights dimmed on Broadway for her.  Later in that same episode, Christian Borle serrenades Kyle with Billy Joel's "Vienna" and thus captures a moment of a sage veteran warily encouraging a newcomer.

Then I had to Google Christian Borle.  I knew he won a Tony in 2012 for Peter and the Starcatcher, but I had no idea he was once married to the feisty Sutton Foster, who won the Tony in 2002 for Thoroughly Modern Millie.

If I hadn't seen Sutton Foster interviewed on NY1's Onstage or grinning on the Anything Goes marquee on 43rd Street, I doubt I would have bothered to watch her ABC Family sitcom about dancer's life in show business: Bunheads.

I am by no means a dancer, but my liberal arts education and its requisite dance classes have given me an appreciation for the dedication it takes to be a decent dancer, let alone a working one.  Indeed, this fresh-scrubbed tween comedy emphasizes how hard a life in show business can be.  Foster's character still has nightmares about auditioning!

The most shockingly smart moment of all in Bunhead's first season was when Foster re-choreographs the rat scene in The Nutcracker to reference Kurt Jooss' dance The Green Table.  Way to go!

So for all the doubters out there, I want to say: bravo to these theater-loving writers and performers.

In the words of Billy Joel's "Vienna":

You've got your passion, you've got your pride 
but don't you know that only fools are satisfied?  
Dream on, but don't imagine they'll all come true 
When will you realize, Vienna waits for you?