Alicia's Falsettos Story

	Buy Falsettos Stuff
	Elegies - A Song Cycle Infinite Joy In Trousers Falsettoland March Of The Falsettos March Of The Falsettos/ Falsettoland (2 CD Set) Falsettos - Plume Book Vocal Selections from Falsettos

In 1992, I was a freshman in high school. After reading Les Miserables in English class, I bought the CD of the musical, and was introduced to showtunes. My cousin Mira, who was always ahead of me in musical taste, decided to send me a tape with her favorite songs from her favorite musicals. It was on that tape that I first heard Falsettos. She had songs like "Four Jews in a Room Bitching" and "Everyone Tells Jason To See a Psychiatrist" on there that I really got a kick out of. So, I went out and bought the CDs.

I remember the first time I listened to the Falsettos CDs. My parents weren't home. I was sitting on the floor of their bedroom playing Sonic the Hedgehog on the Sega and listening to CDs at the same time. Because Falsettos is completely sung, I was able to follow the story very well without already knowing it. At some point during Falsettoland, I stopped playing Sega and just layed on the bed reading along with the lyrics in the liner notes. By the end, I was sobbing. I knew right away that this was something special. After that, Falsettos became my favorite musical, and I thought I knew everything about it.

My parents took me to see Falsettos on Broadway in June of 1993, the last showing. It was really an amazing experience. That summer I also traveled to Boston to see a production of In Trousers that was being performed in a YMCA. I really thought I knew all about Falsettos after that!

Then in 1994, I found out that a local community theatre, Pax Amicus, was going to be doing Falsettos. I decided to audition, even though I'm not a good singer, and was way too young for any of the female parts. Of course I did not get a part, but I really wanted to be involved, so they let me be the stage manager! I went to rehearsals for several weeks, and then the show ran for 6 weeks. It was a really great experience, and my first in a real theatre. After that, I *really* thought I knew everything about Falsettos. They even called me "Falsettos girl" there.

That summer, my friends and I put on a "backyard Falsettos" production. We practiced all summer, and then the day before school started, we performed it to an audience of about 3 in my friend Jennifer's backyard. I played Whizzer because my friend John, who played Marvin, didn't want to play against a guy. I also directed, if you can call it that - I was in charge anyway. We didn't have a band, so we just played the CD and sang along. It was a really fun thing to do, and it showed me that I didn't know as much as I thought I did about the show.

Then, in 1995, I wrote my junior year term paper about Falsettos. This was a really fun project for me. My teacher was skeptical at first that I could find enough sources that would talk about Falsettos, but was impressed with the final product. This paper has become one of the most popular things on the website. I didn't think I would have to say this, but this paper is my property (Alicia Volkheimer, formerly Alicia Holub) and should not be distributed without my permission. Okay, that said, here is my paper. In writing this paper, I became aware of the characters in a more intimate way.

So I wrote William Finn a long fan letter and sent him my paper. To my surprise, he called me on the phone to say hi! When talking about colleges and where I was applying, he reccommended his alma mater, Williams College. I immediately looked into it and it became my first choice. William Finn even wrote me a reccommendation for Williams. But, alas, I did not get into Williams. (I ended up at Colgate, which I didn't like much, and then transferred to Rutgers)

So in 1996, I went off to college. That is also when I made my first Falsettos website. The website moved around as I moved to different schools. First Colgate, then Rutgers, then Duke for grad school. Now that I have finished grad school, I figured I needed a permanent place for the website and a complete redesign. And that was the birth of Falsettos.net.

Over the years I have seen aspects of the characters differently. At first, I was mainly concerned with Whizzer and I thought about the story as his story. Then I came to be much more concerned with Marvin when I knew the In Trousers history. Most recently, I have been thinking a lot about Trina's character. I still continue to see new things in the way that these characters interact. I feel that they have been portrayed so well that they could be real people.

I now have a husband and a baby who keep me pretty busy, so I don't have time to update my site much anymore. I also now live in North Carolina, so I don't get to see all of the new Finn shows.