Ditch Your Backup Plan Jen Vellenga
-
- Arts
-
Stories of rewarding careers between starving artist and celebrity. Longtime professor, Jen Vellenga interviews creatives in arts and entertainment careers to give listeners the courage to ditch their backup plan.
-
A Future of Possibilities - Peter Royston
Peter Royston (he/him) is an equity stage manager based in New York, and originally from the Bay Area area. His credits include: Blue Man Group, The Public Theater, The Lark, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, San Jose Repertory Theatre, Theatre Works, among others. Since 2017, Peter has become a vocal advocate and ally to the disabled community, specifically through his lived experience as a White Gay man with Cerebral Palsy. Peter hopes to see disabled stage management representation on Broadway and increased visibility of disabled artists across all aspects of the industry. Show Notes and Transcription at DitchYourBackupPlan.com
-
Build Your Own Position - Elsie Escobar
Elsie Escobar is a 14 year veteran in the podcasting industry and inductee to the Academy of Podcasters Hall of Fame. She is the co-founder of She Podcasts, a podcasting community for women + non-binary that has over 19 thousand members with a corresponding podcast and conference. She's a podcasting advocate, pundit and mentor to primarily women podcaster leaders. She also has an MFA in Acting!
Elsie is Libsyn’s Community Manager and co-host/producer of The Feed: The Official Libsyn Podcast
Elsie loves to drive dialogue in the podcasting industry focusing on podcasts’ impact on society, diversity, and culture as well as their power to drive social change. -
While Waiting for Your Shot - Noah Lindquist
Noah Lindquist is a member of AEA, a singer and actor, and the creator of the viral videos, "Wear a Mask," and "I Just Can't Wait for Vaccines."
Show Notes at DitchYourBackupPlan.com -
Go Back into the Fire - Kimberly Doreen Burns
Kimberly is a New York City based award-winning singer, actor, performer, and educator who recently originated the role of Maya in the New York City premiere of Sideways (based on the Academy Award Winning film). Top theatre critics have dubbed her a "golden-voiced vocalist," "a luminous life-force with a crystalline soprano voice," and "one of the best voices I've heard in musical theatre."
Show Notes at DitchYourBackupPlan.com -
We're Not in Competition with Each Other - Logan Rose Nelms
Logan is an actor in NYC with a passion for social justice and human equity. Over the past almost ten years, Logan has crafted a pretty nifty little life for herself, filled with some very cool flexible side hustles that enable her to drop everything on a dime and take an audition or a booking.. and she’s like really proud of that.
Most notably, she is an ambassador for a fair trade fashion brand, called Noonday Collection. Noonday partners with artisans across the globe to create dignified work in their communities and combat the modern day slavery crisis. Over 70% of the artisans Noonday partners with are women!! Having this job in particular has been a definite bright spot in a dark year.
Show Notes at DitchYourBackupPlan.com -
Casting College - Alison Franck
Alison Franck (CSA) is a casting professional with over 20 years of Broadway, Off-Broadway, Touring, Regional Theatre, TV, Film, Commercial and Voice Over Casting experience. For a decade, she was the Casting Director for the prestigious regional theatre Paper Mill Playhouse in New Jersey, where she cast over 50 productions with some of the theatre community's finest talent. Notable credits at Paper Mill include the Broadway transfer of I’m Not Rappaport starring Judd Hirsch and Ben Vereen, Anything Goes starring Chita Rivera, The Baker’s Wife starring Alice Ripley, The Chosen starring Theodore Bikel and John Lloyd Young, Baby starring La Chanze, Norm Lewis, Carolee Carmello, Michael Rupert and Chad Kimball, The Full Monty with Elaine Stritch, The Importance of Being Earnest with Lynn Redgrave, and was the original Casting Director behind the Broadway transfer of Godspell, which included Telly Leung and Uzo Aduba.
SHOW NOTES at DitchYourBackupPlan.com
Customer Reviews
Amazing Conversations with Creatives!
This is a podcast for people who want to know the REAL story of professionals who make their careers in the arts and entertainment. It focuses on all kinds of practitioners from the performing arts and entertainment. You’ll find writers, designers, B'way performers, SMs. Highlights include interviews with Hamilton’s Joshua Henry and Jersey Boys’ longest running Frankie Valli Travis Cloer. There are also interviews with a screenwriter, a correspondent for WWE and a puppeteer from Henson. As the host is a college professor, this is FANTASTIC listening for (1) high school students, (2) college students, (3) artists in training and (4) working professionals. The show notes are very specific so you can skip to specific topics and/or quotes. This is one for everyone who wants to learn about the ins and outs of the arts and entertainment industry.
Inspirational and Motivating!
This podcast is really inspiring no matter your path in life. It’s an easy listen.. I mean Jenn’s soothing voice is 🔥🔥🔥. This podcast keeps me interested, goal oriented, and inspired. ❤️
Great podcast!
Great insight into the collaborative nature of theatre and creativity! Interesting voices that express the work, the joy of working, the hustle of not working, and how we make sense of theatre in our current self-isolation. Great guests!