It is totally normal these days for me to start a conversation by suddenly singing with violent dance moves, especially when line two is mentioned: “You gotta take line two to go to all the food ……”. Yes, I have “post Reality Show syndrome”: whenever a line that has appeared in the show pops up in conversations, something clicks in my mind and I begin to act the whole scene out. That’s how Reality Show has taken me: the lyrics are constantly stuck in my head, but I am happy with its grip.It is always easier to talk about the Show by starting with a personal experience: simply put, Reality Show changed myself for the better. Over the past three months, I have met the most amazing people in my life, who are creative, caring, simple and passionate. How they devote themselves to every piece of work they write, whether it is skit or song, showed me genuine work ethic; how they express themselves with passion and ownership gave me strength. Then when I wake up with music, passion, love and appreciation every day, I realize that I can do so much more than I thought I could, and that possibility and potential is where my power lies. I am now really enjoying my life, distributing time better between work and friends, and most importantly, I’m developing my talents again. There is so much potential in me that I didn’t realize until the end of this summer, and I can’t wait for them to grow into something beautiful.However, reality show is not about MY story, it’s about YOUR story. I want to share a moment with you-- at the rehearsal of the last song “We are not strangers”, we suggested that we hold each other as the ending pose, but our director, Preston Martin, said no. “That way we might leave the audience with a wrong impression that the Reality Show is just about the cast having a great summer and building strong love amongst ourselves. So I want YOU to face the audience, and give all of your love to THEM,” he added.Giving love to the audience -- that is what we have been doing all summer. You probably will never know how many of our “babies” died in the womb, never getting the chance to be performed on stage just because they were not beautiful enough to be shown to you (even though we worked our hearts out for every single piece we wrote). You probably would never know how hard we tried to brainstorm the best vocabulary, melody and humor to make you laugh, just because we want to make sure that our story can resonate with yours, that laughter can heal, that love can be shared.One of my favorite songs for warming up was always “We Are Opening Up”: “We are opening up to a sweet sensation, let the luminous love light fill the Earth. We are opening. We are opening…” When we sang it, our voices blended into one. When I closed my eyes, I imagine little pink hearts bubbling up in the air, traveling from my heart to the vast space, and it became bigger and bigger, because all of our hearts joined together and were melted by love. This article was written by Miki Bin. Please send an email to [email protected] to get in touch. Photo Credit: NYU Shanghai