Show Stopped

What happens when you live a dream? Abigail Pogrebin did, and lived to write about it, on "Showstopper."  Pogrebin was cast in the young ensemble of "Merrily We Roll Along," Stephen Sondheim's one big flop in an otherwise successful career. What went wrong? She brings us backstage, and before and after. She muses that sometimes after you have lived your dream, there really is nothing else for you to do but live your life. After that experience, she leaves showbusiness and becomes a journalist. Thirty years later, on a Cast Reunion Concert Show,  she relives the dream, ponders what might have been, and realizes she has lived the life she has wanted to live all alone. As a show fanatic, I loved the backstage story she infuses in her piece - it's not gossipy, but more personal. But more appealing was her internal journey, and how she wrote about living the life after the show closed. I wished the piece was longer - this was a "Kindle Single" so it is just short of a novella. But what is here I cherished reading, and perfect for lovers of Broadway.  BC25