I am going to expose myself. I was a theater kid. Honestly, “was” may be a bit of a stretch. For my entire life, I had found such enjoyment in theater and would attend and listen to the soundtracks when I had a chance.

My original Broadway cast playbill from my viewing of “Hamilton” is always something that I brag about in the right circles. But it took until later in life to really discover the power of the music itself and how much I was able to find myself in the magical worlds of musical theater.

I never sat down and listened to music growing up. To me, it was only the thing that played on the radio on the way to school. It wasn’t until high school that I started to listen to music. I never knew what to listen to, so it took me a while to develop a taste and stick with it — something that I still struggle with. However, as I started to explore the strange world of theater, I found something clicked with me in the music.

I was in five shows in high school, playing roles ranging from Gomez Addams in “The Addams Family” to Stage Manager in “Our Town.” At the same time, school was getting difficult and life was getting difficult, as it tends to be. The powerful storytelling abilities I’ve found in musical theater have given me a way to navigate through life’s challenges.

“Glücklich zu sehen, je suis enchanté / Happy to see you” as the opening song in the “Cabaret” soundtrack plays — of the various cast recordings, my personal preference is the 2021 London Cast Recording featuring Eddie Redmayne and Jessie Buckley — you are transported in an audible Kit Kat Club.

“Leave your troubles outside,” the Emcee reminds you. “So, life is disappointing? Forget it! We — we have no troubles here! For here, life is beautiful.”

That is my first life lesson.

Too often, I find myself being left behind in the past, thinking back to what was and could have been, but when taking the time to leave my troubles outside, I am able to move forward. While the opening song is very powerful, so is the penultimate and title song, “Cabaret.”

“What good is sitting alone in your room? Come, hear the music play,” Sally Bowles sings. “Life is a cabaret, old chum. Come to the cabaret.”

Instead of getting caught up in my head and drowning myself in my own thoughts, I now listen to Bowles’ advice, which has led to one of my favorite things to do: walking around campus around midnight. Once I “Come hear the music play,” my mind can clear. I have found that my walks are inspired by the strange, beautiful world inside the soundtrack of the Kit Kat Club.

“I’d like to propose a toast!” I was in New York when I saw and became obsessed with the soundtrack of Stephen Sondheim’s “Company.” The show tells the story of Bobby as he — or she, depending on if you are listening to the gender-swapped revival — navigates through his single life on her 35th birthday surrounded by married friends. While the entire soundtrack is outstanding, it is the final song that Bobby sings that pushes me forward.

In “Being Alive,” the character figures out what he wants in life, where he wants to go and he is still always figuring that out. It is through “Being Alive” that I find that I don’t have all the answers in life and it is a constant struggle of what I want in life and where I am today. “Hey, buddy. Don’t be afraid that it won’t be perfect,” Peter says. “The only thing to be afraid of really is that it won’t be!”

“‘Cause here’s the thing / To know how it ends / And still begin to sing it again / As if it might turn out this time / I learned that from a friend of mine,” sings André De Shields (Hermes) Anaïs Mitchell’s “Hadestown” has been a favorite soundtrack of mine since I first started to listen to it during the lockdown in 2020. It was a time when I, like everyone else, was stuck in my room with nothing but my thoughts. My thoughts can be a very scary place to be.

The journey we take in life so often feels similar to that of Orpheus chasing after our own various Eurydices, only for an ending as old as time to be there when we look back on our journey.

The folk, jazz and blues of the “Hadestown” soundtrack are homely and confronting but so eerily underground — in the land of Hadestown — at the same time. As André De Shields narrates the way through the soundtrack, I am able to navigate my life over the last four years since I first heard his whistle of the railroad.

At the end of those tough moments, it seems there is no point in turning back and trying it again. Within the music of “Hadestown,” you hear exactly how it is going to end, but yet the music of the show exemplifies why we have to “sing it again and again.” It is so much easier to just give up once something goes wrong, but it is so rare to find joy on your first time around, once you do it is so magically amazing.

The storytelling in a musical theater album is unique compared to mainstream music and the ability to connect with those characters and that world helps me to draw direct parallels to my own life and my own many problems. From “Cabaret”’s “Willkommen” to “Auf Wiedersehen” from “Company”’s lessons in “being alive” and “Hadestown”’s “road to hell,” the dark secrets of my hidden theater kid past still travel with me and allow me to get through my rollercoaster of emotions alongside an Emcee, Sally Bowles, Bobby, Orpheus, Eurydice and so many more.

​“Jam Journal” is a rotating column featuring a new Daily Trojan editor in each installment commenting on the music most important to them. Henry Kofman is the photo editor at the Daily Trojan.