Every Journey Starts with One Step: And this one starts with a Cliche

Well here goes nothing! One of my best friends just started a blog, so I figured it was my turn to join the herd, especially when my life is at a place where everything is heading in a new, exciting, and life changing direction! I guess all three of those things in the list are all parts of the same whole, but this is my blog and I can list how I want to. So you might be asking yourself- who is this mad blogging broad- and I am here to tell you, I am just figuring that out myself, in the most positive way possible! I have spent far too long self-begruding myself, thinking I wasn't worth much of anything, mostly likely not going anywhere particularly interesting, and living life from one dramatic sitcom to the next- but NO MORE!! "Why the change?" you ask? Why thank you for asking, let me tell you!

This last week, I spent a fantastic (and obviously life changing week) in the one and only New York City, at the fantastic Open Jar Institute!

This is an institute for ACTORS who prefer to tell their story through song and dance, NOT singers who like showtunes more than monologues, and NOT dancers who prefer jazz squares and spirit fingers over an arabesque, ACTORS. Maybe you are sensing that I am tired of the musical theatre actor stereotypes... and you would be correct dear reader! I am proud of you for keeping up!

Now this institute is ran by the fantastic duo of Jeff Whiting and James Gray- two fantastic men that have changed my life forever.

Aren't they fabulous?

In this blog, I am planning on sharing all of the amazing things I learned in the course of this life changing week, but with this post, I will start the journey with the explanation of where Jeff got the name of "Open Jar", and the story starts with a flea. 

Gross.

No, for real- a room-leaping, dog scratch-causing, bubonic plaque-carrying flea. A bunch of scientist, I can only assume they were waiting for some test results on the whole "curing cancer thing" decided to put some fleas in a jar and see what would happen when they put the lid on (obviously this wasn't an experiment about their breath control, so don't worry, they punched wholes and no fleas were harmed in the process of the experiment). At first, the fleas were going crazy, jumping like those jumping beans (or fleas I guess) banging their heads against the top of the jar. After some time went by, the fleas finally "wised up" and stopped banging their heads against the lid, and would only jump high enough to not hit their heads on the lid. Then the scientists took the lid off, but those spunky little fleas had lost all of their chutzpah (thanks to the Yiddish Handbook for the spelling: http://www.dailywritingtips.com/the-yiddish-handbook-40-words-you-should-know/) and they only jumped the same height they had been jumping to avoid hitting the now non-existent lid of the jar, and continued to die in the jar (ok, so they died, everyone dies- the scientists didn't kill them). Jeff feared that society was doing to my generation of actors what those scientists did to these fleas. We are constantly being told "No." "You're not the right type." "You're not the right vocal type." "You're dancing isn't good enough." "No, No, NO!" How are we supposed to jump from the jar when the hyperbolic lid made of "No's" keeps slapping us over the head. Jeff and James spent the whole week showing us that the answer is "Yes", we just need to believe in ourselves, and I am only just starting this new journey, but I no longer believe in the word "NO." From here on out, it is all "Yes for me!"

Stay tuned from the first installment of the Open Jar Series: Jeff Whiting's Crash Course on Vocal Auditions.