If Life Were More Like Theatre (Tony Awards 2012 Opening Song)

What if life were more like theatre?
What if everywhere you go, you heard a band?
Wouldn't life be so much sweeter
If you could cue the weather with your hand?
And what if all your questions had rhyming answers
And you never left home without your back-up dancers?
What if life were more like theatre?
Wouldn't life be grand?

What if life were tightly-written
And divided into nifty little scenеs?

[Neil and Amanda scene]

And just as you were splittin'
Your apartment disappеared by unknown means?
Thanks, mysterious people in black clothing!
And what if no one thought that there was something strange
About a magical seven-second costume change?
(Seven-six-five-four-three-two-one!)
And then, apropos of nothing
There were crazy dance routines?

What if everyone's diction were crisper (Crisper!)
And secrets were told in a shouted whisper?
And the only problems that mattered were your own?

"Hey, you guys wanna hear me sing about my problems?"
"Yeah!"
"Ha, I love my fake friends"

What if everyone took it for granted
That British umbrellas were all enchanted?
Wow, we can hardly see the cables
And your next door neighbor
Was the legendary Patti LuPone?

"Hi, Patty!"
"Hi, Neil!"

What if life were more exciting?
More dramatic, intriguing, intense?
If every moment were nail-biting
Filled with ever-mounting danger and suspense?
And just when you were in the most precarious position
You would get up with intermission?

[Neil and Patty scene]

Act two!

What if all of your colleagues were hotties
With freakishly flexible bodies
And none of them needed to sleep or eat or pee?
(We don't pee!)
And if one day you feel kinda cruddy
You can stay home and call your understudy?

[JESSE TYLER FERGUSON]
Yes, the role of him will now be played by me!

[Neil and Jesse scene]

What if life were more like theatre
With a simple motivation and a plot?
Don't we all wish life were neater
But we know that in reality, it's not
No, life is bleak and brutal and we carry from the cradle
The awareness that it's futile and invariably fatal
We muddle without respite through the sadness and confusion
Or we huddle in the cesspit of our madness and delusion

[Neil and Annie scene]

…Big finish!

If life were more like theatre
Life wouldn't suck so much!
(Life wouldn't suck, life wouldn't suck, life wouldn't suck)
Life wouldn't suck so much!