Try on a ‘Win Wall’

In the TCE studio, before each student leaves class, their exit ticket is placing a yellow sticky note on our collective studio WIN WALL. The instructions are to write either a success, gratitude, contribution or appreciation that can be attributed to that day’s class. Here are some real life examples, “I belted ‘Defying Gravity’ like a boss!” and “I’m grateful for believing that there is so much for me to do artistically.” Not only does this practice create community, encourage reflection, focus on growth and engender a spirit of both gratitude (receiving) and contribution (giving), but it is also an effective barometer for where our efforts are having an impact. For example, at the end of a session, we can look back on all our wins and piece together what efforts led to the wins. We ask, what was it exactly that I did that led to that success, how did that contribution lead to someone else’s success, what made us experience gratitude and what did we appreciate in others that might tell us more about how we like to work or the community we like to create in? The WIN WALL can reflect where to concentrate more of our efforts, who to surround ourselves with and what type of community we create best in. Or more simplistically, it just feels really good to look back on all the ways we’ve grown together and focus on the positive ways we show up for ourselves and our fellow creatives.

Creativity is a daily practice

What’s important is not the destination or “stage” upon which our creativity lands; what is important is that we learn to establish frameworks and systems that encourage us to practice our creativity every single day. Ultimately, that practice is what will lead us to creative fulfillment and success on a variety of stages.

In my Foundations class, we practice a framework called “Creative In, Creative Out”. Here, I ask students to commit to one week of daily creative practice where they both take in creative work and put out creative work with 20 minutes dedicated to each creative act. Creative In can include going to an art gallery, researching works by a favorite choreographer, or studying the vocal choices of a singer. Creative Out can be writing the lyrics to the chorus of a song, sketching the stream behind your house, mimicking the vocal choices of the singer that you studied, choreographing a short piece inspired by the movements and style of the choreographer you researched. Creative In forces us to continually refill our inspiration files so that we always have source material to pull from and are continually expanding our creative vocabulary. Creative Out forces us to exercise our creative muscles in ways that might not always be audience ready, to stretch and play to increase our creative bandwidth and apply our learnings without the pressure of producing something worthy of someone else’s consumption.

And so I ask you, what is your practice? How do you show up for your creative self each and every day?

changing the broadway narrative

I am lucky.  I got my Broadway credit early in my life.  As a result, no one ever questioned my abilities as a professional actor-singer; my credit entered the room before I did. Ironically, one of the most difficult junctures in a musical theatre career is what happens after you get the Broadway credit.  When you are young, you dream only of getting to Broadway and all your training and strategizing builds to that singular pinnacle.  Then you get it and you think, “That was it?.”  Don’t get me wrong, I am proud, grateful and yes it was an incredible experience and I understand the immense value it has given my life, opening up many doors. But many end up feeling lost afterward.  We spend all our time preparing for that pinnacle moment and no one tells us how to create a life and career after that juncture.  And what if that credit and path doesn’t fulfill your next dream for your life?

This is why I am skeptical of programs that sound like “Broadway Boot Camp” or “Broadway Stars and Dreams” and narratives that sound like, “If you dream of becoming a Broadway star, we’ve got the formula!”  The emphasis here is on the destination and the fame and allure of something that you honestly have little control over.  You can control the effort you put in and the way you show up for your creative self, but you can’t control whether the person behind the table thinks you match what they have in their mind that they need in that moment.  There is a certain amount of luck and timing to it all.  And yet, I have so many friends who after years of pounding the pavement, feel like failures.  We end up creating a culture that over validates and prioritizes the bright lights of Broadway fame.  As a result, too many worthy creative beings feel they have failed themselves, failed their parents, teachers, friends, because their efforts have not been validated by the credit.

This is why I am endeavoring to change our narrative around creative careers with The Creative Edge.  I want to focus on the process of creativity, relying on exercises and work that builds skill sets that frame creative work as something that is transferable and available for you at any juncture of your life.  What if we change the narrative so that the end goal is not always Broadway (although amazing if you get there!), instead the goal is to build a healthy, stable, constant relationship to our creative self and capabilities so that we can apply those abilities in any stage of our life with or without someone giving us permission to be on a Broadway stage. Through The Creative Edge Studio, I emphasize strategies to instill creative habits and mindsets that force you to exercise your creative muscles daily and find fulfillment in the process of being creative so the performance is just icing on the cake.

Creativity is too multi-faceted to be stuck on a one way path.  We need to embrace multiple paths toward creative fulfillment and teach ways to empower young creatives to take ownership of their creativity, so that they never feel lost on their path and don’t have to wait for someone outside themselves to give them permission to shine.  Broadway is one small possibility along a path of a lifetime of creative possibility, let’s not get stuck on a one way road.

Hello, My Creative New year

We’ve reached January 10, also known as “Quitter’s Day”, the day when research shows that many people have given up on their New Year’s Resolutions.  Years back, I abandoned the idea of New Year’s Resolutions and embraced New Year action statements.  An action statement should be simple, actionable, flexible and set in motion your growth focus for the year.

I recently ran a Creative New Year workshop where we aimed to assess, project and plan in order to hone in on an action statement for the year.  The statement should apply not only to your creative pursuits but more holistically to all aspects of your life.  Some actions statements my students came up with were:

• Do the work and let it go

• Blossom out of my shell

• Discipline equals freedom

I also followed along with my students, answering my own prompts.  My action statement is less dreamy and more practical for this year…

Invest in Community and Communication.

Once my students found their statements, I asked them to brainstorm all the ways their statement might apply to different areas of their lives and all the ways they could tangibly activate their statement.

As I followed along with my own directives, one of the ways I realized I could activate my action statement was to start investing in my creative community by communicating the frameworks and tools we use at the Studio.  Please welcome to the stage, The Creative Edge Blog.

Here I aim to communicate some of the ethos behind The Creative Edge along with the tools we use so that together we can build a more enlightened and vibrant creative community and reframe our approach to creative development.

Look for my monthly musings in your inbox and please share your thoughts on what works for your creative process.