My Life: Act 8: As We Stand Upon the Ledges of Our Lives

Scene 1: Summer Highland Falls. Post Election Company Number

Leyna: 

They say that these are not the best of times

But they’re the only times I’ve ever known

And I believe there is a time for meditation

In cathedrals of our own

Tony: 

Now I have seen that sad surrender in my lover’s eyes

And I can only stand apart and sympathize

For we are always what our situations hand us

It’s either sadness or euphoria

James: 

So we’ll argue and we’ll compromise

And realize that nothing’s ever changed

For all our mutual experience

Our separate conclusions are the same

Johnny: 

Now we are forced to recognize our inhumanity

A reason coexists with our insanity

Though we choose between reality and madness

It’s either sadness or euphoria

Laura: 

How thoughtlessly we dissipate our energies

Perhaps we’ll help fulfill each other’s fantasies

And as we stand upon the ledges of our lives with our respective similarities

It’s either sadness or euphoria

My Life: Act 8: As We Stand Upon the Ledges of Our Lives

Scene: Don’t Ask Me Why: Rosalinda has her very last class at Colby. She takes one last visit to the Colby Museum of Art and grapples with the notion that it’s time to go.

My Life: Act 8: As We Stand Upon the Ledges of Our Lives

Scene: She’s Right On Time For Me: Assuming Laura will be late for their dinner at the Italian Restaurant, James is pleasantly surprised to find Laura already awaiting at the restaurant and sings the opening of She’s Right On Time For Me upon arrival.

James

She’s just in time for me

She’s right on time

She’s right where she should be

She’s right on time

Laura’s Jacket

My Life: Act 8: As We Stand Upon the Ledges of Our Lives

Scenes of an Italian Restaurant: Laura and James run into Brenda and Eddie, both on the girls and boys hockey teams. Instead of lamenting over their respective cancelled seasons, they have organized an exhibition match where the boys and girls hockey teams play each other. Laura proclaims she wouldn’t miss the match for the world. Brenda gifts Laura a Colby Mules Hockey patch for her jean jacket, highlighting how one of the best parts of going to a school as small as Colby, is befriending people totally different from you. 

My Life: Act 8: As We Stand Upon the Ledges of Our Lives

Scene: Say Goodbye To Hollywood: The college enters into code orange, leaving Foss dining hall closed for the remainder of the semester. Bobby lobbies to keep the exhibition up longer, but is met with little success. Tony, finally getting involved on campus, helps him sell the rest of the masks and they manage to raise a thousand dollars selling masks outside the exhibition, in the last week before the dining hall closes. Tony takes a drive through town and reflects on the end of the semester.

Tony

Bobby’s driving through the city tonight

Through the lights

In a hot new rent a car

He joins the lover in his heavy machine

It’s a scene down on Sunset Boulevard

Johnny’s taking care of things for awhile

And his style is so right for troubadours

They got him sitting with his back to the door

Now he won’t be my fast gun anymore

Moving on is a chance that you take every time

You try to stay together

Say a word out of line and you find

That the friends you had are gone

Forever, forever

So many faces in and out of my life

Some will last, some will just be now and then

Life is a series of hellos and goodbyes

I’m afraid it’s time for goodbye again

My Life: Act 8: As We Stand Upon the Ledges of Our Lives

Scene: Miami 2017: Sung by Laura solo at Bixler Piano. After James’s advice to modify her musical, Laura laments over the lights being off on Broadway and how the world is both exhilarating and terrifying and commits to writing her Billy Joel musical about her life.

Laura

I’ve seen the lights go out Broadway

I saw the Empire State laid low

And life went on beyond the Palisades

They all bought Cadillacs

And left there long ago

They held a concert out in Brooklyn

To watch the island bridges blow

They turned our power down

And drove us underground

But we went right on with the show

I’ve seen the lights go out on Broadway

I saw the ruins at my feet

You know we almost didn’t notice it

We’d seen it all the time on Forty second street

They burned the churches down in Harlem

Like in that Spanish civil war

The flames were everywhere

But no one really cared

It always burned up there before

I’ve seen the lights go out on Broadway

I saw the mighty skyline fall

The boats were waiting at the battery

The union went on strike

They never sailed at all

They sent a carrier out from Norfolk

And picked the Yankees up for free

They said that Queens could stay

And blew the Bronx away

And sank Manhattan out at sea

You know those lights were bright on Broadway

That was so many years ago

Before we all lived here in Florida

Before the Mafia took over Mexico

There are not many who remember

They say a handful still survive

To tell the world about

The way the lights went out

And keep the memory alive

My Life: Act 8: As We Stand Upon the Ledges of Our Lives

Scene: We Didn’t Start the Virus: Laura’s version of We Didn’t Start The Fire, recounting the pandemonium of 2020, her first step in telling the tale of what it’s like to go to college during Covid, all to the songbook of her favorite musician.