I’M NOT HERE VERY OFTEN

Jul 25, 2025
2 min read

I’M NOT HERE VERY OFTEN. There are reasons for that, but they’re not for public, internet-wide discussion. Everything is fine. Maybe even too fine - in places…

But there are things I want to share and talk about, without forgetting that we are all human and that we should find reasons to be joyful even in complete despair.

Those who have been with me for ages (which is basically all of you, my dear veterans) remember how much I love theater and everything around it.

In the U.S., there is a true cult of musical theater, and for all these years we’ve only been able to experience it from a distance.

What did we see or hear (if we were lucky)? Fiddler on the Roof, Sun Valley Serenade, The Sound of Music, Singin' in the Rain, West Side Story… Some of them I saw back home in Ukrainian theaters, some only on TV, but somehow I knew the songs and melodies by heart.

But here in the U.S., everything changed. I stepped into a world of musical theater where both drama and comedy constantly sing and dance - like in the best Disney productions: color, light, a hundred synchronized legs moving as one on stage. And live vocals. Truly live. With a live orchestra.

Any story—whether it’s routine office life in 9 to 5 or the трагедия of six teenagers in an amusement park in Ride the Cyclone—becomes a musical and turns into something incredibly vibrant.

And I haven’t even mentioned Moulin Rouge! The Musical, Cats, Chicago, or Mamma Mia!, but everyone already knows those.

This Friday, Margo and I attended the premiere of another unique Broadway musical - Big Fish.

A simple story about Edward Bloom, a young man from Alabama with that unmistakable Southern accent - his journey from a tiny town in search of himself and his love. And at its core, the relationship between father and son—their tensions, doubts, and shared growing up.

I was crying in the first scene and overwhelmed in the last, even though there were nearly 2 hours and 45 minutes of laughter and songs. The voices - absolutely out of this world. You can hear that Disney-level training even in the smallest intonations.

I truly admire this genre and deeply regret that America doesn’t export its non-commercial Broadway musicals more widely. They run for a season- and then the story fades, until local theaters pick them up.

“Big Fish” goes straight into my collection of musicals I will never forget.

Yours, a slightly dust-covered Nata Che