The following Career Dispatches essay was written by Mary Neely, whose viral videos in which she plays every role in musicals like “Phantom” and “Beauty and the Beast,” have been seen millions of times around the world.
It was the end of March. I was sitting on the shaggy rug in my living room, using the coffee table as a desk. Since the coronavirus lockdown that had started just a few weeks earlier, everything in my apartment suddenly had new utility. The worn wood floors seemed like a good place to lie down, lunch was now being eaten under the tree outside my bedroom, and a dining room chair became a tool to do lunges instead of something to sit on. I was totally alone, I don’t have roommates and I didn’t have any pets (yet). I was stricken, like so many, with feeling completely singular. The routine I had so carefully curated before all of this began was twisting and turning and I could feel myself clinging to any kind of normalcy that was slipping away with each passing day.
As my knees burned slightly from the rug’s fabric, I glanced at my DVD collection. “West Side Story,” “Oklahoma!,” “The Phantom of the Opera,” “The Sound of Music” all seemed to sparkle, jumping out from the random assortment of early 2000s comedies and foreign art house that comprise my film taste. I was suddenly catapulted towards a dire need, one that I hadn’t felt for many years: the need for musical theater.
and now, for the finale, my magnum opus: BEAUTY AND THE BEAST part I pic.twitter.com/R37J7nF5Cw
— Mary Neely (@mneelzy) April 23, 2020
Growing up in Los Angeles was odd. It’s a city built around the film industry but as a kid, I never aspired to be part of “Hollywood.” I did my first play when I was 8 and it quickly became the only thing I truly cared about. Was I made fun of for performing choreography from rehearsal the night before on my school’s playground? Absolutely. Did it stop me? Absolutely not, because theater was a necessity! It not only provided me with a place to go where I could exercise passion and have fun, but for the duration of rehearsals and shows, I had a family. And when I wasn’t doing a show, movie musicals and original cast recordings were my best friends. They kept me company after school and sang me to sleep.
I devoted my whole life to understanding the nuances of theater, enrolling in more and more studious acting programs as I got older, eventually earning my BA in acting from UCLA’s School of Theater, Film, and Television. But my plan was always to go to New York. I had a map of Manhattan plastered to the wall in my room at my mom’s house and I would go on Broadway.com every day, memorizing which plays were at which theaters and who was creatively involved. I even wrote fan mail to performers, addressing the letters to the stage doors. Yet, through a series of unforeseen circumstances, I ended up never leaving L.A. I went from studying plays to studying movies to making my own movies. Theater took a back seat and without even realizing it, seven years went by and I hadn’t done a single play.
National commercials came my way and I booked supporting roles in TV and film. I made films and music videos that played at film festivals, were nominated for awards, and featured in prestigious publications. All very cool things that I wouldn’t trade for anything! My life just happened to take a turn I never expected. Fixated on doing plays, singing along to “Spring Awakening” in the shower, knowing what was always playing on Broadway…it all seemed to slip away without me ever intending.
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I’m a big fan of Taylor Swift and in her song “Invisible” from her debut album, she says, “There’s a fire inside you that can’t help but shine through.” I believe Taylor was talking about the perils of feeling cast aside as a youth, but today I’m choosing to believe that she wrote it to directly talk about my relationship with theater.
On that late March day, I sprinted to my closet full of wigs, vintage gowns, and Goodwill purchases. All those years of singing every role in every musical alone in my childhood bedroom suddenly felt like training for this moment, because I wasn’t just alone in my bedroom—everyone was. I put on a period style dress I had bought for $15 and curled the front part of my hair. Placing my laptop on my bed I pulled up “Heart Full of Love” from “Les Misérables.” Hitting play on my laptop and record on my iPhone, I held the phone with one hand while lip syncing the song and reacting as if there really was a Marius to my Cosette in the hallway of my apartment. After I finished Cosette’s coverage, I wrestled my hair into a wig cap and performed Marius’ role. Then I airdropped the clips to my laptop, downloaded the music track, and put it all in Premiere to edit. The next day, on March 31, I uploaded the completed video to Twitter with the caption, “Since I’m single in the quarantine I’ve decided to reenact moments from my favorite musicals so it feels like I’m in love.” I think maybe 15 people liked it.
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What followed was a whirlwind I never thought possible. I made one video a day for 10 days in a row: “South Pacific,” “Spring Awakening,” “Oklahoma!,” “Rent,” “The Music Man,” “Phantom of the Opera,” “Light in the Piazza,” “Wicked,” and “West Side Story.” I got better and better at holding my iPhone as well as editing, making it appear like the characters were touching and interacting. I took a break to celebrate my birthday and a new kitten, who has served as my consistent companion ever since. It was around then that the videos started getting more attention. When I came back with “Little Shop of Horrors,” “The Drowsy Chaperone,” “Grease,” “Sweeney Todd,” “Hamilton,” and my magnum opus, “Beauty and the Beast” (where I played over 40 characters), my life completely changed.
I was receiving messages from all over the world from parents, teachers, and front-line workers, thanking me for bringing joy to their lives. I couldn’t believe that the thing that helped me so much when I was younger was now helping thousands of strangers. Lin-Manuel Miranda retweeted me twice! I was on the news! I was being asked for writing samples! The “Beauty and the Beast” video got one million views in a week!
This was also around the same time it was announced that Broadway theaters would remain dark for quite some time. I decided to devote my second round of videos—this time every song from “The Sound of Music”—to a fundraiser for Broadway Cares/Equity Fights Aids. After seven days of fundraising and releasing videos, we raised over $25K. This whole experience, sharing what helped me get through loneliness as a child and supporting the arts, has solidified my belief that film and theater have the capability of healing broken hearts. It’s a gift that I’ve been able to study and learn from both mediums.
Making these videos opened my mind creatively, the constraints being arguably my biggest asset. Using only the props and costumes I already had in my apartment, I made videos that were seen and enjoyed all around the world. We are in desperate need of communal experiences at the moment and art can help facilitate this. When complete strangers were laughing and talking about my silly wigs, costumes, and facial expressions all together, it felt so unifying. That’s all I really care about: making things that allow people to feel less alone, especially now.
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