This month, October 2023, marks the 40th anniversary of me being in my very first musical, Annie. This means that I have been singing, performing, or somehow involved with Musical Theatre for 40 years. (!)

This milestone made me think about who I was then, who I’ve become since, and more importantly, who I was meant to be.

But the real revelation was that I’d forgotten who I’ve always been.

My 10 year old self, who spent almost a year of her life blissfully rehearsing and performing in Annie, the Amy who was unapologetically, unabashedly FULL OF JOY for Musical Theatre and sang unashamed and uninhibited: SHE is who I’ve forgotten and who I desperately need to reacquaint myself with.

In March of 2021, a wildly unexpected event occurred: I was asked to teach virtual voice lessons for AMDA NY, after a 10 year hiatus! Because of the pandemic, voice lessons were online only, and therefore, I could teach for the New York City based school from the comfort of my South Carolina living room. I was thrilled…But as of this week, my second tenure at AMDA 2.0 as I like to call it, has come to an end.

Here’s what I learned this time around:

I’ve written a lot about what a voice lesson is, what it can be, and even what it should be, because I try to present a positive view of most things. But the time has come to talk about what a voice lesson is NOT.

Let’s face facts: I am a serious teacher for serious students. I was trained by serious teachers to be a serious singer, and I was a serious student. I sometimes shy away from owning this, wanting to appear fun and lighthearted, easy-going and cool. And I am  fun, lighthearted, and easy-going (cool, unfortunately impossible), but in appropriate amounts at appropriate times.

Why take voice lessons? I get asked this question frequently, especially with regards to the cost. Here are some of the reasons voice lessons are important and potentially life changing. (They certainly did all this for me!)

…we sing now, and always, because we love it: the doing of it, the act of it, the feeling and the sound of it.

Because, let’s face it, we must; we have to sing because it is an essential part of ourselves. As Cornelius also said, our voice IS us. So, virus, or no virus, we sing on.

Our souls are listening, if no one else.

The process of singing: aka. the generally slow, usually painstaking, often beautiful, and sometimes exciting development of our voices so that they sound the way we want them to sound, do what we want them to do.

We must be open and flexible in our visions, with our student’s unique voices and personalities as our guides.

"Gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder."- Chesterton

I am always full of praise for my students’ work and progress, but I don’t thank them nearly as much as I should for all they have done and continue to do for me. This is for them (you)!

I am a product and an amalgam of all of these teachers. They are with me all the time, whispering in my ear, guiding me, reminding me, warning me… how to be and how not to be as a teacher to myself and others.

Thank you with all my heart.

I have a confession:

In July, I had my first audition in 8 years.

I had a callback in January.

I did not get cast.

How can the loss of something you never had be so devastating?

It is, I believe, the greatest city on the planet. I’ve been fully indoctrinated into its magical ways and will always regard it as such. Even after ten years away, I miss the excitement, the glitter, the scope of possibilities… the allure is always there.

I would recommend it to anyone. Truly. I think it is an experience everyone should have. Not just visiting, but living there, working and struggling there, because it gives you gifts of enormous value: toughness, confidence, courage, wonder.

Julian taught me to sing, to make music, to act, that it was ok to love Opera and Musical Theatre equally. He helped me become a better and stronger person, to take risks on stage and off. And, even though I didn’t realize it at the time, he taught me how to be a voice teacher. He was always professional but so personable. He shared his gifts as an artist and as a human being freely, with love and generosity. He somehow always made me feel like I was his colleague as well as his student; such a gift to a young aspiring singer.

This is a story about the time my voice teacher convinced me to sing something I had no business singing by invoking the name of Leonard Bernstein.

Spoiler Alert! This story has an extremely happy ending!

I learned to teach every voice type, gender, vocal problem, temperament, and musical style.

I taught sopranos, mezzos, soprano belters, mezzo belters, sopranos how to belt and belters how to sing soprano; tenors, bari-tenors, baritones, basses, and baritones who wanted to be tenors; dancers who had never sung before and actors who had never sung before.

I love Stephen Sondheim’s musicals. I love his music. I love his lyrics. Two of his musicals, Into The Woods and Company make my top 10 favorite musicals list. But I have to confess, this wasn’t always the case. <Gasp>

Let’s talk Rejection: It sucks.

You put your heart and soul into auditioning. You put your time and energy and money and psyche into auditioning. You put yourself out there to be judged, critiqued, scrutinized, and ultimately either rejected, or, preferably, chosen.

It’s hard to know where to start in praise of Ms. Peters. She is extraordinary in everything she does on both stage and screen… There is simply no one like her. She is a unique and awesome talent. You know it is her immediately: that voice! that hair! (that physique!) She embodies seeming opposites that few can: she is adorable and tough. Strong and über feminine. Hilarious and deadly serious. Her eyes twinkle with mischief and passion, sparkle with tears and laughter.

Sopranos get a bad rap in Musical Theatre today. This makes me mad. I confess, I am myself a soprano, but that is not the only reason it irks me. I’m not quite sure how it came to be that we sopranos are so maligned these days, but here are 10 reasons I think sopranos have the right and need to exist!