Songs For The Struggling Artist

Famous writers and artists get asked about their ideas a lot. I feel sure I’ve read a few essays about having to respond to the “Where do you get your ideas?” question, which is, apparently a ubiquitous question for a successful writer. For the record, I have never been asked this question. Though I have been asked the question that comes up at nearly every Q&A for actors in history which is, “How do you learn all those lines?” I think I will know I have achieved a measure of success as a maker when someone finally asks me where my ideas come from. Obviously, they come from the idea store, where you can get a six pack of ideas for really cheap if you time it right. Ha! You know this isn’t true. I could never afford to buy my ideas! For me, I’ve previously thought of ideas like glitter – and I stand by that concept but recently, I began to think of an idea I had as a little monster, demanding that I complete it. To keep reading An Idea Is a Little Monster visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog.&nbs

There was a moment there, in the early days of last year, where it felt like we could have had something different. In looking back at my posts from then, I see how we were poised on this needle of possibility. There was a funny kind of hope – a kind of excitement almost – that we could fundamentally alter how we do things. We could turn our weird dystopia of an experience upside down and have a transformed society. It felt like there was a moment where we could have canceled rent, could have saved untold people and businesses, could have paid folks to stay at home and created a space for a transformative moment in society. There was a kind of giddiness in the possibility – a grappling with our values and seeing how we could have a society that really cared for one another. I feel like it was close enough to taste. To keep reading Remembering What Might Have Been, visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog.  This is Episode 250 Song: Paul Kelly's "Dumb Things"  Image by Sendoku via Pixabay To su

I AM DOSED UP! I got a shot in the arm and I am feeling good. Feels good! Feels good! Just like Lionel Richie exclaimed on the radio in the waiting area as I waited for the man with the megaphone to call my number so I could book the appointment for the next dose. After hearing the podcast where Sherry Turkle described her feeling of overwhelm in being with so many people at her vaccination center after all the months of isolation, I was worried I’d be a nervous wreck. But I was more like an excited puppy, truth be told. I was excited like I was going to Disney World. And truthfully, I’ve been to Disney World and I was much more excited to get my vaccine than I was to see Mickey and Minnie. I feel like, historically, I’ve thought of myself as an introvert but the way I perked up with all those people is making me reconsider. I was like a thirsty person who just came in to a bar from the desert. Yes I will drink that pitcher of water, thank you very much. And the pitcher of water is this group of people making

Look, I know they made Kiss Me, Kate over 70 years ago but I am mad about it today. I’m sorry. Sometimes my rage is not on time. Did you know that a woman wrote the book for this musical? I did not. I work in theatre, fanatically listened to the Broadway cast album in my youth, have seen at least two productions, I care about women’s achievements in this field and I did not know that a woman wrote Kiss Me, Kate. How did I miss that? To keep reading I'm Mad About Kiss Me, Kate, visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog.  This is Episode 248 Song: I'm Always True to You in My Fashion from Kiss Me, Kate Image of Bella Spewack via Wikipedia To support this podcast: Give it 5 stars in Apple Podcasts. Write a nice review! Rate it wherever you listen or via: https://ratethispodcast.com/strugglingartist Join my mailing list: www.emilyrainbowdavis.com/ Like the blog/show on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SongsfortheStrugglingArtist/ Support me on Patreon: www.patreon.com/emilyrdavis Or buy me a coffee on

Granted, I’m a little wound up. Theatre’s been on (really stinky) mothballs for a year and I’m really tired of my tiny apartment. So. Forgive me if this response to a little podcast episode I listened to is a little overblown. But – WTF! Actually the name of the podcast is WTF and that is also literally how I felt after listening to the episode with Jake Gyllenhaal. It’s not Gyllenhaal’s fault – or Maron’s fault. (Marc Maron is the host. It’s his podcast.) It’s just that their talk about theatre made me feel a lot of things and most of them weren’t good. To keep reading WTF with Jake Gyllenhaal visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog.  This is Episode 247 Song: Good Ol Boys Club - Kacey Musgraves Image by Sammy Williams via Pixabay To support this podcast: Give it 5 stars in Apple Podcasts. Write a nice review! Rate it wherever you listen or via: https://ratethispodcast.com/strugglingartist Join my mailing list: www.emilyrainbowdavis.com/ Like the blog/show on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/So

What jobs are the sexiest? Like, if you want a character to be appealing and captivating and sexy, what job do you give them? Let’s say you want them to be at the center of a story – what job do they have? If you want to signal to an audience, “This character is sexy,” what do they do? Apparently, in Spain, if your main character is a woman, the answer is “modista” – a modista is a seamstress, but not just a seamstress or dress maker, she’s also a designer. I am on my second Spanish period drama which features a modista at the center and it made me start to wonder what the sexy jobs are in our culture. Like – some of them are the same. The actor who plays the modista’s love interest in both shows plays a pilot in one and a war journalist in the other. Those are sexy jobs for men. They are just as popular here as I imagine they are in Spain. To keep reading Sexy Jobs visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog. This is Episode 246 Song: Shari Elf's Seamstress. Watch her I Like Myself video.  Image by

The governor of New York, where I live, is all over the news again and as much as I’d really rather not think too much about Governor Andrew Cuomo, I’m seeing so many bonehead responses to this story that I think I’m going to have to say something. I will say, just right off the bat, I am not a fan of him. I have not been a fan. I have voted against him every chance I’ve gotten. I found him tolerable for the first time when he became a voice of reason in the early pandemic times – but even his reassuring statements about what day of the week it was were not enough to turn me into a “CuomoSexual.” I understand why people got crushes on him but his history of throwing women’s reproductive rights under the bus, for example, kept me from any particularly warm feelings. I just didn’t hate him as hard while he was telling me it was Tuesday back in April. To keep reading I Guess I Have to Talk About Cuomo visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog.  This is Episode 245 Song: You're No Good Image by Leandro

A lot of my theatre friends have been working in other fields lately, partly due to not being able to actually work in theatre in these times. I’ve had a fair number of conversations about how weirdly non-theatre people do things. (Apologies to all you non-theatre folk. I know we’re really the weird ones but you’re weird to us in some ways!) This has made me think about some of the things the performing arts train us for, that aren’t just singing high notes and how to do pas de Bourrees. To keep reading Some Invisible Gifts of Theatre Training, visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog.  This is Episode 244 Song: Patty Griffin's One Big Love Image of the R&D of Messenger Theatre Company's The Door Was Open by Kacey Anisa Stamats To support this podcast: Give it 5 stars in Apple Podcasts. Write a nice review! Rate it wherever you listen or via: https://ratethispodcast.com/strugglingartist Join my mailing list: www.emilyrainbowdavis.com/ Like the blog/show on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/So

Hey everyone – just in case you hadn’t noticed, this whole situation really sucks. I know this seems obvious and it is. But the fact that it’s obvious and that we’re all experiencing it, doesn’t make it suck any less. It sucks. Totally and completely. I just thought it might be important to acknowledge the suckitude. I’ve been seeing (virtually, of course, not so much IRL because I don’t see much IRL) a lot of people working really hard to be okay, to make a positive out of this giant negative and I’m seeing a lot of folks really suffer because of it. I think the American strategy of thinking positive and putting on a brave face is starting to really crack at the seams. I was in a shop the other day and when I asked the cashier how he was doing, he said, very brightly, “I have no complaints!” I found it very jarring, frankly. No complaints? Really? None? I did not say so, though. I just sputtered something, matching his cheeriness, like, “No complaints? Wow. Well, that’s great!” To keep reading This Sucks vis

Disculpe, pero – I cannot stop watching Spanish television shows during this pandemic. This is the third time, I know, but I’m on my fourth Bambú show and watching it (and the others) has made me think about something I had never really considered before. It was during the finale of Season 2 of Velvet (a show about a high fashion couture store in Madrid in the 50s) that I thought, “watching that character cry is one of my favorite things onscreen. I could watch that guy cry for five more hours.” And that reminded me of how much I enjoyed the crying of another man in another show by the same production company, Gran Hotel. These creators show men crying in a way I have never seen in American media. To read more of Men Crying visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog.  This is Episode 242  Song: It's Alright to Cry from Free to Be You and Me Image: Pedro (Adrián Lastra) hugging Don Emilio (José Sacristán) on Velvet Season 2 Finale To support this podcast: Give it 5 stars in Apple Podcasts. Write

I overheard this old school New York guy talking with an old school Eastern European lady at my local bagel shop. He said to her, “You can’t live in fear,” after she expressed her concern about the virus. He was telling her how he went inside for a dinner party and she expressed her disapproval. She doesn’t see her friends. She doesn’t go out. What is he doing? He tells her she can’t live in fear. Oh no? She can’t live in fear? Yes, she can. So can I. To keep reading "You Can't Live in Fear" visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog. This is Episode 241 Song: Toad the Wet Sprocket's "Whatever I Fear"  Image by MakaMuki0 via Pixabay To support this podcast: Give it 5 stars in Apple Podcasts. Write a nice review! Rate it wherever you listen or through: https://ratethispodcast.com/strugglingartist Join my mailing list: www.emilyrainbowdavis.com/ Like the blog/show on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SongsfortheStrugglingArtist/ Support me on Patreon: www.patreon.com/emilyrdavis Or buy me a coffee on

Because I come from theatre, I am used to immediate feedback. I am used to people who attended the show, waiting to talk to me after, so I know they were there. When the houses are small and I’m onstage, I know who was there because, I can see every single face in the crowd. Even if only a handful of people actually say something nice, they, at least, all give us some applause. They came, they saw, they clapped. We know they were there and if we’re lucky someone will tell us something they liked about it. But when you make something that is not live, you have no idea who took the time to engage with your work. You don’t know who’s heard it, read it, seen it, whatever. There is no applause. It can feel a little bit like throwing a handful of glitter into outer space. To read more of Tell an Artist You Saw/Heard/Experienced Their Art visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog. The link to the post for How to Talk to an Artist is here: https://artiststruggle.wordpress.com/2016/08/28/how-to-talk-to-an-artist/

A mystery just cleared up before my very eyes. I was reading the alumni magazine from my grad school and there was an article about a brand new artist residency set up by some funders. The story was really about the funders and this generous thing they’re doing. It sounds nice enough – but what popped out at me was the description of the application process as highly competitive. This explained many things for me. As someone who applies for this sort of thing, I have often wondered why the process is so onerous. Why do they make us write multiple essays? Why do I have to upload my resume again? Or, in some cases, type it out into their format? Why do I need to fill in a box for Awards and Recognitions? What is this for? To read more of A Highly Competitive Mystery Solved visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog. This is Episode 239 Song: Eye of the Tiger (theme from Rocky) by Survivor Image by bboellinger via Pixabay To support this podcast: Give it 5 stars in Apple Podcasts. Write a nice review! Rate i

Someone asked me what my next project was and I panicked. “I don’t know! I don’t have anything lined up! My well has run dry! The last thing I wrote is probably my last thing ever! It’s all over.” But then I realized that last year, at almost exactly this time, I had a similar panic. I wrote a piece about it that has been one of my most popular podcast episodes and of course the well hadn’t run dry. I subsequently produced a whole season of an audio drama and wrote its second season as well. To read more of Creativity Might Be Seasonal visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog.  This is Episode 238 Song: Four Seasons in One Day by Crowded House Image by manfredrichter via Pixabay To support this podcast: Give it 5 stars in Apple Podcasts. Write a nice review! Rate it wherever you listen or through: https://ratethispodcast.com/strugglingartist Join my mailing list: www.emilyrainbowdavis.com/ Like the blog/show on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SongsfortheStrugglingArtist/ Support me on Patreon: w

There’s an article about Gen X thriving in these pandemic times that came out back in March when the lockdown started and has been making the rounds again recently. I haven’t read it since it came out but I remember it as “We’ve been training to sit at home alone eating pop tarts our whole lives. We’re built for this!” If I remember correctly, it spoke to Gen X’s ability to stay home and keep ourselves busy. Our time to shine! At home! With pop tarts! But I’ve been thinking about this and thinking about this silly tweet that the city of NYC put out last summer where they admonished Gen X for the numbers of cases going up, when it was clear that they did not know who Gen X was. Did they confuse Gen X with Gen Z? On the chart, Gen X lines were sharply going in the right direction. Gen X Covid cases were the lowest on the diagram. I haven’t seen a lot more evidence in this territory but anecdotally, it would seem that Gen X generally has not been hit quite as hard by Covid as other generations, both older and yo

I’m going to talk about snot today. I’ve been trying to formulate thoughts about this abhorrent coup attempt that just happened but snot is a lot less disgusting so I’m going with snot right now. Why am I writing about snot? Well, I was reading an article about the best movie performances of 2020 and they were talking about Viola Davis’ work and said, “Davis has never been hampered by vanity, as past scenes of snot-dripping emotion attest.” I have thoughts. Not about Viola Davis. (Aside from she’s amazing and we’re lucky to have her and she came from the stage so, also, we miss her.) I have thoughts about these kudos for snot acting. To read more of Snot Acting visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog. This is Episode 236 Song: You're So Vain by Carly Simon Print by Pietro Rotari via New York Public Library Digital Collections To support this podcast: Give it 5 stars in Apple Podcasts. Write a nice review! Rate it wherever you listen or through: https://ratethispodcast.com/strugglingartist Join my maili

In the comments on the Gothamist article about 4,500 Teaching Artists losing work, someone said “Do you mean Art Teachers?” Here was a major publication addressing what was once my profession perhaps for the first time and the comments all suggested a complete and total lack of awareness of what the job was. One comment suggested all these out of work artists go join the army. Nice. Nice. And also hilarious. Can you imagine the guy at the recruitment office if 4,500 visual artists, musicians, actors, composers, directors, writers, filmmakers, puppeteers, dancers, cartoonists, choreographers, clowns and more (who can all teach killer workshops) showed up to join the army? That recruiter would not know what hit him. Believe me, 4,500 artists would not be a benefit to an organization that values obedience. If the organization was in the mood to shake things up, re-evaluate, maybe use their resources differently than, say, shooting people, then 4,500 artists might not be a bad idea. If you want an army of creativ

After I became obsessed with Cable Girls, Netflix suggested a show called High Seas (Alta Mar) to me. It was by the same team, I came to discover, and I was quickly hooked. (Sisters solving murders on an ocean liner in the 1940s? Are you kidding me? Yes, please!) I got curious about the making of this show after watching the third season in which a deadly virus was brought on board – like, is this timely by accident or on purpose? When did this air and who made it? (Aired 2020 – made in 2019. What?! And the thing that stretches the bounds of credulity the most is not the ghost, no, it’s how quickly they make a vaccine.) This all led me to another earlier show made by the same team – Gran Hotel. It features actors from both the other shows I watched and it has been a very nice distraction from this pandemic world. It takes place in the early 1900s and features various fun encounters with such new technology as electric lights! Film! Gramophones! Fingerprinting for criminal justice! It’s not as full of women be

Prior to my deep dive into Gen X-ery, I honestly didn’t think about our generation much at all. It was one of the last things I considered in my identity, particularly in my artistic identity. I have a very particular aesthetic and, I’m given to understand, an identifiable one, as well. I would have called that MY aesthetic, not a Gen X aesthetic. Then the stats for my audio drama podcast (The Dragoning, listen wherever you get your podcasts) started to roll in and it was absolutely clear who my audience is for that. In case you can’t see this graphic, it’s a chart of listeners by age, where each column is a different collection of ages. To me, it looks like a hand with its middle finger extended and that middle finger represents people who are 45-59 – that is, most of Gen X. This has not shifted as time has gone by. The graphic looked the same when we had twenty listeners and now that we have 200. If I have a demographic for this podcast, it is clearly Gen X. To read more of Is There a Gen X Aesthetic, visi

I thought I should sum up this bananas year as I might want to remember what it was like for me, being all historical and everything. So I did a little month by month re-cap to finish out the year. * Happy New Year! Cheers! It’s 2020! What a nice round number this is! Maybe this’ll be my year! Twenty Twenty, so exciting. Oh yeah, January and already things are looking up! I’m back in the rehearsal room, getting back on stage next month. It’s looking good. To read more of 2020 Year in Review visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog.  This is Episode 232 Song: Swinging on a Star  Image by Syaibatulhamdi via Pixabay To support this podcast: Give it 5 stars in Apple Podcasts. Write a nice review! Rate it wherever you listen or through: https://ratethispodcast.com/strugglingartist Join my mailing list: www.emilyrainbowdavis.com/ Like the blog/show on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SongsfortheStrugglingArtist/ Support me on Patreon: www.patreon.com/emilyrdavis Or buy me a coffee on Kofi: http