Some people think that creativity cannot be taught. “You either have it or you don’t,” they say. But I happen to know that this is total bunk. Music education is all about training the imagination! And because I’m passionate about singing well, my own imagination is constantly getting stretched, tweaked and cultivated. In the classic … Read more
I am a creative person. From the daydreams that blossom into a flood of ideas, the ability to problem solve from varying perspectives or the knack of seeing the special in the ordinary, I would be hard pressed to give you a moment in my life when creative thinking did not play a crucial part … Read more
Sure, us artists are always trying to be creative on a daily basis with our art form. But lately, I’ve been trying to use my creative brainstorming skills for my daily schedule. After days, weeks, ok, years really, I feel like I get to the end of each day, and while I feel drained, I … Read more
I find that creativity shows up almost every day in my life. Whether it’s navigating traffic in Los Angeles, cooking dinner, organizing my schedule for the day, facilitating a problem solving session, building a character idea for an opera, or thinking about how to approach my performance career. Creativity is defined as “the ability to … Read more
Weirdly enough, I actually really like it when things go wrong on stage. These moments are the most memorable, and the best to recount as war stories later on. Probably my favorite performance mishap is when I was playing Mad Margaret in Ruddigore in 2006, and on opening night all of our lighting cues got … Read more
I was taking my time getting ready for a grand entrance in the ball scene of My Fair Lady. The intermission had been determined to be placed just before the big reveal in order to have enough time to get all gussied up for Henry Higgins. He was supposed to fall madly in love with … Read more
“Don’t move a muscle,” said the stage director. “Don’t even blink.” I was standing on a rehearsal stage in Salzburg, staring lifelessly into the auditorium. Mechanically, I lifted one arm, jerking my fan away from face in a single robotic movement. Then I began to sing, “Les oiseux dans la charmille…” I was singing the … Read more
The brilliance of live theater is that anything can happen on stage. The first time I played La Traviata’s Violetta in its entirety was in a shoestring production. The production team had spent what little money they had on getting some nicer period costumes for me. Act one had gone very well, which honestly, is the … Read more