BWW Interviews: Jennifer Damiano & Wesley Taylor Talk Straight From New York Masterclasses

The main goal of Tyce Green's Straight From New York Workshop and Concert Series is to offer "educational opportunities for performing arts students to work with top Broadway artists in cities around the country. In addition, the concert series features Broadway artists in performance for the public!" This October, Tony Award Nominee Jennifer Damiano and Broadway/TV Star Wesley Taylor are touring Texas to teach a series of Musical Theatre Audition Masterclasses. The duo will be in Dallas on October 16, Austin on Ocotber 17, and Houston on October 18. Recently, I chatted with the pair about these classes.

BWW: How did you personally get involved with theatre?

Jennifer Damiano: I was around the age of ten. I was always singing around my house, and my parents thought they should put me into voice lessons just for fun. I did that, and it lead to community theatre around my area. I became more immersed in acting, and I started going on auditions in the city. I did commercials and voice-overs as a kid, and it just lead to musical theatre opportunities. [Laughs]

Wesley Taylor: I wanted to act since I knew how to talk. My mom was a music teacher. For my whole family, music is a part of our life. My mom still teaches music. So, my sister and I would always be signing in churches, and she'd put us up on stage to sing anywhere we were. I knew that I wanted to do more than music and singing. I knew I was somehow infected by the audience, and every time someone laughed at something I said, I was the happiest. I knew that I was an attention whore. The older I got, the more I realized that I wanted to be taken seriously, learn, train, and educate myself. I went to an arts high school, and I went to a theatre conservatory for college. I've been on stage since I was a kid. I was signed with an agent when I was nine-years-old. I did my first equity job when I was 11. It's always sort of been there.

BWW: When did you know you wanted to pursue theatre as a profession?

Jennifer Damiano: I was kind of lucky enough for it to find me. I was so young that it was just kind of something that I was doing, and I didn't realize that it was exactly what I wanted to do. I slowly realized that when I wasn't doing it that I didn't really feel like myself. It just sort of became the only thing for me really. I love it. I can't imagine myself doing anything else. It just feels like it is where I'm meant to be.

Wesley Taylor: I'm not quite sure that it was theatre. When I was young, theatre was the only outlet for me because there wasn't an opportunity in TV and film like there was with theatre. I could do theatre in school, regionally, at that dinner theatre over there, or at this community theatre over here. So, theatre was the most accessible, but I don't necessarily know that theatre was something that, from a small age, I was thinking, "Yes! I want to be a theatre star."

It wasn't until my dad-we had family vacations-took us to New York City, and I got to see Broadway shows. Then, my whole life changed. He got us seasonal tickets to the touring companies coming into Orlando, Florida, and I would see every Broadway National Tour. We would go to New York on Spring Breaks and Christmas Breaks to see all the shows. I remember my mom and my sister wanting to go to other places and me convincing the family to continue to go to New York City. That became our staple for the family because of the Broadway shows.

So, as soon as I started realizing that I could have a career on the Broadway that was what I sort of set out to do. I went to high school and just fell in love with theatre at that arts high school. I did as many shows as I could. Then, picking what college to go to-because I knew I wanted to go to college-I wasn't sold on the whole musical theatre. I wanted to be able to be trained as an actor first and foremost, so I could also be available for TV, film, and all of the different mediums.

BWW: What are you most looking forward to about leading musical theatre masterclasses with Straight From New York Workshop and Concert Series?

Jennifer Damiano: I'm so excited. I've never really done anything like that before. I just feel like I'm at the point in my career where I've been through a lot, and I could help kids that are interested in doing this. Mostly because I remember how badly I wanted it when I was their age. I feel like it's not only just a rewarding experience, but I really care about the industry, I care about what I do, and I feel like I can help inspire that in these kids and give them real insight into what it's really like, especially for a young performer.

Wesley Talyor: Well, I've done this before. I did this a few months back with Tyce Green. I had a blast. I don't think there's a better feeling than being able to teach something that actually sinks in. Then, you see the person do it 10 times better, and you were a part of that. Not to say that you take credit for their talent, of course, but you were a part of cultivating progression. You give them a few tools for their bag that they really latch on to, they listen to you, and they apply them. It's really exciting to watch.

I do this all the time in New York through Broadway Artists Alliance, but for some reason it was a little different in Texas. I feel like in New York, a lot of times, rich parents will throw their kids in acting class or musical theatre audition class as sort of a hobby, as sort of "this is what you'll do during the day while I'm busy," if they only have a little bit of an interest, if they like this s**t, or whatever. But, in Texas, those kids are starving to be on stage. They're desperate. I could tell by their song selections. They were choosing zany, interesting, offbeat, underground composers like Michael Kooman and Christopher Diamond, Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, and all these other underground musical theatre composers. Well, Pasek and Paul aren't really underground anymore. Anyway, they sort of had their fingers on the pulse of what is current in the musical theatre world. It was really impressive to me. It showed that they were hungry; hungry to get to New York and pound the pavement. That was very exciting for me because I could tell it was imminent.

I identify with them. Whereas a lot of times when I'm teaching classes in New York, it doesn't feel like I have everyone's attention. It feels like half the class is interested and half the class could care less. But these masterclasses with Straight From New York, I feel like these guys are really invested in what we have to teach, really responsive, and really respectful. It's nice. It's like we're having this big dialogue. I don't feel like a teacher. I feel like friend who's giving guidance. We're all laughing and figuring it out together. It's special. I like it.

BWW: What can participants of the masterclasses expect? What techniques do you plan to work on the most?

Jennifer Damiano: [Laughs] I haven't really studied any specific techniques in my life. I've taken classes, taken what I can from these different techniques and from the different perspectives that I've had from people, and I've just put it through myself, my thing, and what I do. I think what I have to offer is just really genuine, real opinions about something. I think that my tactic usually is just to be as much myself as I can be. So, I guess, my go to advice is to usually keep people from straying from themselves, from trying to do anything that isn't their thing. I feel like it's important, especially at young age, to find exactly what it is that makes your style so important as opposed to just trying to fit into the iconic styles of performers out there.

Wesley Taylor: This time I'm teaching with Jen(nifer Damiano), so I don't know how it will be changed. But primarily how they go, we'll start by introducing ourselves and talking about our journey, career, how we got here, our obstacles, set backs, victories, and accomplishments. Maybe we'll sing for the class, show them a little bit of what we'd audition with. Then we meet the class, get to know who they are, and hear their stuff. A lot of times when I say "their stuff," I mean they are showing us college-prep material. They're showing us cuts of songs or full songs they want to present for their college auditions. Maybe, if they're younger, what they're working on in high school. It's basically an opportunity for two Broadway professionals to be able to look at your work and help you refine what you've already chosen. Or, we can be like, "That's a terrible song. [Laughs] A terrible song for you. These are other songs."

We sort of suggest or guide the direction that we think their type-it's not just about the work, unfortunately. We're preparing them for the business, and the business is unrelenting and ugly. Unfortunately, you sort of have to learn your type: what people want to see you as and what people will see you as. You sort of have to encourage people to find that material because that's what they're going to be sold, marketed, and branded as. The marketing, branding, and business side of things is just as important, if not more, when you're just starting out as a young artist than the art itself, unfortunately, because there are just too many people that want to do this. So, we are trying to find something that sets them apart and tapping into what their special X factor is.

BWW: To date, what is the most memorable role/experience you have had?

Jennifer Damiano: Obviously, NEXT TO NORMAL has been the most memorable experience of my life! Not even just in performing. The role of Natalie was not only important to me but also important to a lot of people, a lot of young performers, especially young girls. It will forever be one of those really, really lucky times in my life when I was able to get to give to a character like that and then to give it life and hopefully contribute into making it what it is, or was, or IS! I still get so many awesome tweets and stuff from young girls who are auditioning for the part and are auditioning for the show, and it makes me so so so so excited.

If I had to say why it was as memorable as it was, I don't really know what I would say. I feel like everyone knows the answer to that. It was just one of those incredible amazing experiences where... [Pauses] Ugh! [Laughs] See, it just brings the loss of words to me. [Laughs] I think everybody knows why it's so memorable, and obviously the amazing creative team, writers, and everything. Mostly, being young and being surrounded by so many amazing adults in this industry was one of the biggest highlights for me. It kept me very necessarily grounded in a really kind of cool time in my career.

Wesley Taylor: I'm not going to just say one. I'm going to say two. I went to school for the arts. My favorite of the high school and college experiences-because I worked so damn hard through eight years of training and played many, many different roles-was the last role I played in college. It was sort of my favorite thing that I've ever done. I played Falstaff in HENRY IV, Parts I and II. I wore a big fat suit; I had a prosthetic nose, a wig, and facial hair. I got to sort of transform, and I knew when I was doing it that it was going to be the last time for a while because I knew when I graduated I was going to be playing 18-year-olds for the next 10 years. It was so liberating. It was at the end of a culmination of the training, and I do have an inkling for Shakespeare and classical work, which I never get to do in my professional career. I mean, I do get to do (Henrik) Ibsen and (George Bernard) Shaw every once in a while through workshop capacities, but I have yet to be back on stage in a classical show. That was my favorite experience in school.

In my professional life, I don't think anything so far has beaten my Broadway debut. I just felt like that was a gift that was given to me. Six months out of school, I was transferring to Broadway in a small but standout roll in a wacky show called ROCK OF AGES. When I read that script I thought, "Poop jokes. White Snake Songs. This show is going to close. This show is going to close in a week." I had already booked the National Tour of GREASE, so I was like, "I'm going to go on tour. I'm going to pay back my loans. I'm going to have stability for a year." My agents said, "Nope. You're going to stay in New York. You're not going to disappear. You're going to do ROCK OF AGES. Who knows? If it closes in a week, you'll probably have been seen by more people in the industry than in your entire year on tour." So, I'm really glad that I listened to them because ROCK OF AGES ended up transferring, getting great reviews, getting all this acclaim, and it did great things for me. Look, to this day, ROCK OF AGES is still playing. It's the only show of its season that is still running. It was such a silly debut. I remember this moment of being on the Tony Awards and looking out into a sea of thousands of people, and they were all holding their LED lighters that were given to them [Laughs] for the ROCK OF AGES performance. I just had a moment when I was on stage at the Tony Awards, and I thought, "I don't know if it will ever get better than this. This may be where I peak." [Laughs]

BWW: What advice would you offer to those hoping to make a career in performance?

Jennifer Damiano: I think I would say what I was saying before: you really need to find what it is that you love about this and what it is that you do. What's your style? What's your thing? Really perfect that and try to be as unique and right as you can be as yourself. I think it's really easy to just get caught up in what everyone else is doing, so I think the most important thing to remember is to be really strong in your own shoes. That is the main thing for me. The one thing that kind of gets in my way sometimes is when I'm a little too aware of everybody else.

Wesley Taylor: Don't compare yourself to anyone else. Everyone does and everyone will. It's hard to be a human being and not compare yourself to everyone. But, someone is always going to be more talented. Someone is always going to be better looking. Someone is always going to be able to sing higher than you. It is what it is. You have to focus on what makes you you and special. Stop wasting your time comparing yourself because it can be the thief of your joy. Your ambition or drive hampers it. I don't feel like competition is the most positive way to catapult your self as an artist. It works for some people. But don't compare yourself. We all have our own path, and this career doesn't make any sense. Show business is all about ebb and flow. Many actors don't even get their first big job until their 30s and 40s, unfortunately. But, when they do, it's so great because they stuck to it for so long. [Laughs] It's paid off. Other people just can't take not working for that long or can't afford not working for that long, and they drop out. There's no rhyme or reason for a lot of what happens in this business. You have to have thick skin and you have to be prepared for just daily, weekly rejection because that's the name of the game.

So, that's just a small peek into what these exciting masterclasses will offer. Don't miss your chance to work with Jennifer Damiano and Wesley Taylor. To secure your spot in these classes and to explore other opportunities, please visit http://www.straightfromnewyork.com.

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