On Saturday, August 26th, I had the opportunity to attend WordTheatre’s one night only event – ‘In the Cosmos’.
I purchased the tickets via WordTheatre back in July and had been ecstatically and, not to mention, anxiously, awaiting the night of the event.
iPhone 6 low quality of Bellamy Young speaking for ‘In the Cosmos’
To be frank, I must admit that the primary reason for my attendance was due to the fact that I’m quite the sucker for anything Bellamy Young related. Of course, I would have to admit that I’m also sure that the fact that I got to meet my favorite person, Bellamy Young after the show positively correlated with my opinion of the event itself.
However, despite my sheer and quite apparent bias, I would be lying if I were to say that I didn’t enjoy the show. It was a truly wonderful two hours where I was able to explore my inner curiosity and took the time to question our existence on this Earth and in the cosmos, as a whole.
The event took place at the John Anson Ford Amphitheatre as a benefit event for the underprivileged students within Los Angeles. ‘In the Cosmos’ funded the admittance for 400 Title 1 students of LA to the event in hopes to bring the topics of early literature regarding our existence to life for underprivileged high school teenagers.
Darren Criss from “Glee”
Sixteen musicians, fourteen actors, and one big audience gathered together as united, to celebrate our existence in the cosmos.
Some of the fourteen actors include Bellamy Young from “Scandal”, Sterling K. Brown from “This Is Us”, Darren Criss from “Glee”, Lesley Nicol from “Downton Abbey”, and Stephen Tobolowsky from “Silicon Valley”.
Each actor took part in reading written works from great philosophers, thinkers, poets, explorers, scientists and more, including but not limited to Aristotle, Isaac Newton, Maya Angelou, Sally Ride, and Ellen DeGeneres.
Spoken word was accompanied by an orchestra, along with musical performances from Inna Faliks, Page Hamilton and more.
Bellamy Young played the part of astronaut Sally Ride and stated that “For me, tonight is about remembering our sense of wonder. We’ll talk about these concepts from Galileo to Neil deGrasse Tyson and [feature] music from Bach to Bowie — Darren Criss is going to crush ‘Space Oddity.’”. Jason George from Grey’s Anatomy said, “This is a celebration of the curious people”.
Young also mentioned that
We will remember that we’re all are on this planet hurtling through the universe, which makes the divisions of current life fall away.
As a kind of impartial part of the audience, I felt that sitting in the theatre listening to spoken words from different viewpoints and thinkers addressing the cosmos brought a sense of unity to me. From my seat in the second to last row of the theatre, I came to the realization that we are all just one entity. We are all so helpless when it comes to the universe and the cosmos.
In those two hours, I felt united with those in the theatre and I began to regard all of us as one united entity. Especially with all the societal and global problems of this time, I realized we need each other as we are all living on the same earth hurtling through the same cosmos.
Throughout the show, the orchestra played beautiful space related pieces and contemporary music as well. From Space Oddity featuring Darren Criss to a cover of A Sky Full of Stars by Coldplay; it was an evening full of music and awestruck wonder.
