Debby Does…

Yesterday, on my personal page, I wrote about what may be one of my last lessons with my voice teacher of 39 years. Because we’re moving, I’ll only be back in the Dirty Jerzee twice a year for cancer check ups, so it limits the opportunity. Still, the lessons live on in so many ways beyond singing.

First, let me say that I view success in a very different way than most. I know, for a fact, that there are people I went to high school and college with that do not see me as successful because I did not pursue my ultimate goal of being on Broadway. I maintain that success is not what most think it is.

When I left college, I took one more swing at being Miss New Jersey and when that didn’t work out, I got married to my favorite car selling tenor and we’re still going strong nearly 30 years later. During much of our first year of marriage, I picked up local singing gigs and gave private lessons. I did some performing in community theater and worked on correcting some vocal issues I had picked up in college.

Some people get gonorrhea, I got a jaw wobble.

Then, a job with the American Cancer Society popped up, and I jumped in to be the Executive Director of a small regional office, in charge of fundraising, educational services, and patient programming—at 25 years old with no experience but some bad ass pageant interview skills and the notion that $24,000 a year was a fortune.

This job ate me alive. I wanted to vomit every single day. So, a year in, I quit.

I got head hunted for event planning by the LPGA who had a local tournament nearby, but things didn’t time out quite right. Why? Because I went to an audition.

I marched into the Media Theater and sang not particularly well. Still, they saw beyond one botched note and cast me. Fast forward to my Actors’ Equity Card, a few more contracts there, and auditions in New York.

I loved the performing, but the rest of my life suffered. Jim and I were simply not good at being apart or out of synch with each other. His life began at 5am and mine didn’t start until 2pm. I had only Mondays off; he worked. Even the dog resented me. It was not a happy time. It was a time of choices.

Now, please understand that Jim would never ask me to give up a dream. He’s not wired that way, so in my usual determined way, I just refocused my idea of that dream. That dream always included top billing for Jim, a house, a dog, a yard, and maybe a baby.

Well, the baby didn’t happen, but on a random Monday in September, after 13 weeks of playing “Magnolia” in Show Boat, I found myself spending every day with 120 people’s babies, though now they were angsty, truculent, recalcitrant teenagers, many forced to sing in the choir with me as their completely inexperienced leader. That’s going to make up multiple chapters in my memoirs.

I spent 25 years with those teenagers, directing more than 50 concerts and 26 musicals, sending some of them to the finest conservatories in the country—Eastman, Shenandoah, Oberlin, Juilliard, San Francisco, and more. Three of them performed on Broadway in the final performance of Les Miserables. They are opera singers in Europe, music executives in L.A., and music therapists close to home. They are local performers and vice presidents of musical organizations. They are teachers and sound engineers. They are section leaders in their church choirs and former Miss New Jerseys. They are extraordinary, and I am blessed to have guided them for a brief time in high school.

But what about your dream, you might ask…

Well, I figured I could make my own dream a reality, so we formed the Shaken Not Stirred Players, LLC and produced our own shows. We also picked up some incredibly lucrative casino work and never lacked for performance work. I got to perform, direct, design, and provide those same opportunities for other people, which really feeds my soul.

And, it was all because of something my teacher taught me.

You don’t need to go to New York City to be great.

No one ever tells a plumber that they should plumb in New York City. The same is not true for artists. New York City is the mecca. ‘If you can’t make it there, you can’t make it anywhere.’ I wrongly paraphrased that, because that is the overwhelming sentiment. There is the idea that doing good work somewhere other than the Big Apple is not worthwhile and certainly not evidence of success. In fact, it is the opposite.

Someone I knew many years ago said to me one time, “It was good to see you where you belong—community theater.”

At the moment, I was insulted, but I’ve come embrace that notion. Providing theater and music to the community is a gift and an incredible opportunity. I have never regretted it or felt second best because of it. It is gratifying and rewarding. And, I’m damn proud of my Broadway World Award for Best Actress in a Musical for 2017!

We raised more than a million dollars to renovate and reopen a gem of a small town theater. We’ve entertained thousands and thousands of people at reasonable ticket prices and provided them with “New York City” caliber talent, just down the street. “You could be on Broadway,” people would say over and over to all of us.

Yes, we could, but, say it with me: we don’t need to plumb in New York.

I needed to be my very best self right here at home—building a dream with my husband, sharing that dream with our community, helping to introduce dreams to my students, and tirelessly dreaming of what’s next.

Truth, I never was Miss New Jersey and I wasn’t on Broadway, but what I was and what I am is so much more. As I sang many times, in Robert Edwin’s voice studio, “Much more, much more! Please, God, please, don’t let me be normal!” (The Fantasticks)

I’ve never been a regular girl and my next adventure is not the sunset of my life. It’s a chance to be Debby 4.0—the next Debby, doing the things, dreaming the dreams, and finding ways to bring people together through their own dreams.

I’m putting that audition book back together and thinking about trodding the boards again, sooner than later. Much to people’s chagrin, I’ll be doing that even farther from New York City—in [GASP] Indiana!

I think we all have to be careful of how we measure success. I mean, what is the point of this life we’ve been given? In my eyes, it is to be happy and to make your corner of the world better than when you got there. For most, success is the small victory in the tiny town that never makes the paper. Success is introspective and personal, and its measurement is no one’s business but your own.

Congratulations on all you do and who you are, no matter where and no matter how.

And speaking of Success, this seems like the perfect moment for a Miss American production number!