Melissa Etheridge

Melissa Etheridge at Circle In The Square is the singer telling you her life in remembrance and song. As she takes the stage it is evident that she has die hard fans in the audience. Under the smoke and purple lighting, Etheridge is bigger than life; so his her booming, raspy voice. Abigail Rosen Holmes has the lighting in between a nightclub feel and a concert. The set (Bruce Rodgers) is a simple one, the focus is clearly on the woman who's name is on the marque.

She starts the show about her childhood. Born in Leavenworth, Kansas, she has a very close relationship with her father who is both a teacher and a coach. Her mother is an angry woman and her sister and her never really got along. Loving music at any early stage in her life, she knew it was her calling. She started to play guitar at 8 years old and by 12 years old she was playing clubs with a band. Her father used to drive her and wait at the clubs much to her mothers chagrin.

At 14 years old her father bought her a piano and that is when she began writing songs. Where her father continually supported her love for music, her mother was indifferent to it. It was at this age that she knew that she was homosexual. After high school, she went to the prestigious Berkley School of Music in Boston, Massachusetts.

As college was brief, she used to hang out with a group of girls who took her to Lesbian bars and introduced her to mescalin and other psychedelic drugs. Within a year, Etheridge was back home in Kansas. It would be brief, however, her mother did not want her and her friends engaging in lesbian activity under her roof. Ending up in Kansas City she took a job singing and playing at a Magic Pan.

With an excellent supporting actor in Kate Owens, Etheridge was comically able to put forth various moments of her life. Owens played many roles from a groupie, the musician at the Magic Pan that Etheridge replaced, a presenter and so much more. Director Amy Tinkham was deft in mixing the various elements that added to this heartfelt show. Where everything was simplified... the staging, the set, the two worked in tandem brilliantly.

By the end of the first act, Etheridge was in Los Angeles, California. She found it difficult to break into the music business. Her big brake came when a record producer from Island Records saw her at a lesbian bar in Long Beach. It took 5 years to be discovered but she now had fame in her grasp.

While act two starts off at the same pace as act one, it falters mid way through. In 1988, Etheridge had her first record, her first tour and her first music video. This is about the same time as she meets a movie stars wife as she puts it and invites us to look it up. She performs "I Want To Come Over" which brought the house down. As her life moves at a whirlwind pace, she now has a second and third album, a Grammy, and a partner who wants to have a baby. Her father is dying and she now has a second child, one who will die years later from a fentanyl overdose during the pandemic.

As fast as she rose, the fall of cancer, the loss of her father and now her son has left her in turmoil. But it is not this that brings the second act down; the show spends to much time on the psychedelics, the cannabis cookies, the trips, the Sharma and she can be pretty preachy about her politics. It is one thing to have a political view, it is quite another to talk at us as an audience. She mentions getting an Oscar for writing songs to Al Gore "An Inconvenient Truth"; never mentions that Gore fudged the numbers and lied to the American people in this documentary, however.

While "Come To My Window" is fun (a solid B grade), it stumbles in the second act, however, it was fun indeed to watch this talented musician perform in a small, intimate setting sharing her life with us.

Melissa Etheridge, Circle In The Square, Broadway, Kate Owens, Amy Tinkham, Hamilton, Merrily We Roll Along, Harmony, Tony Awards, Oscars, Leavenworth, Kansas, Kansas City, Los Angeles, Whiskey A Go- Go, Troubadour, Fleetwood Mac, The Eagles, Jackson Browne, Stevie Nicks, Hollywood, Joan Jett.