Beaches on Broadway: A Story of Lifelong Friendship

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Beaches the Musical is playing at Broadway's Majestic Theatre, starring Jessica Vosk, Kelli Barrett and more.

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"I am not a critic."

This has become a popular refrain when trying to describe my job to curious parties.

"I don't go to shows to find out what's wrong with them, I go to find out what's right with them," has become the soundbite that has defined my work as a features writer.

There’s a particular kind of loveliness in the privilege of approaching a piece of theatre not as a critic, but as a witness. Over the years, I have trained my mind to engage emotionally with the work in front of me, as well as the audience response around me. I’m often less interested in technical precision than in what a show offers an audience.

If you have, or have ever had, a Best Friend , the new musical Beaches just may be worth the trip.

I saw the show with my Best Friend —a person who has known every version of me that has ever been. Born two weeks apart and three houses away from each other, I never really stood a chance of existing in a world without Michelle Marie Orlando.

We are, in many ways, opposites. That difference has been, at times, inspiring, and at others, the source of conflict. We’ve pulled each other out of our shells, off walls, and drunkenly into cabs. We've shared beds, secrets, and stages. We've fought over boys and nursed each other's broken hearts. We have collaborated on everything from wedding vows to eulogies. We've seen each other through triumph, failure, love, loss, and every beautiful color of the emotional spectrum. We are members of each others families. We are never beating the lesbian allegations (even though she's married with two children).

We also have an extensive history with Beaches . My aunt, a film buff and major Bette Midler fan, shared the film with me when I was a child, and I, in turn, shared it with Michelle.

We fell in love immediately, especially with the film’s first quarter, two little girls discovering real friendship for the first time, whose dynamic felt so close to our own. We would perform “The Glory of Love” on our block, belting it out to passing cars, arguing over who got to be Cee Cee- as little girls are wont to do- ultimately finding compromise in a duet, trading lines while rehearsing self-invented blocking.

We've been singing together ever since.

So when the musical came to town, I received a one-word text I already knew was coming: " Beaches ." I RSVP’d as soon as the press invite arrived in my inbox.

We made a plan to see it together, treating the day like a much-needed girls’ date. Before the show, we had a drink and strolled down 44th Street arm in arm—two grown little girls, spontaneously singing, “The Glory of Love” for old time’s sake as we approached the Majestic Theatre.

As the show began, those two familiar little girls materialized in front of us, singing not of the glory of love, but their admiration of each other's differences. I felt a lump rise in my throat as their tiny but impressive young voices filled the space, and I thought of all the times in my life I wished I could be more like the person seated beside me.

The musical understands that friendship is not a star vehicle—it’s a duet that takes rehearsal and compromise. We’ve weathered the same kinds of tensions the show depicts—admiration that borders on envy, offhand remarks that land harder than intended, misunderstandings that grow out of love rather than malice.

There’s a moment in the show when the husbands sing about their wives, trying to make sense of a bond they can’t quite decode. Meanwhile, the women—played here by Jessica Vosk and Kelli Barrett —cross the stage, laughing together, entirely in their own world. In the audience, that moment lands with recognition. The laughter that ripples through the theater is knowing, affectionate.

And the audience is, overwhelmingly, women—friends in pairs and groups, sisters, mothers, daughters. At times, it felt like we were surrounded by bizarro versions of ourselves. At intermission, when she (lovingly) called me an asshole, the two women sitting in front of us turned around smiling, humming with the same knowing laughter I’d been hearing all afternoon. We smiled back.

The spirit of friendship fills the auditorium even when the actors aren't onstage. You can hear it in the laughter, and even more so in the quiet that follows.

In recent months, I’ve witnessed the loss of people who were, to my parents, their own versions of lifelong best friends. I’ve seen what it means to outlive someone who helped define your life. As we approach middle age, taking our first terrified steps into the era of life where death and illness loom larger than ever before, I increasingly find myself imagining a world without her in it.

It’s not a world I want to understand.

Judging by the weeping that filled the auditorium, I’m not alone in that.

Because in that theater, the response was undeniable. Because what Beaches ultimately explores is the fragility of that bond.

This is not a musical that demands to be measured against spectacle or innovation. What Beaches offers instead is something quieter, but no less valuable: recognition.

This isn’t about deciding whether a show is “good” or “bad.” It’s about recognizing when something reaches the people it’s meant for.

As a person with a Best Friend , I was moved. And so was she. We have the wadded up Kleenex to prove it.

Beaches may not have lofty artistic goals, but it knows, without question, what it means to love someone across a lifetime—and sometimes, that’s enough.

After the show, we went to dinner, toasting our friendship over a feast of steak frites, fries, and pasta at The Consulate. Sitting there, we did what we usually do—shared details of our lives, updates on parents, on kids, on jobs, on everything that has shifted and stayed the same. We retread old gossip and stories we’ve told a hundred times before. We laughed and laughed and laughed, lost in our own little world.

It felt, in its own quiet way, like a celebration— of the little girls that were and the women that are. Of beating the odds of finding a soulmate in this scary, mixed up world. Of having not just a friend, but a best friend.

We sang the whole way home.

The Lost Boys

Jessica Vosk, who currently stars as Cee Cee Bloom in the new Broadway musical Beaches, is currently originating her first role on Broadway - and would have been eligible for a Tony Award for the first time this season.

Jessica Vosk, currently starring in Beaches on Broadway, joined with Marc Shaiman to record a special rendition of the song Shaiman co-wrote for the 1988 film, 'Otto Titsling.' Check out the video here!

The newly opened Broadway original musical Beaches, A New Musical has has just shared a first look! Watch highlights from the new musical in this video.

Beaches has made it to Broadway! Just last week, the best of Broadway gathered at the Majestic Theatre to celebrate opening night of the new musical, directed by Lonny Price and Matt Cowart. Watch in the video as the full company hits the red carpet on opening night!

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_Originally reported by [BroadwayWorld](https://www.broadwayworld.com/article/First-Person-BEACHES-With-My-Best-Friend--A-Love-Story-20260508)._