Well, that’s a dramatic problem. (Badoom tish.)
The theater isn’t what it used to be. It’s full of trash now. It will chew you up, spit you out.
I think of a fellow I knew in 1976, he was the high school favorite for his name up in lights. I even kind of envied how he was the center of attention, and competed on the only plane I could — piano playing. But alas, theater was turning into trash even then. The high school put on “Gypsy Rose Lee.” Guess who got to be the striptease act piano player. Whoops, Mr. Conductor, I am supposed to play that? Well at that time it was all the same to me if it was cool. So I learned the striptease piano music and played it.
Not that this was a new show even then, but maybe for a high school to put it on was a slide. Nobody stripped in the actual production, but it got some curious attention from the school administrator.
Anyhow, well this fellow. I’ve Googled around for his name in a theatrical context. Neither hide nor hair of him. Name up in lights? I wonder if it ever even got printed on a matchbook.
Theater can be used for glorious things... or for trash. In a trash era, this is not a wise investment.
‘Gypsy’ from 1959 is a classic of American musical theater. Maybe the greatest stage musical of all? It has no nudity and never has.
Young men consumed with an ambition for musical theatre are usually homosexuals. I knew one in college; his ambition was to be steward on a cruise boat. He died a long time ago, probably from AIDS. Maybe the same thing happened to your friend.