Michael In the Bathroom

In a concert full of exuberance, laughter, and community spirit, one of the most poignant and emotionally resonant moments of the Gay Men’s Chorus of Tampa Bay’s “Say My Name!”—performed on March 22, 2025, at the Jaeb Theater at The Straz Center—came when Gabe Irizarry stepped forward to sing “Michael in the Bathroom” from the contemporary musical Be More Chill.

Stripped down in staging but overflowing with raw vulnerability, Irizarry’s performance brought the audience into the intimate emotional world of a character hiding out in a bathroom during a high school party—overwhelmed, forgotten, and unraveling in silence. The song, a breakout hit from Be More Chill by Joe Iconis, is known for its relatable depiction of social anxiety, identity crisis, and the fear of invisibility—emotions that resonated powerfully within the thematic frame of “Say My Name!”, a concert built around visibility, identity, and the yearning to be known.

Irizarry delivered the song with a remarkable balance of restraint and intensity. He began quietly, almost hesitantly, his voice tinged with the kind of fragile humor that comes from masking pain. As the song built, so did Irizarry’s emotional arc—each lyric unfolding like a confession, each line more emotionally exposed than the last. By the time he reached the anguished climax—“I am hanging in the bathroom at the biggest party of the fall”—his voice cracked with honest desperation, and the room held its breath in empathetic silence.

What made the performance especially affecting was Irizarry’s ability to personalize the song’s universal message. In his hands, “Michael in the Bathroom” wasn’t just about a fictional high school misfit—it became a broader metaphor for queer isolation, for the moments when we’ve all felt like outsiders, stuck just beyond the door of belonging. His nuanced interpretation added depth and relatability to a modern musical theater favorite, and in doing so, brought the show’s theme—Say My Name—into stark emotional clarity. It was a plea to be seen, remembered, and called by name.

Backed by minimal accompaniment that allowed every lyric to land with clarity, Irizarry’s voice filled the theater not with grandeur, but with truth. As the final note lingered and faded, there was a brief, profound silence—followed by an eruption of applause that felt not just like appreciation, but like collective recognition.

It was a performance that reminded everyone in the room of the transformative power of song: to speak the unspoken, to give name to pain, and to turn loneliness into something shared and understood.