The Long and The Short Of It

Episode 156 - Pete Interviews Jen

Transcript:

Jen: Hello, Peter.

Pete: Hello, Jennifer.

Jen: Happy three year anniversary.

Pete: Woohoo, happy hree years. Three years of The Long and The Short Of It.

Jen: That is just amazing. That three years of one episode every single week (with a couple bonus episodes thrown in), that's like one hundred and fifty something episodes of this podcast. And you know what struck me the other day, Peter?

Pete: What struck you, other than your maths is very good at the moment?

Jen: After one hundred and fifty something episodes, hours and hours, and hundreds if not thousands of hours of conversations, I don't know that much about you.

Pete: I know. I know. I feel the same way about you.

Jen: So, here's a proposal. In celebration of our three year anniversary, let's change things up and do a two-parter.

Pete: Okay.

Jen: I interview you, Peter Shepherd. And you, Peter Shepherd, interview me, Jen Waldman.

Pete: Jennifer Lee Waldman, I like the sound of this. This is The Long and The Short Of It.

Pete: Okay, Jen Waldman. So I've been going through the archives, researching, talking to people, scouring the internet...

Jen: Oh geeze.

Pete: ...ever since you came up with this great idea to interview one another for our three year anniversary. And I'm very excited to dig in.

Jen: I'm wondering if I'm now regretting this idea.

Pete: Well, maybe going first. I don't know. I don't know. Let's see how we go. Let's see how we go. So, I want to start with a slightly random prompt. Hopefully you'll catch what I'm throwing. And I would love if you could tell us about (tell the listeners, tell me), about the performing arts competition in middle school where you danced to the medley of Michael Jackson. Is that right? Could you tell me about that?

Jen: Oh my gosh. This is a deep cut. Yes. When I was in middle school, three of my closest friends...they might listen to this podcast, I don't know. Emily Salway, Julie Goldman, and Nikki Hause. We were dancers, very serious about dancing. And we all loved Michael Jackson. So we formed a group called MJM, which was short for Michael Jackson Medleys. And we would put together different Michael Jackson songs and choreograph pieces to them. And they were very good, if I do say so myself. Anyway, we became sort of like legendary throughout our middle school for these dances. And we entered a talent competition that included all of the middle schools in the district. It might have even been outside of our district too, I don't know. In any case, we went and we performed our MJM number, and we were disqualified because the judges didn't believe that we had done our own choreography. But we did do our own choreography. So that disqualification was almost like a badge of honor, where we were like, "We're too good for this competition. We've been disqualified. They don't think that we were actually capable of doing what we did. But we did it."

Pete: Ah, that's amazing.

Jen: And there is video evidence of this number somewhere in my apartment, so...

Pete: That would be worth digging up. Do you recall what the other friends of yours went on to do? Because you obviously went on to take that craft and use it on stage or Broadway.

Jen: You know what's really funny? I'm still in touch with Emily, but I don't actually know what she does for a living. I have no idea. Julie Goldman went on to become a professional dancer.

Pete: Right. Wow.

Jen: And Nikki Hause moved away and transferred schools after middle school, and I don't think we've spoken since then.

Pete: Wow. Fascinating. Okay, so this was in Calabasas, California right? This is where you grew up?

Jen: That's correct.

Pete: Yes. Did I say right? Calabasas?

Jen: Yes. Which is pretty...I don't know if I should say famous or infamous, at this point, for being the home of the Kardashians. But when I was growing up there, it was a much more normal place to live.

Pete: Well yeah, like I'm curious about that. What was it like at school? What was it like growing up in Calabasas? What was it like for Jen Waldman, growing up in this place that I've never heard of, never been to in Los Angeles, California? Tell me about it.

Jen: Well, for some context, the closest city that people really know is Malibu. I mean, obviously Los Angeles but Calabasas shares a border with Malibu. So people know Malibu, but we are over the mountains from Malibu. And growing up there, it was a wonderful place to grow up. It was very safe, very intellectually stimulating, incredible schools, great kids. And it was also very, very homogenous. It was very white, very Jewish, very middle/upper middle class. Not a lot of diversity. It was interesting in that I really, really, really felt I belonged in that space. But it was very shocking for me to learn that Jewish wasn't the majority religion. Which honestly, I did not learn until I was like going to college.

Pete: Yeah, that's wild.

Jen: Or didn't understand, I guess.

Pete: Because of your lived experience, which makes total sense.

Jen: Right.

Pete: And so, what were you like at school? Other than doing dances that were disqualified for being too good? What were you like at junior school, middle school, high school?

Jen: I've actually been thinking about this a lot recently, because of a book I read called Social Chemistry by Marissa King. And it talks about the different kinds of social networks that people build. And I realized that based on her framework, the kind of social network I have as an adult is very similar to the kind that I created for myself as a kid. I had friends in all the different social groups. Even though I was a theater kid, you know, I loved doing the musicals, and I was a dancer, and all of that. I had friends who were cheerleaders. My high school boyfriend was on the football team. I had friends who were on debate. My best friend in high school was a concert pianist. I mean, there were just so many different kinds of people. It's just interesting to me because, you know, the stereotype is that when you're in high school, you're in a clique and you're in a group of people who are all kind of just vibing exactly like you. And that was just not my experience. I was an equal opportunity friend.

Pete: Well, it's wild to hear from my perspective too, having only known you for four years, because I see that you do that at the moment, like with your life. Like you have me, and you have other friends from other parts of the world, and other corners of industries, as well as, obviously, your studio, and your studio friends. It's wild that that's something that's always been the case. But like, at what point was it like, "Oh, but arts is the thing I want to like really double down on, or spend time on, or am obsessed with? Was there like a moment?

Jen: You know, a lot of actors talk about the moment when they knew.

Pete: Right.

Jen: My whole life was the moment. I started dancing when I was two and a half years old.

Pete: Oh my god, two and a half. Wow.

Jen: Yes. And I did not stop until 2006. So yeah, I mean, my whole life was just full of artistic expression. I started as a dancer. Because of an injury I had sustained (not while dancing) I had a pretty significant period of time where I couldn't dance, let alone walk. I was literally in a wheelchair for a small period.

Pete: Oh my god.

Jen: And during that time, I met my voice teacher who helped me realize that I could actually sing. And soon after that, I was like, "Wait a minute. I thought I was going to be a dancer, but I think I'm going to be a dancer in musicals. That's what I'm going to do." So, I knew that I had some gaps in my knowledge. My amazing parents gave me the thumbs up to go do two summers away from home, one at Carnegie Mellon University where I studied acting right before my junior year of high school, and then Northwestern University the year leading up to my senior year of high school. So, I did acting conservatories over the summer to round out my skill set and make myself a triple threat.

Pete: Wow, triple threat. Wow. I'm so obsessed with what made Jen Waldman, Jen Waldman, and these like childhood stories. What did a weekend look like for Jen Waldman when you weren't at school? When you weren't in these extracurricular activities like doubling down, tripling down on your craft?

Jen: Oh, there were no weekends.

Pete: There's no weekend?

Jen: No. I mean, weekends were dance competitions. That's what was happening.

Pete: Really?

Jen: Or, you know, stuff going on with the musical or voice recitals. You know, I have two younger sisters who are also very, very active in their different hobbies. And so, yeah, we really never had down time.

Pete: Wow.

Jen: But it was all our own choosing. Like my parents were very, very supportive, and remain very, very supportive. But they never pushed us to do any of this stuff. We just wanted it.

Pete: Mmm. Wow. What an amazing thing to instill in your kids, too. Which I, again, I see that in you now. That you don't necessarily feel the need to like get to Friday afternoon and be like, "Oh, thank God, it's the weekend," because you love what you do. And you spend time working on it on the weekends, and all those sorts of things. How cool. So, what about your two younger sisters? What was life like with them? Did you guys get along? Were you at each other? Were you a happy household?

Jen: We were a happy household. We still are happy household. We're very close. My middle sister, Amy, was the athlete of the group. Also a dancer, but she was a competitive tennis player. Kind of amazing. And now, she is both a news producer and a trapeze artist.

Pete: What a combo.

Jen: I know. She is jacked. She could, you know, really hurt you. And my youngest sister, Ashley, she was a dancer growing up. She studied theater in her undergrad, and then just felt this calling for something else. She's now an occupational therapist. She works with premature babies and their parents. My husband and I talk about Ashley like she's an angel on Earth. She's actually the nicest person we both know.

Pete: Wow.

Jen: Yeah. And my middle sister, Amy, is one of the most ambitious, go-getter, will not be stopped...like, don't even think about putting an obstacle in front of her because she will annihilate it. So I've got these two incredibly inspiring sisters, but they're so different from each other.

Pete: Yeah. And as the oldest, did you feel that that you were the oldest?

Jen: Oh, I was textbook oldest sister. Textbook.

Pete: Really? Tell me more. Tell me more.

Jen: Um, I like to be in charge. I (and I still like this), I liked that my sisters looked up to me. It was very important to me to protect them at all costs, make sure they were happy, safe, healthy. My middle sister and I are three years apart. And my youngest sister and I are seven and a half years apart. So Amy and I probably had a little more competition going on for mom and dad's attention and, you know, to be the best. But we were very, very close. And I think I still have the oldest sister role among the three of us, even though we all have careers, we all have kids, we all have spouses. But I still think I assume the oldest sister role.

Pete: Hmm. Yeah, it's hard to get out of that groove. It's hard to get out of that groove.

Jen: I like it, though.

Pete: So, at some point...was it 1993, when you went to Ithaca College? Is that right? Did I get that right?

Jen: That's right.

Pete: I've told you my favorite interviewer is Debbie Millman. So, I'm just trying to throw in little Debbie Millman moments here.

Jen: Where the hell did you find all this?

Pete: Jen Waldman, you attended Ithaca College from 1993 to 1997, studying musical theater and acting. Tell me about that. Firstly, ignorant Australian, where is Ithaca College? Is that like, you need to leave Calabasas to go there? Is that what's happening?

Jen: Oh, yes. And P.S., I didn't know where Ithaca College was. I'd never heard of Ithaca. Californians, we're very California-centric. We don't really think about other states so much. So, I hadn't really thought about it. And most of my high school friends went to college in California. California has an amazing university system. So Ithaca College is four hours northwest of New York City, in central New York state in the Finger Lakes region. Gorgeous, gorgeous, amazing natural landscapes, all these hills and lakes, and it is just spectacular. I didn't originally think I was going to go there. But my mom and I decided to make a thing out of visiting different colleges. I had already committed to going to a different school, and very late in the game we were like, "Well, let's go see some of the schools in New York state." And when we did, I just fell in love with it. So I changed my mind very late in the game. I think it was April, maybe it was even May. I mean, really late.

Pete: I have to ask, what about it made you fall in love with it?

Jen: Because I had such a strong dance background, it was very important to me that I went to a school that didn't let me rest on that and like be the dancing star.

Pete: Wow.

Jen: So the thing that's so ironic at this point is, my professor who I was closest with in college (and who I still am very close with and talk to all the time) was my dance professor, my mentor, which is like a whole other story. I mean, she really changed my life. But when I went to visit all these different schools, I sat in on the classes that I thought I, you know, might not be that great in, which were the acting classes. And this school had the most rigorous acting training. And the students who I got to watch work on my visit were some of the most astonishing talents I had ever seen. And one in particular who I saw on that visit, his name is Mark Price. He is a very accomplished Broadway actor now. We're still friends, all these years later. But he specifically is the reason I chose that school. I saw him work and I was like, "I need to know what that guy knows."

Pete: Wow, that's such a cool story. So, you and I...you just mentioned the teacher who was a mentor who, you know, helped change your life. And you and I have spoken a bit about, a good teacher has the potential to change your life in thirty seconds. And I was curious, A: If you could tell us more about that mentor. And B: Whether there was anyone else, up until this point, that had been particularly pivotal or mentor-ish to help you see some of these possibilities.

Jen: Yeah. You know, when I hear other people get interviewed, sometimes an interviewer (I think it might even be Debbie Millman, sometimes) will say, "Who's the first person who really believed in you?" And I recognize I have so much privilege because I always felt like the people around me believed in me.

Pete: Yeah.

Jen: So my pivotal moments weren't when someone believed in me because I didn't believe in myself, but it was people who helped me see possibilities that I would never have seen for myself. So I mean, of course, my family, my parents, my sisters. But outside of my immediate, you know, the family I lived with seven days a week, my mom's mom, Ida, was probably the first mentor. She helped me to see the world completely differently. She busted open every preconception I had about what was out there in the world. Then my voice teacher, Rebecca Somberg, who I met when I was fourteen. And then, the next really major mentor in my life was Mary Corsaro, my college professor.

Pete: Hmm. I love that distinction.

Jen: And there have been some since, but like I really can connect so many dots back to those three women.

Pete: Yeah. I love that idea of them opening possibility. I think you recently called it popping the possibility cork in one of our episodes.

Jen: Yes. Yes, they did that for me.

Pete: Okay, so you're at Ithaca for four years. General thoughts, observations? You came in, you saw that friend of yours and went, "I want to learn what he knows." Was it successful? Did you learn what he knows? Did you find it an enjoyable experience?

Jen: I think we have a very similar technical background but, you know, he learned what he learned and I learned what I learned. I went in there thinking, "I am going to be a Broadway performer." Even though up until that point, I had this experience with choreographing and teaching and doing other things in the creative realm, specifically the theatrical realm, but I saw it as the path to performing. And Mary Corsaro, my mentor, really opened for me the possibility that I could be a performer and also a choreographer and also a director and a leader. And, you know, that continues to really shape how I view things to this day.

Pete: Yeah. And I've heard you and witnessed you pass that on to others, too. You can be intellectually curious as well as being a performer.

Jen: Well, you know, the thing that happened with Mary was we had a good relationship because I and one of my other classmates, Stacie Morgain Lewis (still one of my dearest friends), we were the two like "dancer dancers" entering our program. It was a very small program, so we were noticed for that. And of course, Mary being the head of dance was aware of us, so we had a good relationship. But my sophomore year of college, I broke my ankle and needed surgery, and it was a pretty significant injury. Like at the time, the doctor said to me, "Don't expect to ever dance again." I was like, "Don't ever say that to a dancer. How dare you." Anyway, I was feeling very sorry for myself. And Mary was like, "Uh-uh. No. You are not going to sit there and wallow in your self pity, here's what you're going to do. You are going to become my assistant. I'm going to teach you what I know about how to research and prepare for choreography. I'm going to teach you my process for creating the choreography. And then I'm going to teach you my process for notating it, for actually writing it down so that you can remember it." At the same time, she was like, "And when you get cleared for physical therapy and such, you are going back and taking beginning jazz, beginning tap, beginning ballet, beginning modern. You are going to do all of the Level One classes again, so that you can teach yourself, as an adult, how to dance again." I mean, that was life altering.

Pete: Right.

Jen: Because when I learned to dance, I didn't even know how to read.

Pete: Right. You were two and a half.

Jen: I don't remember being taught how to dance, I just remember dancing. So watching an adult break down for other adults something that was just inherently part of me, I learned how to teach by watching her teach.

Pete: Wow. That must have been quite a roller coaster of emotions, too. To go from breaking your ankle, to having surgery, to being told you never get to dance again, and then having a mentor pick you up and go, "Actually, you're going to do this thing instead. And then you're going to learn to dance again."

Jen: Yeah. And you know, we couldn't have known at that moment what that was leading to. But all of these skills of learning how to teach, learning how to notate choreography, keeping all these different things straight...my first big job out of college (let's see, I graduated, it was less than a year later, so maybe like six or seven months out of college) was, I booked a swing position in a Broadway show. Which is, you know, someone who understudies lots of different tracks. You have to have the kind of mind the keeps everything sorted. And then from there, I became the dance captain of that show. I mean, that is not a normal thing. But I had all of the skills, because she had taught them to me.

Pete: Was this show Titanic?

Jen: It was, yes.

Pete: Alright, that was my next question. I would love to hear you talk about how that came about. Is it as flippant as...I don't think it is. But like in my head it's like, do a bunch of people finish college and then flock to New York and start showing up to auditions to hope to pursue their dream and book a gig, and then you were on Broadway and that's it? Or like, what does it actually look like? Does someone nudge you to go and try it? Did you have a plan? I feel like as a planner, as someone who works backwards, I feel like you had a strategy going in. So, I want to hear it.

Jen: Oh, you know me so well. So the answer to all of your questions is, yes. I mean, there is a huge flock of new talent that descends upon New York City every August and September. You know, the fresh-off-the-bus BFAs in Musical Theater, and then they start going to every audition. I did not do that. I went to New York. I auditioned a bit, not extensively. But I really knew I needed an agent. Somehow, I just knew I needed an agent. And I knew I didn't want just any agent. So I did a ton of research, and I decided my agent was going to be a woman named Michelle Gerard at an agency called DGRW. And the reason I landed on her was someone had described her in a book as, "A walking encyclopedia of musical theater knowledge." And I was like, "Well, that's what I think I am. Like, I know the rep so well." I was a collector of cast albums, I had like literally thousands. I knew all the scores. I wanted to be represented by someone who would talk to me about the work. And so, I took some advice...which I now know is like not very good advice, but I didn't know where else to look. People were telling me that what you would do is get a postcard of your face (of your headshot), and just, unsolicited, send them out to people. With no context, no samples of your work, just a picture of your face and something that says like, "I'm an actor living in New York City seeking representation. If you'd like to meet with me, here's my service number." We had services back then. And of course, nothing came of it. But I was targeting Michelle Gerard, and I was doing my postcards every two weeks or whatever. In the meantime, when I was in college, the musical Titanic opened on Broadway my senior year. And I became obsessed with it, completely and utterly obsessed, because it was a huge vocal score and I loved big singing. And my college boyfriend and I used to act out the show in his dorm room, like full out. The lifeboat scene, you know, like holding on to each other and being pulled apart, and, you know, very dramatic. Anyway, I would talk about Titanic to anyone who would listen. Fast forward. Upon graduating, moving to the city, etc., a dear friend of mine called me and said, "The person who casts Titanic teaches this six-week class in his office, and I think you should take it." So, you know, I called to find out about it. It was four hundred and fifty US dollars, in 1997. That is a lot of money. I was working as a singing waitress in Times Square. Like, that was a lot of money. And so, I called my dad and I was like, "What do I do? What do I do? There's this opportunity." And my dad said to me, "Do you want to spend the rest of your life wondering what would have happened if you spent the $450?" And I was like, "Okay, I'm signing up." So, I signed up. And for the next six weeks, I worked with this casting director. Week six, final week of class, we're all, you know, chummy at this point. I walk into the office, and there's a woman there. And he says, "I hope you all don't mind. I invited my friend Michelle Gerard to come watch class tonight."

Pete: No way.

Jen: Yes, way. So, I do my songs. But of course, inside I'm like, "Oh my god."

Pete: Yeah, you're dying. Yeah.

Jen: "This is the person. This is the person." The next morning, she calls me and she says, "I don't know if you remember me. My name is Michelle." I was like, "I remember you. I know who you are."

Pete: Did you play it cool?

Jen: Yes. And she said, "A breakdown just came across my desk for the Broadway production of Titanic. I really loved your work last night. Why don't I submit you, and we'll see how it goes? And you know, if we get good feedback on you, maybe we can talk about working together." Well, I book it.

Pete: Yes.

Jen: And so overnight, I go from being a non-union...you know, union is a big deal in the theatrical world. I go from being a non-union singing server in Times Square, to a union member with my dream agent, joining my dream Broadway show. It was crazy. I stayed with that show for several years. And when my college boyfriend graduated, I got him an audition. He joined the cast.

Pete: Wow.

Jen: And one night...this only happened one time, but it happened. We went on (because I was the Dance Captain at that point, and he was a swing), we went on in the two roles that we used to act out in his college dorm room.

Pete: What a surreal moment.

Jen: Isn't that wild?

Pete: Wild. Oh, that's the best. That's the most Jen Waldman story ever. Also, I found the headshot that you would have been sending around New York.

Jen: Oh my gosh. Box O' Goodies, here we come.

Pete: Box O' Goodies, it's coming. It's a great headshot. I almost didn't recognize you.

Jen: Right. I took that headshot my sophomore year of college. And I used it from 1994/95 until, I am not fooling you, until I went out on the road with Wicked in 2006.

Pete: So the thing I'm like very curious about...I was hoping we'd get there and we did, which is great. Which is, it dawns on me that you did the thing that many, many, many, many, many people across all industries hope to do, or dream of doing. Which is, maybe they have this lofty goal of, "One day, I'll be in a Broadway show." Or, "One day, I'll be a vice president of a company." Or, "One day, I'm going to start my own business." Or, "One day...," like the peak or the pinnacle, if you like, the peak experience. Or, "One day, I'm going to, you know, compete professionally in golf," or whatever it is. And you did it. Like you got to be in a Broadway show, and your dream Broadway show at that. And I guess I'm curious, what happens then? Does it cure all of the anxieties you ever had about performing? Does it mean you're like, "Oh, I can retire now. And I'm done. Like, I achieved the pinnacle of life."

Jen: No. No. Not even a little bit. I mean, there was so much build up. My entire family flew from California to be there on my opening night. It was very ceremonial. Well, it was simultaneously completely unceremonious and totally ceremonious at the same time. In that, everyone else was just doing their show. I was making my Broadway debut, but they were just doing the same thing they did every night.

Pete: Right.

Jen: But I remember, after leaving the theater and seeing my family and like having this great celebration, being like, "Okay. So I guess tomorrow I come back and I do it again. But this time nobody's in the audience cheering for me. Nobody's giving me flowers. People aren't, you know, hugging me as the curtain comes down, saying congratulations. It's just like my job."

Pete: Right.

Jen: It was kind of weird.

Pete: Yeah. Is there like a come down, or a sinking feeling of some sort? Of like, "Oh, okay. So, I guess I keep showing up."

Jen: It wasn't a sinking feeling (pun intended, Titanic), because I loved being in that show so much. I was really happy to come to work every day. And I was a swing. I had my own role every night in the show, but I was also covering something like ten different people. So I still had lots of rehearsals, and lots of, you know, debut moments where I'd go on for a new role for the first time. But I really loved it. I was the youngest person in the cast by a good amount. (Other than the kid in the show, there's one kid.) So I had all of these people who I had looked up to, I'm working with them, I'm learning from them. Like it was really, really a special time. So it was less like a sinking feeling, and more like a, "Well, this is my job now. And I love my job. But what's my next aspiration?"

Pete: Yeah.

Jen: Because Broadway had been the thing for me for such a long time. And then I had it, and it was like, "Huh. Okay. What next?"

Pete: I'm curious...it would be easy for me to say, as an external person looking at and hearing you say that, going, "Oh, that must be why you started to JWS. Or obviously, you got to a point where you were like, 'Oh. The thing is, I want to help other actors.'" But I'm sure there were many, many, many, many other steps before then.

Jen: Oh, yeah. And honestly, starting JWS, I can look back on that now and say, "Oh, I recognize what I was trying to do." But at the moment, I had no idea what the hell I was doing. It really happened kind of by accident. It was a little experiment I was conducting for some friends. I had "facilitated" a couple sessions (I don't even remember what year it was, maybe it was like 2002) just to get some friends together. And we would get up on our feet and do some material, get some feedback from each other. But I wasn't teaching, I was more like facilitating. And then I had a period where I directed two productions within a couple months of each other, and I just loved my casts so much and I wanted to keep working with them. So I was like, "Well, I'll host something on Mondays. And you can come. And you know, I'll be the director and you'll be the actors. And we'll just have fun." And then that turned into, "Well, I better come up with some exercises. Like, I better have some structure in place." And people came to that first Monday night class. Ironically, I started the studio the same week that I started Wicked. So, I was moonlighting. I was doing my Monday night class, and then doing my Wicked stuff the rest of the week. And then Monday turned into, "Oh, there's too many people now who want to join. So, it's Monday and Tuesday." You know, Monday night, Tuesday afternoon. And then, it became Monday night, Tuesday afternoon, Thursday afternoon. And then, on select Friday afternoons. Until finally it was like, "Oh, okay. I guess I run a business now. Didn't mean to do that."

Pete: Right. I didn't know that. It's so helpful to hear, I think, not just from my own perspective but I imagine for listeners. Because it's so easy for us to think, "Oh. Jen decided to start JWS, and then five hundred people showed up. And that was her job."

Jen: No. No, the first class had eight people in it. The studio was eight people. I wouldn't even call it a studio, at that point. It was just a thing I did on Monday nights with eight people. And then it became, you know, sixteen, and then twenty-four, etc.

Pete: So you know when you listen to interview shows, interview podcasts, and like I feel like almost every time, at some point someone says, "Ah, I'll have to have you back for a part two. Because I haven't got to all the other questions I want to ask." And every time I hear that, I'm like, "Well, yeah. You're just saying that." And now, I'm like having that moment of like, "Oh, we need a part two."

Jen: I know. We've gotten to, you know, I'm twenty-something years old. Well, now I'm forty-six.

Pete: Right. I have so many other questions about Wicked, about Mark, about Kate, about you and I meeting for the first time, about the evolution of JWS, about directing. However, I want to hold some space for rapid fire at the end. Obviously, I have a rapid fire round because we love Brene Brown. And before I get there, I just wanted to ask, what do you notice or observe, as someone who is such a good dot connector, in just like sharing the stories in the last forty-three minutes? Is there anything that's like, "Oh, wow, that's sticking out."

Jen: I mean, I really do realize that my childhood prepared me for my adulthood. I see so many parallels. You know, I think about my grandmother, Ida (who I mentioned earlier), my mom's mom, and how we grew up in a very homogenous town. My grandmother used to take me on what she would call "Architectural Tours," to different houses of worship, so that I would get to see that there were other cultures. At the time, I didn't know that's what she was doing. I didn't know she was saying like, "The world is vast. People are different from each other. Learn about people who are not like you. You know, honor their traditions. Celebrate their cultures." I didn't know that's what she was doing. I thought she was taking me on architectural tours. But now I see that, you know, the fabric of my studio community is built on those ideas that came from her. So, you know, the childhood informed the adulthood. I'm in the phase of life that Brene Brown...oh gosh, what does she call it? It's the middle age...she calls it something funny. But in any case, I'm in that phase now. I'm like, "Oh. You know, my young adulthood informed my middle-aged adulthood. My middle-aged adulthood is going to inform my senior years. And, you know, hopefully all of that will inform whatever, you know, I leave behind for my daughter and her family."

Pete: Right. It strikes me in particular that you're very good (and have always been very good) at surrounding yourself with people who are world class or at the top of their game in their particular field, and that those fields don't necessarily always have to be the same thing. So whether that's your friends at high school, or in middle school, you know, a group of friends that created something that got disqualified for being too good, right through to, you know, getting a mentor at Ithaca. Like, that's such a rare and unique position for a mentor to take for someone in college, I think. Hearing that story, I'm like, "Who would do that for someone?"

Jen: Yeah. You know, I see what you are seeing. I am very good at that. And I have had the resources to be very good at that. Like, you know, I never wanted for anything as a kid. You know, I lived in a really nice house in a really nice neighborhood. I had access to any training I wanted. I went to a private college. I never felt like I didn't have a cushion to land on if I needed help. So I never had to weigh, "Am I going to do this thing which might be risky, or like am I going to eat today?" So I recognize that so much of the things that look like success are very much the product of skill, yes, ambition, yes, and also resources.

Pete: Yeah. And circumstance. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Okay. You ready for rapid fire?

Jen: Ready.

Pete: Rapid fire time. Okay. What is one role that you'd come out of retirement to play on Broadway?

Jen: Oh my gosh. Um, on Broadway....there's too many roles going through my head right now. Mama Rose.

Pete: Alright. I don't know who that is, but I'll let the listeners just enjoy that answer. You kind of answered this question, but I'll just throw it out there anyway. What's like a really memorable lesson that you remember learning from Ida, your grandma, because I know you've mentioned her quite a few times.

Jen: Oh, it's always to treat your neighbors with kindness. She went out of her way to make sure the people in her neighborhood knew she was a safe space for them.

Pete: Oh, I love that. Okay. If you weren't Jen Waldman the artistic genius, who would you be? Or what other career paths would you have pursued if you weren't in the career path that you're in?

Jen: This is so easy.

Pete: Okay.

Jen: I'd be a conductor.

Pete: Wow. A conductor. Alright.

Jen: Yep.

Pete: Alright. I didn't know that about you. You are like obsessed with books, as am I? What do you think the book that you've given to the most is? I was trying to think about this for myself. What's the book that you've gifted the most?

Jen: Very easy, too. Year of the King by Antony Sher.

Pete: Again, I didn't know that about you. There we go. Second to last question, what's a quote that you live your life by? I know you're someone who loves quotes.

Jen: "Start with why."

Pete: "Start with why." Okay. You're very good at rapid fire. And then, finally...and I cannot take credit for this question. I've spoken to some of your friends and family, as you can probably tell throughout this last forty-five minutes.

Jen: How dare you?

Pete: No, no, no. The final question, I think is quite a profound one. Which is, how do you continue to believe in possibility when life seems impossible?

Jen: I almost feel like the answer lies in the question. That is my faith. Possibility is my faith. Like, that is my spiritual practice.

Pete: I love that answer. So Jen Waldman, I think I heard recently that a great friendship is one where both parties feel like they're the lucky one.

Jen: Mmm.

Pete: Or they're getting something out of it that the other person is not, necessarily. And I definitely 145,000% feel that about you. That I'm the lucky one, to be able to have these conversations, to learn from you, and to be your friend. So, thank you so much.

Jen: Oh my gosh, I feel like the lucky one. So, I guess this really is a good friendship.

Pete: And that is The Long and The Short Of It.