Author: dancallaway (Page 1 of 31)

“Why didn’t he just let you be you?” — Talking about football 🏈 and crying

November 9, 2026 / dancallaway

🎧 Listen to the audio version of the email here.

I gotta tell you: here in the northeastern United States (especially Massachusetts?) parents are infected with a special kind of extracurricular activity panic.

“So, what are your boys doing? Are they playing soccer? Are they in basketball or lacrosse this season? Are they doing flag football? Jujitsu? What instruments are they learning? Language immersion? Oh, they’re so lucky. Bobby’s hockey team has an 8:30 AM Sunday morning ice time. We have to be there at 7.”

I was reviewing the notes from Nugget #1’s last pediatrician visit, and I saw that the NP had marked down that he wasn’t involved in any structured activities at the time, and I felt a twinge of guilt.

I mean seriously. We’re just trying to keep the boys fed, make sure nobody breaks a window, and keep the bathrooms reasonably clean.

Nugget #1 was also telling us last summer that he was interested in playing flag football. We were pretty sure we’d missed the deadline for signup because we’d been traveling. (You also have to plop down several hundred dollars per child for the privilege of playing a sport in our particular town.) I’m sure there were equipment fees when I played Little League baseball, but I’m pretty positive my Mama and Deddy weren’t needing to climb on top of the bar stool to pull some hidden C-notes out of Grandma’s ceramic bowl so I could do some prime daydreaming in right field. (I actually really enjoyed baseball.)

But Little League football? Nope.

Nope. Nope. Nope.

You will not be surprised to hear that my boys were quite astounded that I actually played football. Twice.

I played a few years in Little League and then I played one year of varsity football in high school.

I ate well and wore husky jeans; therefore: “Callaway, you oughta play football.”

And my dad thought so as well.

Growing up as a little boy in the South and preferring to pick clover flowers and do cartwheels in the outfield rather than razzing the batter comes with a lot of social challenges.

I think my dad was afraid of what I might face, too. He didn’t land upon a growth spurt until ninth grade; his boyhood was filled with daily bullying and fighting back. Folks wax nostalgic about the good old days, but they seem to forget kids wuz mean, and violence was valued. You don’t have to look far to see how that’s still very baked into American culture.

Dad was trying to teach me how to throw a solid punch when I was in seventh grade and going through some intense bullying — like diarrhea every second period kind of stuff. My pre-algebra teacher didn’t even bother with the hall pass after a while.

I had the punch mechanics down and everything, but then I cried, “But Daddy, that will hurt them,” to which he shouted, “I know, son! That’s the whole point!”

So, football wasn’t my jam. As soon as the pads and helmet went on, I was in misery town.

While the boys were questioning me about my surprising history with the pigskin, I told them that their Pops basically forced me to play.

“WHAAAAT???” Nugget #2 said.

“He MADE you play?”

“Yes,” I answered. “He thought I needed to toughen up. He thought I needed to know that I could knock somebody over.”

Nugget #2, still incredulous, said, “Why didn’t he just let you be you?”

And even as I report back to you on that moment, tears come to my eyes.

A a big part of me understands my dad’s rationale. I’m even grateful he made me play. There’ve been situations when knowing that I could take a hit and could knock somebody over was important evidence.

But to hear our younger boy live so squarely in the given — that a parent could notice a child’s nature and make a space for that to thrive — even now that’s bringing up some things I want to breathe through.

Our boys’ response healed something in me that night.

“Daddy, are you crying?”

“Yes, buddy, I am”.

His question cracked a hard shell inside me. And I looked back on that kid in fifth grade, took off his football helmet, and hugged and smelled his sweaty head.

Like all things in life, it’s a big mixture. Dad would take me to the Square Pharmacy after football practice, and he’d buy me a vanilla milkshake (like a proper old-school milkshake made it to the counter). He taught me about Motown and protest rock in his rattly work van (he’d been a professional rock drummer for several years and missed it deeply). He gave a lot of time in the way he could.

And when I decided I wanted to major in something as sure-bet as musical theater at a small liberal arts college in North Carolina, he was in my corner.

Later on, I’d get to play the role of Jim Taylor in the play Lombardi, and my football experience came in handy.

We ran full-contact drills and plays in the space, which was great for the production; I was excited to run some drills and finally enjoy myself with football. I still didn’t like it. At one rehearsal, the actor playing Coach took a little too long to blow the whistle on a drill, and I might have erupted with a few expletives to stop already.

My nature as a clover picker cartwheel turner is confirmed.

Last week I wrote about how actors and storytellers feel this pressure to contain themselves in a very understandable cubbyhole. We call it type or branding.

At the same time, actors are told that you should be able to belt a high Q-flat, knock out a triple pirouette with ease, and master 37 dialects. Also, wail Janis Joplin followed by “Quando m’en vo” from La Bohème.

Be a defined brand and also be able to do everything. That’s not stressful.

I just want to offer you the words of our very wise Nugget #2: “What if you let you be you?”

Um, how?

I know. I actually have a practical method for you to try.

And I don’t offer this like many of the platitudes that often get flung at training storytellers. Some of my favorites are “Just stop overthinking!” “Relax,” or “You have to just get out of your own way.”

I invite you to run an experiment with these two words: “I want.”

These are two very tricky syllables. My dad wanted me to play football. My deep desire to walk off the practice field, throw my shoulder pads on the gravel driveway, and go flip on the playground bars did not appear to be an option to 11-year-old me.

It happens this way. Right now, I’m doing what my dad wants me to do. What I want to do is not available to me, so I’ll turn off my wanter. Which means I’ll cut off my access to the emotion of wanting.

Then I become an adult, and someone says, “Where do you want to get dinner?”

“Wherever you want to get dinner.”

“What kind of music do you want to listen to?”

“You pick.”

“Where do you want the sofa to go?”

“You decide.”

And we wonder why actors struggle so much with trying to figure out what the table people want in an audition, what the audience wants when they actually have a job, or what all the imaginary people who might be watching the Instagram reel want when they make up the funny parody song that might have delighted them just a little bit.

So, here’s the step. You don’t even have to know what you want. I still don’t a lot of the time.

You can just say to yourself, “I wonder what I might want. And I wonder what wanting might feel like.”

Some of us were taught that wanting was dangerous, that we couldn’t trust what we wanted. And there can be wisdom in that. (Basically the whole plot of Into the Woods, right?)

Often, the things we think we want are so much cookie dough and cotton candy sitting on top of a whole lot of things underneath that would truly satisfy. But I’m not going to know what those things are unless I gently excavate through the simple carbohydrates and Instagram hearts.

And your tool is very precise and very easy to use.

It’s just the words: “I wonder.”

Wonder is of the heart. Run a quick experiment. If you say, “I’m curious about this,” see where your energy focuses itself. For me, it’s my head-brain. If I say, “I wonder what that’s about,” I feel the question move to my heart. There’s a lot of wisdom there where all your brains can collaborate.

So, I invite you into that. I wonder how hot I’d like the water to be to wash these dishes. (Wow, hot running water.) I wonder what temperature I’d like to set the heat. (Whoa, thanks heat.) I wonder what pair of socks might feel fun on my feet. (How nice to have socks.)

Let me know how it goes. I’ll update you on my end too.

This will easily translate over into… I wonder what kind of song I want to sing. I wonder what kind of story I want to tell. I wonder what kind of artist I want to be.

I’m a huge fan of wonder.

I wonder what you will discover.

One thing I don’t wonder about? That there’s only one you, and somebody would love to hear the story only you can sing. You are an objective wonder of inimitability and multiplicity.

Love much,

Dan

PS I wonder how you’ll grow, demystify, and discover your voice and point of view when you join us in the Voice Map community and library. Ask me anything at our Q&A sessions. Get the full Voice Map course that teaches you all about the systems of your voice and how they work together, and access to the library, tools, and community. It’s a terrific, accessible, and affordable place where you can build your voice and shore up your confidence and skill. I hope you’ll find a safe zone where you can do plenty of wholehearted wondering. Check it out here.

PPS I was today years old when I fully understood the joke in “Adelaide’s Lament” when she says, “Shows a neurotic tendency (See note.) See note? Oooooh, See note.”

Brands Are for Boxes

November 2, 2026 / dancallaway

🎧 Listen to the audio version of the article here.

We’re moving to a new house in two weeks. Mid-November, you know, prime moving time.

We’ve made some good headway with the packing, and, of course, I’m mildly astounded at the amount of things we’ve managed to accumulate. Very, very luckily, we have a couple of friends here who have access to dumpsters. Seriously, disposing of anything that doesn’t fit into a collection bin in Massachusetts seems to require an edict of the Commonwealth and 72 minutes of “Please hold” music.

I think moving poses an especially stressful set of conditions: you’re upending a familiar routine, your living space becomes decidedly uncozy for several weeks, and the amount of things you have to safely categorize and pack is a whole pile of ongoing decision fatigue.

We’re using a system I’m grateful to know when it comes to overwhelming tasks: we’ve broken down our categories and individual jobs onto index cards. And I’ve rubber-banded them according to the week. So far, so good.

The essence of overwhelm is truly telling myself the story: I should be able to accomplish the 17 tasks my brain notices within a 15-minute span. Then, I notice that’s not possible. Then my brain offers up some helpful story like, “Well, what’s wrong with you anyway?” or “You’ll never get it done.”

From getting to teach singers most days, I notice a very similar thought cascade in most of us. No wonder so many people are worn out. Just managing that kind of chatter at yourself would be exhausting.

But moving offers an instructive image for all humans, especially ones who want to create, tell stories, and sing: the convergence of overwhelm and categories.

In these first couple of weeks of packing, categories have been rather straightforward. Boys’ books. The Lenox china we promise to use more in the new house. Summer clothes (that have become surprisingly needed this week).

But then you find yourself labeling boxes like “Upstairs?”

Categories are useful until they stop being useful. I’ve been thinking about how we do the same thing to each other and ourselves.

Last week I was in a curriculum meeting for the Conservatory. I’ve been noticing something. A lot of schools feel a deep pressure to prepare students with career skills, and of course they’re important. I wouldn’t have my job if I didn’t know how to write a decent cover letter.

But there’s this underlying assumption that this oboist is only going to be successful in the eyes of our culture if they land this ongoing gig at this orchestra by this age. This dancer had better land a spot in this renowned dance company and get to it, because that shelf life is short, right?

I didn’t make that up. I’ve heard dancers refer to their careers with those two words: “shelf life.”

We don’t even realize it, but we’ve turned ourselves into boxes of Cheerios or Reese’s Pieces.

Then we hear performing artist consultants say, “Let’s not worry about type anymore, but what’s your brand?”

That word comes directly from marking cattle and livestock.

So, without even questioning what’s going on, artists play the Final Jeopardy song on their window of viability, assume they’re sitting on a shelf hoping to be picked, and think really, really hard about how to differentiate themselves by choosing the most memorable symbol that can be burned into their flesh for immediate recognition.

And we wonder why these conservatory students are stressed.

Could you imagine if a college or conservatory’s alumni magazine had a cover feature with headlines like “Cleaning Up! How Janet Jones started a thriving home cleaning company and shares dance with children all over the Five Boroughs.” Or “Cracking the Code: How alum Fred McNeil pays his rent with his STEM job while touring Wisconsin with his jazz combo.”

Wow, these alums figured out how to pay their bills and share their art. I suppose that doesn’t light up the eyeball-stars and get 18-year-olds to sign on the dotted line for variable-interest, six-figure debt.

But if you’re an artist at any stage, if you have a dream to share your art in a particular way, the gap between where you are and where you perceive you want to go can feel much more overwhelming than making sure you got enough bubble wrap. (Shout out to Melissa-Lee for sourcing all our packing materials for free from online neighbors 🙌 👏)

We were in luck, though, because I found a very helpful question. I share this with the grad students in the spring during their leadership and transformation class. Not that I’m an expert on leadership and transformation, but I find there are questions that help us when we ask them together.

Here’s one. And this is the one I really want you to take away.

“What is my nature?”

I got this from the Quaker writer Parker Palmer’s wonderful book, Let Your Life Speak.

“What is my nature?” What is natural to me? What is native to me? What lives effortlessly in me?

Doesn’t that just bring a sigh of relief? It transcends all the categorization and all the branding BS.

Janet Jones up there knew that she loved to administrate things, valued cleanliness and organization, and noticed she was always at the helm of group projects. “So boom, I’ll start a cleaning company, and I’ll bring contemporary dance to the Bronx.”

Fred McNeil loves his introverted work-at-home job and loves the community of his combo, and finds satisfaction with his saxophone.

Lives like this are paying attention to their natures. They’re not trying to shoehorn themselves into a package someone told them the industry was looking for. In fact, they’re not even all-in on this thing called an industry.

And I wonder how much of what we call the industry is a big collection of wounded humans trying to get their childhood needs met through creative differentiation, recognition, applause, awards, and maybe making something that will live beyond them.

I know those were some of my reasons. For me personally, I was unable to allow love to flow into me, so I was hoping that if people clapped loud enough, something that I called approval might penetrate.

I’m really grateful life broke me in a way that allowed it to truly flow in. And I’m learning, as William Blake so beautifully wrote:

“And we are put on earth a little space,

That we may learn to bear the beams of love”

So here’s your invitation. Categories are wonderful for kitchen organization, libraries, and shoe stores. Brands are useful for identifying which trick-or-treat candy contains significant levels of arsenic and cadmium.

But they’re pretty terrible ways to define human beings. We don’t have to look far to see how categorizing one another has led to some of the most horrible things we’re capable of.

So no wonder when we try to force ourselves into categories that don’t fit, we feel a kind of violence.

Rather than letting our head brain go to work on trying to differentiate ourselves in a marketplace, why don’t we invite it down to the heart and gut party and just say, “I wonder” a whole lot.

“I wonder.” What a wonderful statement. It opens the heart, and it doesn’t require an answer. In that space, a very surprising clarity comes.

What is your nature? If you get any hits on what yours is, I’d love to hear about it. Let me know.

Most of all, remember this one thing that I know is true: there’s only one you, and somebody would love to hear the story only you can sing.

Love much,

Dan

P.S. One of my favorite things about our Voice Map community is that we’re a collection of wholehearted singers who are also writers, programmers, teachers, constant gig players, students, and even a retired community dentist who keeps me updated on current vocal pedagogy :). And most of all, objective sweetie pies.

Nobody has to fit into a category; you belong here. We’re people who love singing, want to understand our voices, and want to help each other grow.

If that sounds like you, join us.

You get full access to the Voice Map course, where you’ll learn how the systems of your voice work together, all the exercises and tools in the Resource Library, and three live Q&A sessions with me each month, where you can bring your questions, confusions, discoveries, and wins.

Click here to explore the Voice Map community and Resource Library.

Restored My Hope (Boston Marathon Inspiration)

April 24, 2026 / dancallaway

Patriot’s Day was Monday here in Massachusetts (commemorates the first battles of the American Revolutionary War—Lexington and Concord—on April 19, 1775.) Along with battle reenactments and a morning Red Sox Game, it’s also the day of the Boston Marathon. 🏃 🏃🏃🏃🏃🏃

We live a mile from the route, so we head over and join the horns, cowbells, and shouts.

Something about this year’s race brought a tear or two. Hundreds of folks from everywhere running together down Route 135 — the potholed winter-beaten stretch usually host to crusty New England drivers nursing their Dunkies on the way to Framingham — became the scene of the best of the human spirit on display.

These runners! I needed this lift — so many folks together, hours and hours of training converging together in this moment, competing and together. So many badasses.

And when I saw the para athletes putting the road behind them with such rhythm and focus. Truly humbling.

With all fiery dumpsters ablaze in the world, it was a gift to see these amazing folks. So grateful.

Made me think of all the singers I’ve had the privilege to WALK 🙂 the road with. How folks have overcome vocal injury, crippling tension, trauma that seemed to separate them from their bodies, and flung themselves into the unknown of witnessing vibrating musical air move through the body.

Also truly humbling.

And makes me want to say thank you for welcoming me into your inbox, trusting me with aspects of your training, and all the ways this community shares with me. I love hearing from you and how these emails, videos, and lessons have helped. It’s why I do it.

What I keep coming back to is this:

All of that progress (strength, coordination, resilience) happens on purpose. It comes from having a way of working. A structure you can return to when things feel off, unclear, or inconsistent.

That’s what I want for you as a singer. And it’s one of the reasons I built The Voice Map.

It’s a way of understanding how the voice works as a system so you’re not just throwing spaghetti, but seeing how everything connects and knowing what to adjust when something feels fishy.

And now, it also includes 6 months inside the Resource Library, so you’re not doing that work alone.

You’ll have:

live Q&As
a community of singers working through the same process
and a growing set of tools to support what you’re building

So you have both:
📚 the structure of the system
🎉 and the support to apply it

If you’ve been wanting a clearer way to approach your voice (and something you can rely on over time) you can learn more about The Voice Map here:

👉 Just click this link.

If it feels like the right time to go deeper to understand your voice and express yourself with clarity and satisfaction, I’d love to see you there.

Please remember there’s only one you. Somebody would love to hear the story only you can sing.

Love much,

Dan

PS Check out these terrific finish line moments shared by the Boston Globe.

“They didn’t appreciate me.”

April 17, 2026 / dancallaway

We’re three weeks into our journey of bringing the boys home for learning. And learning we have been doing.

There’ve been heavenly days. And super bumpy ones.

Melissa decided to take the boys to a local Bible study group that had a dedicated class for homeschool kids. Maybe make some new friends. Maybe hear some other big people tell them God loves them. Should be a win-win.

Our nugget number two was not having it.

Last week, Melissa reported that as they were leaving the class, he announced for all to hear that he would not be returning.

I mean, I have to respect his clarity.

His exact words were, “They didn’t appreciate me.”

What does that mean? No, seriously, what kind of appreciation are you expecting to receive?

We were driving back home from a trip this weekend, and we were finally able to tease out some of last week’s events (thanks to Nugget Number One).

I’m not complaining about having an older child reporter in the house. I was definitely the interpreter for my younger brother. Big air quotes around “interpreter.” Genetic.

We found out the teacher asked, “What are some of the ways that you learn about the love of God?” Nugget Number Two answered, “My mommy.”

First of all, that melted my heart. His mommy strengthens my faith in love and goodness, too.

Apparently, some of the kids in the class saw his answer as theologically unsound. I believe there was some laughter.

The teacher quelled this reaction, reminding them that each individual person experiences God in a different way.

Nugget Number One then said, “Hey, I have a question. Why would someone saying their mom helps them learn about God be something you laugh at? I thought that was a really good answer.”

Well done, Nugget Number One. Well done.

But all of a sudden, I understood deeply why his six-year-old heart accurately expressed, “They didn’t appreciate me.” They didn’t. He offered a vulnerable answer in a room full of kids he didn’t know. And they laughed. That would hurt my heart. (I mean, I’m still getting over some comments I heard about my parenting three weeks ago.)

But seriously, Bible class kids?

The point of this: our six-year-old knew exactly what happened, and he reported it accurately.

I knew that even if he didn’t get the details right, he was truthfully describing his experience. (But it sounds like he had the details pretty spot on.)

A lot of people go through life not being believed or taken seriously when they try to share that something bad happened. And when you’re a kid, it can disorient your whole world. Wait, did that happen? I guess I made it up, right? If it did happen, it was probably my fault.

Then you walk into adulthood, learning to ignore the signals your nervous system still tries to give you.

That twinge-y feeling in my gut probably doesn’t mean anything. I’ll stay around these people who are a little iffy.

I felt like that was probably a dig. I don’t think that comment was kind. Nah, I’m probably just reading too much into it.

Yeah, my shoulders are aching. My head’s pounding, and I feel like something is leaking energy somewhere in my body. But I probably just need more coffee and to lock in more.

We do this in our artistic training as well. We ignore unsustainable discomfort. We discount signals our body sends us. We even let questionable training methods slide because we think it’s just the way it is. We don’t ever stop and think, “Wait, is there another way to do this that might be sustainable, efficient, free, and joyful?”

I can still recall several instances in my career when people in leadership roles said inappropriate things to me, and I just told myself, “Well, that’s just what people do in the theater.”

Our body does send us important information, and it’s never too late to start listening. As someone who had cut off complete access to mine, (and even felt physically ill when teachers would encourage me to go into the body) I’m telling you it’s possible and worth it.

I talk about proprioception and misread signals in a slightly different way in this week’s video, specifically the difference between twang and nasality, and how easy it is to go down the wrong path when we don’t quite understand what we’re feeling or hearing yet.

You can check that out here:

Most of all today, I hope you remember there’s only one you, and somebody would love to hear the story only you can sing.

Love much,
Dan

P.S. If you want a clearer way to understand what your body and voice are actually doing so you don’t have to guess or override those signals, that’s exactly why I built The Voice Map. It’s a systems-based way to understand how everything works together so you can trust what you’re feeling and make better choices faster.

These make me unreasonably angry 🕰️

April 10, 2026 / dancallaway

You know how the plan-your-day-and-win-at-life folks tell you you have to prioritize? Just pick three. No more.

I hate it. Don’t make me choose.

I want to write down 87 things on my list for that day and accomplish them all. Thank you very much.

And don’t tell me to time block. Acknowledge and adapt myself to the constraints of time and space? No, thank you.

I’d like to continue being overwhelmed by my list and tell myself every morning that today’s the day I will snatch timelessness from the jaws of finitude.

It hasn’t happened.

(Writing this email was one of my top three priorities on Monday.)

It’s funny because as a singer and teacher, I bow to the laws of physics and physiology as well as I can. I know what certain vowels will do to registration. I know how certain levels of support will affect sound. I’m all about leveraging the things I understand about the voice.

But when it comes to other areas of life like planning or breaking down large projects into smaller chunks, I’ll eventually do it (clumsily), but I’ll be mad about it.

It’s okay.

It’s how my brain works. Melissa asks if there’s anything we need for the grocery list while I’m loading the dishwasher, and my brain’s all like, “How daaaaaare you interrupt my focus on this crucial task????”

So it’s a question of trying to meet my brain with curiosity, trying to understand how it works, and working with that in a beneficial way that creates good and satisfying outcomes.

Same with our singing training or any kind of artistic pursuit.

Do you like long spans of focused practice? Do you have time for that? Or do you like short bursts of attention? Little check-ins that help build motor learning over time. Maybe a little bit of both. What do the realities of your life allow at this time?

I’m doing revisions on the play we’re premiering in August, and I know if I don’t work on it right after I make coffee and do a little bit of writing and praying, it’s probably not going to get done that day. Knowing I spent 45 minutes working on it before anything else is helpful for my brain and useful in actually getting the revisions done. This morning I only got through about seven lines, but I got through those seven.

All this to say — as much as I’d love to be a time blocking expert, it might not be how my brain works best. Are there things in your life and practice that you’re trying to square peg? Maybe take a gentle, curious look and ask yourself if there’s a way for you to work that would be more effective.

Or maybe take the tool the experts say works so well and see if you can adapt it to your purposes.

It’s about understanding the principle of a thing and then seeing if and how that harmonizes with your nature.

I’m working on it.

One thing I am confident about, though, is that there’s only one you, and somebody would love to hear the story only you can sing.

Love much,

Dan

PS Speaking of trying the thing, this morning I actually spent ten minutes taking my tasks and putting them at specific times during my day. It made my guts tighten up, and I was angry about it. So. Much. Executive. Function.

But I also have to say, my day is going pretty straightforwardly. And I’ve been be-bopping through the tasks pretty well. Maybe I am a grudgingly grateful time blocker after all. I’ll keep you posted. 😡

PPS And I guess I can break a large project into small chunks and get it done. That is, if I have to show up for people. And that’s how we created the Voice Map Course. It teaches you about all the systems of your voice and how they work together, and gives you intimate wisdom of how your body, breath, phonation, registration, resonance, articulation, and overall artistry collaborate. If that sounds like something that will help you on your singing journey, you can check it out here.

His Advice Has Been Good Every Time — Future-You Knows

April 3, 2026 / dancallaway

There are several graduating seniors in the conservatory studio this semester. One of the toughest aspects of being in your final year is the showcase.

Everybody gets a 90-second feature along with various and sundry other performance tasks to put together a cohesive show that they can present to industry folk at the end of the semester.

Tens of creative, ambitious musical theater performers in one room hoping they’ll be noticed by favorable casting decision makers based on their performance of half of “Shy” from Once Upon a Mattress while peers and sundry offer their various artistic opinions. What stress could possibly ensue?

Number one, Peers and Sundry is a great name for something. Probably a brunch restaurant.

Number two, that cut of “Shy” worked really well for one of my seniors a couple years ago. So there is that.

All that to say is it gets really easy to get tornadoed up in the crazy frenzy.

So I’ve been asking seniors to have a quick visit with somebody very special. In their case, I asked them to get a quick perspective from 35-year-old them.

It’s wonderful to see how quickly some of them can hear from their older selves. I really do believe that on some sort of quantum physics level that I don’t understand, we do have access to ourselves along our complete timeline.

But just that little thought exercise where they check in with themselves about 17 years down the road is a wonderful shoulder melter and load lifter.

I’ve been using this tool on myself lately.

When bedtime’s taking longer than I think it should and I have so much WORK to scurry downstairs and finish up, my sixty-year-old self reminds me to enjoy this super sweet and precious time.

When I look at my Google Tasks and Bullet Journal and 15 sticky notes with all the unfinished open loops, and feel objectively overwhelmed, older me tells me it’s it’s still helpful to accomplish two tasks, even if I can’t accomplish 25.

And when I start to get paralyzed on play revisions and reach for dopamine distractors, older me it reminds me I’ve got a lot of help around me, smart people who can encourage me. If I just keep taking steps with good tools, I’ll make something decent.

Older me is super low drama, so sometimes it’s annoying how wise he is. But I’m super grateful for him. He brings me back down to earth regularly.

So I encourage you to reach out to a version of you who’s traveled down the road a little further ahead. And as long as we’re in these miraculous bodies and breathing, there’s always a phase of us we can consult.

I’d love to know if you got any good advice. Feel free to email me back and let me know if you heard anything good from you.

One thing I do know for sure is there is only one you, and somebody would love to hear this story only you can sing.

Love much,

Dan

PS If you’re going to be in London in early August, go ahead and get your tickets for my new play with music Train to Cleveland with John Ruskin, which is going to be happening at the Camden Fringe Festival at Circle and Star Theatre in Hampstead.

PPS And remember to check out The Voice Map, the systems level framework that will take you from confusion to clarity and into a deep understanding of how the systems of your voice work together:

body
breath
phonation
registration
resonance
articulation
and artistry

🗺️ a compass and a guide you can carry with you throughout your singing life, simple in-depth videos, and open comments and questions beneath every module so you can ask your questions as you explore.

Check it out here.

You Could Feel Sad, Too

March 27, 2026 / dancallaway

This is the first time I’ve done an inbox double header, but this keeps tapping on my shoulder to share with you.

Our boys attend a fantastic public school here in small-town Massachusetts. The teachers are great. The staff is great. The administration is terrific. They care about the students, and they have excellent expertise.

And it’s become clearer and clearer to us over the last couple of years that our boys are not thriving in the public school environment.

We’ve had the meetings, we’ve had the conferences, we’ve consulted the helpers, and after a lot of thought and prayer and harmonizing gut feelings, we decided to bring our boys home for school.

When you tell folks this, the reactions are legion.

They span from “Congratulations, this is going to be terrific!” to “Wow, that’s a bold move.” And if you’ve had any time in theatre circles, you know that’s the equivalent of someone saying, “You sure made some strong choices on that stage.”

Totally fine. When you share such a big change with people and they haven’t had the privilege of seeing your process, of course things come as a surprise.

But, what I wasn’t prepared for was the deep sadness and even grief that I would feel as we actually submitted the application to the superintendent, as we communicated with the classroom teachers about our choice. We wanted the system to work out. We wanted this excellent school to be the thing that was best for the boys.

But it was clear, especially in one of them, that the light was getting snuffed out. When you look at your kid and you see the spark is just hanging on by the tiniest Tinkerbell in need of a lot of belief-applause, you know you’ve got to make a change.

And there’s grief.

When the boys brought their workbooks and composition books and daily journals home from school, along with sweet cards and a goodbye booklet compiled by the teacher, I felt this deep well of sadness. There’s love and goodness in this community, and at the same time, it’s not the right fit.

I know in the deep cells of my guts we’re making the right call. And I know there’s challenge and figuring it out ahead, but I’m very excited to see what unfolds.

A couple of weeks ago, our older boy was going with me into the bank. He started skipping and galloping (I, of course, joined him 🐴); I hadn’t seen him be playful like that in a few months. We stood in line, and I said, “Hey buddy, correct me if I’m wrong. I’m not trying to project here, but it seems to me that since you knew you were going to start learning at home, there’s been a lot more sunshine in you. Am I seeing that right?”

He grinned and agreed.

It’s a new chapter unfolding, and we’re here for all the unknowns. I will say my inner nerd is gleaming with delight, looking at all of the curriculum options and digging out 19th-century arithmetic books and drilling them on

It’s amazing how excited they get about learning over breakfast or saying “I don’t want to read” but then getting curious about what you might be discussing about the Mayans with the other brother 😊 .

All this to say that I think maybe you’re making a choice that you know is right, that you know in the depth of you is what’s most true and wholesome and good in the season you find yourself in.

At the same time, you’re feeling grief, and I want you to know that that’s being a human. You’re walking through changes that many people might not understand, but as long as you know in the depth of you that it’s the step forward you need to take, let me be the cheerleader who tells you: 📢 Well done, way to access your courage, and I’m excited to see what the next chapter holds for you.

If this was for you today, I hope it helps.

And please do remember there is only one you. Somebody would love to hear the story only you can sing.

Love much,

Dan

Rainbow

November 25, 2024 / dancallaway

I was thinking about rainbows this morning.

Jude drew a terrific one on construction paper last week, and I gotta say I was impressed he had is ROY G BIV down.

I don’t think I remembered the visible spectrum acronym until about 5th grade.

For some reason, I’ve also been singing the Reading Rainbow theme to myself over and over this week.

Butterfly in the skyyyyyy — I can fly twice as hiiiiigh

And I’ve been working with a student on “Finishing the Hat” from Sunday in the Park with George this semester, so there’ve been plenty of discussions about Georges Seurat’s obsession with visible light and a scientific method for painting — juxtaposing colors on the canvas and letting the human eye combine them into something new. Like the Eiffel Tower here —

And did you know that scientists at the University of Birmingham have created the first visualization of a photon by calculating its wave function? Lookit!

The behavior of light has informed my understanding of singing for nearly twenty years.

Here’s why.

That was when I learned about the Double Slit Experiment.

Scientists found that photons could behave as particles or as waves, and their behavior could be influenced just by them being observed.

They were confused as to why the photons made wave patterns when directed through two slits in metal sheeting, so they slapped a camera next to the metal. When they did, the light stopped waving and began particle-ing.

Matter was influenced by observation.

I bet you’ve experienced this in your own life.

Have you ever observed someone you formed a first impression about only to meet them later — and after you got to know them, realized many of your judgments were projection from your own brain stories?

Just me?

Or how about a close relationship of any kind.

One day you’re thinking, “You’re so funny when you do that thing,” and on a different day when you’re hangry, tired, or irritated, that endearing quality reads a lot differently.

I see this play out with teachers and kids a lot, too.

When Jude was 2 or 3, he was just beginning to learn how to be around other kids since it was 2021.

He had a learning curve on how to use gentle hands, and he hit a couple kids in the YMCA play zone.

Ok, we’re working on this, of course you can’t let him hit other kids, but the director of family services decided she didn’t like Jude and even suggested (after a whopping 3 visits to the play room) that she could refer us to behavioral services.

Thank you for your kind expertise. I’ll leave off the emoji.

(Strongly worded emails were written.)

My point is that the way the big person observed Jude affected how he felt in that space. When he was there on weekends with different folks who enjoyed him, there were no incidents.

I can’t prove correlation or causation, but I know from teaching thousands of voice lessons, the way I see a singer makes a huge difference in how they feel working on something as vulnerable as their voice and expression.

Somehow, Jude worked out how to be gentle and cooperative with other kids, and we stopped fighting Framingham traffic to go to the Y.

So, rainbows — butterflies in the sky — color and light! — and a (maybe) surface understanding of quantum mechanics —

What does it mean?

Your voice is a vibration, and it travels in waves — much like the photons when not being scrutinized by cameras.

I’ve often wondered how deeply our minds would be blown if we could see beyond our teeny visible light spectrum and witness the communicative waves emanating from a singer to the listener.

You can feel when you hear a singer — are they thinking about mechanics? Or have they opened up the door to their heart and invited you in?

Yesterday, my Conservatory studio shared their fall recital, and number one, I’m ridiculously proud of them, but number two, I was so grateful for how they opened their heart and welcomed the folks in the hall in. That’s invaluable, what a gift.

One student sang “On My Own” from Les Misérables, and I was in the back with my mouth open and my eyes watering all like, “I love him, too!”

And why? Other than my secret desire to play Éponine one day, it was because this singer opened up the most vulnerable places in her heart and welcomed us in.

I remember seeing Audra McDonald hold her baby and sing “Your Daddy’s Son” in the original production of Ragtime, and I couldn’t believe a singer could live through something like that in front of a theatre full of folks. The energetic sharing is something I’ll never forget. (My friend Lizzie’s IG story just told me that the revival of Gypsy Audra McDonald’s starring in is epic, so if you’re in NYC, get over to the Majestic Theatre. Lizzie knows.)

We forget that singing is collaborating with a great mystery. Our bodies have a deep knowing that this is a healing, sharing, connecting act.

When we sing, we interact with the very material of our soul; we take in a free breath and give it back as vibrated communication in beautiful mathematical proportion to other frequencies that make a song.

That’s nuts.

I want to invite you to recall how your heart first loved singing. What were the rainbow colors that told you there was gold at the foot of the arc? What told you there was something about singing that helped you fly like that Reading Rainbow butterfly? What lit up your mind about what yellow and blue right next to each other might do in the listener’s ear? And where has your life shown you what happens when you change the way you see things?

A song gives you the chance to try on a different pair of glasses, and when you see how much believing the story of the song can change you and the listener, you can carry that truth into your walking-around life.

And pretty soon, you’re constructing melodies and harmonies and making vibrational order in your immediate sphere.

Other folks may notice and remark, “I’ll have what she’s having.”

You’re a multifaceted diamond, and light shines through you in only the way your soul’s inimitable angles can refract them. You shine the radiance of the mysterious photons that grow plants and sparkle on water. It’s just a matter of letting it on through, no great effort required. That’s why it’s hard to experience. We want to work hard.

Nestle into your body, look out from your loving heart, and say to everyone you meet what I remind myself to tell the boys when we’re all wiggle-waggle: “You’re a good kid having a hard time.”

If you’re having a hard time right now, hear it from me. You’re a good kid having a hard time. And you’ll ride the rainbow on through this, I know.

I’m convinced light and sound are entwined.

Our synesthete friends tell us as much. So, enjoy and appreciate those free breaths, and give them back with the song only you can sing — someone would love to hear it.

Love much,

Dan

PS I love my walk to work from the train station and getting to work in Boston — some beautiful moments I want to share with you:

My favorite tree along the way, this gorgeous London Plane

Some days I ride all the way in to South Station and walk the couple miles back to campus through the Common. Just gorgeous.

And these Cosmos in the Victory Gardens always say hello and fill me with so much gratitude for beauty.

And a recent trip to the Museum of Fine Arts with the grad students — a gorgeous Georgia O’Keefe Iris, and these amazing model ships from the 18th Century.

PPS Speaking of rainbows and such, my friend Sara shared this video of Stephen Schwartz talking about some of the music from WICKED. I haven’t seen it yet, but looking forward to it.

Thanks to my smart Elon students back in the day, Andrew, Emma, and Jasmine, I already knew about the “Over the Rainbow” Easter egg. Most smarty things I know I learn from my students.

Forget Goals — 3 steps I’d take moving to NYC for the first time

May 29, 2024 / dancallaway

If you’re a performer and have moved or are considering a move to New York or any large theatre market, a goal isn’t going to get you there. And goals aren’t going to serve you once you land.

But there are 3 optimal areas of focus that will give you agency, traction, satisfaction, and help you build your career inside a wholehearted life faster than all the vision boards in the world.

I’ll explain —

When I moved to New York over 20 years ago, I’d already spent a year in London studying, auditioning, and performing. I’d landed an agent, and I’d done a few cool projects by the time my visa expired — womp womp.

In London, I wanted to perform on the West End. In New York, I wanted to be in a Broadway show — that’s what I’d set out to do when I studied music theatre at Elon College.

Not only did having that goal — to be in a Broadway show — not serve me, it held me back in more ways than I was aware of.

In fact, even when the call came with a Broadway offer (ironically after I’d left New York), I ended up turning it down — more on that later.

So, what if I told you — those goals you’ve been setting —

SMART as they may be — (you know: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound)

are not only slowing you down — they’re frustrating you, making you anxious, and distracting you from what will move you forward faster with more joy, peace, fire, and fun?

So, why am crapping on goals?

I’m not, really. You have an intention to be a working music theatre performer. Yes, that is indeed a goal. And a great thing to want.

And it’s a goal that depends on a lot of people, decision makers, timing, and putting your body in audition rooms doing good work for a certain amount of time.

What I’m pointing out is that when you focus on the goal itself — your dream to be in a certain show, win a certain award, gain respect from a certain group of people — it takes your focus off of the many things right in front of you that you actually have agency over.

And if you’ve followed the calling to be a singing storyteller, you’ll find out, if you don’t already know, that there’s a long list of things that are out of your control.

Why not notice the things that you can actually pick up and do something with and get to work?

Then one day you’ll look up, and a connection you made because you created a thing and invited people turns into an introduction to a person you didn’t know existed who then says,

“You know, I think you’d be great for this project.”

Or, “Hey, would you like to meet this terrific agent?”

Or “Hey, do you want to audition for Les Mis?”

All these things happened to me and in ways I could never have predicted.

And they popped up because I was doing the things I had control over. Then, surprises happened.

So, what are the three things that are worth your precious time as a performer?

And what will actually create a body of work and skill that makes you ready when opportunities do come? Because if you put your body in the place and do the thing, they will.

This first thing I want you to prioritize is going to give meaning, purpose, and nourishment to all parts of your life, and you’ll find when things get hard — because they will get hard — building this is going to make all the difference.

When I first moved to New York, I ended up at an Episcopal church on the upper West Side called All Angels’.

One of my first visits there was for an open mic talent show night, and at the end they opened the floor to any folks who wanted to do something. I got and sang, and afterward, a woman who was there told me I should call her agent and work with her vocal coach.

I called both her agent and vocal coach, and I ended up signing with the agent and coaching with the coach.

The funny thing is that the vocal coach opened more doors for job opportunities than the agent — I’ll talk about that in point number two.

All Angels’, and then later St. George’s Church, where I sang in the choir, provided places where I got to know people who didn’t know or care about theatre, I could serve in the homeless shelter find mentors, make friends who worked in finance, fashion, politics, and nonprofit.

It was a place where I was safe to make a lot of messy mistakes in my 20s, and folks loved me enough to tell me the truth and walk with me while I repaired things.

Throughout my time in New York and later Los Angeles, I had places and friend groups where I could contribute, and, honestly, got pulled out of many sticky spots.

I’ve had pay-what-you-can rent in neighborhoods I couldn’t afford.

I’ve been bailed out with interest-free loans. A few times.

I’ve been fed delicious dinners next to cozy fireplaces surrounded by people who wanted to make the world better.

I’ve been given coffee and hugs when parts of my life were falling apart.

And I’ve literally been Humpty Dumptied back together when things really did explode.

All this happened and held me together because somehow I knew it was important to find a community and serve.

I don’t know how much I actually served then. I was pretty self-obsessed in my 20s, but I knew when I was on the subway late at night with achy feet after a long shift or waiting and hoping to get seen for a union call before I was union, I had a tribe in the city — tiny living rooms where I felt welcome, and places where I could do something for someone else.

This made all the difference in the world, and managed to pull my head out of my introspective hole long enough to look around and notice other folks.

When you get to New York or any place you decide to live, you need to find a group of folks in whatever form where you can help and serve.

This will get you looking out to and for others, remind you that there’s a lot more going on than your career ambitions, and bring a level of sweetness to your life you can’t measure.

You can then pass that sweetness on anywhere you go.

And you might even get a surprise agent or vocal coach.

Which brings you and me to thing number two. The thing that helped me that I didn’t even realize I was doing.

My friend Jennifer from church sent me to a frequently messy studio apartment in the East 30s where this vocal coach I told you about, Steve Lutvak, lived.

We sang, he took a look through my audition book, and sent me to the corner store with a stack of music to copy. You’d Xerox the music and leave the scores with the doorman in an indestructible FedEx envelope.

At one coaching, Steve asked me, “Hey, you want to audition for Les Mis?” The casting director had asked him if he knew anybody.

I got an appointment! No waiting in the outer lobby at Actors’ Equity hoping to be let through at the end of the day to sing 8 bars this time.

I sang all right, and I didn’t hear back.

But a few months later, I got a call to come in for an immediate replacement on the Phantom tour. I did get that job, and that’s how I got my union card — a year to the day that I’d moved to New York.

Steve often joked — I think he was joking? — that the agent commission should have gone to him. He wasn’t wrong.

But, somehow, I stumbled and scraped my way into the studios of some of New York’s best teachers.

I sought out the very best training I could, and the surprise benefit of training with the best folks you can find is that when you work hard and they see you growing in skill, they’re likely to recommend you for things when their director friends call and say, “You know anybody who can sing Gilbert and Sullivan?”

So, thing number 2 you need to do: seek out the best training with the best folks you can find. Do what you can to make it happen because it’s worth it.

I wanted to study voice with Joan Lader; she was and is one of the best voice teachers in the city.

She didn’t have room for me and referred me to one of her terrific associate teachers. But I wanted to study with Joan.

So, I told her when she had a same-day cancellation to call me, and I’d be there.

After I spent my tour savings on therapy and lattes, I couldn’t afford her rate anymore, so I ended up doing half-hour lessons on my lunch breaks.

I learned a ton from Joan, and what I absorbed from her allowed me to start teaching at a decent level when the time came in LA.

Find the best people and the best people for you, and invest in yourself.

A good teacher needs to know their stuff, tell you the truth with love, respect you, see the best and call out the gold, and have an open and curious spirit — they need to demonstrate intellectual humility, because the more anyone knows, the more they should know they don’t know.

There you go — strategic and top notch training.

So, you’re investing in a community of folks where you can serve and belong.

You’re on track with your training. You’re working and growing with terrific teachers.

Now what do you do?

Well, if you’ve moved to New York or Chicago or London or Minneapolis to dress up and pretend to be other people and tell stories on stage, there’s one thing left to do.

And for this point, I need to put you on a plane and fly you to Greensboro, North Carolina.

I was teaching at Elon University, and I realized I was itching to sing art song again. And some Sondheim. Because why not? I like to sing a lot of different things.

So I said to myself, “Self, how can I make something up where I can sing art songs I love and a slew of Sondheim? And maybe cook for people. I love that, too.”

So, I made up an event.

Friends of ours knew somebody who owned a terrific old house in Greensboro. There was no piano. There was no concert hall. There was just this terrific house with a charming parlor where I knew some great music could happen.

I talked to Mindy, who owned it, made a date, and got to work.

We found an upright piano that was being donated in a house move, I rented chairs from a party supply place, and I made up a terrific heavy hors d’oeuvre menu.

I asked my friend Katherine to play, I made a postcard, and I started bugging everybody I knew in a 30 mile radius who might enjoy Richard Strauss and Stephen Sondheim to buy a ticket.

I roped Melissa in to helping me make all the food, bought wine and fizzy water, set the whole situation up, asked students to usher and wrangle folks, set up an event on Brown Paper Tickets, and lo and behold, I sold seats and did the show.

It was terrific and exhausting and wonderful to do. Lookit!

Did it lead to a Broadway show or a movie deal or any kind of immediate career outcome? Nope.

Was it worth it? To me, yes, absolutely.

The structure of that concert led to my first faculty recital at Boston Conservatory and the beginning of a terrific collaboration with the best pianist in town, Scott Nicholas.

Now he and I are developing recitals that feature art song, musical theatre, and since we’re both avid cooks, we may throw some food in the mix, too. I’m excited to see where it goes. I’ll keep you posted.

The point is — work works. Work will work ON you. If you get to work and acknowledge that you cannot manufacture an outcome, it’ll set you free.

And while you’re at it, you will CREATE a community where you and your friends can serve, and you’ll be strategically training yourself because there’s no better way to learn your craft than by crafting. You have to do it.

And when you’re in an audition room, when you leave, you’ll have that project to think about.

And when you’re sending a postcard every six weeks to the casting director you want to call you in, you’ll have something to invite them to.

So, that’s the third thing. Get to work.

Look at your skill proficiency, decide what it is that you do best, and create a way to share that.

Ask yourself, where can something like this happen? Do I need an actual theatre? Or will a living room work? A corner of a park? A bar or coffee shop or bookstore? Start asking and trying things, and the next steps become clear.

So that’s it.

Invest and serve in a community of folks who want to make the world around them better and more loving.

Figure out how to train with terrific teachers. However you have to do it. Offer service trades, cycle your areas of focus, pick up an extra shift or two at work.

And get to work.

Make your own stuff. Ask friends you love who will get in the trenches with you and put up with you when you get unreasonable and cranky.

And do the work to do the work. It’s its own reward. And it can’t do anything but benefit you. It’s worth it.

I heard this from Myron Golden who’s a business leader — Stop asking if it will work FOR you, and let it work ON you.

And then you might find that the GOAL you wrote down in your manifestation journal shows up, and you feel differently about it than you did when you wrote it down.

This happened to me after I left New York and moved to LA. I didn’t move for my career. In fact, I barely worked as an actor for my first 2 years there. (Sad palm tree emoji.)

Shortly after I got there, my agent called with an offer to join the Broadway company of Phantom. Without thinking about it more than 2 seconds, I heard myself tell him, “No thanks.”

I’d moved to LA for a relationship. And I thought if I went back to New York, that would be the end of that.

Turned out, the relationship did end (that was the part of my life I talked about earlier when loving friends Humpy Dumptied me back together again.)

There were many reasons I said no to that opportunity — some healthy and some not.

And it’s a fork in the road I’ve revisited.

When Phantom closed last year, I did think wow it would have been great to be a part of the Broadway company at some point.

But, if I had said yes, I probably wouldn’t have come back to LA.

Therefore, I wouldn’t have met Melissa, have the family we have now, and I probably wouldn’t have been pin balled into my life’s central professional purpose which is teaching. It’s always found me wherever I go.

So, I say that for you to know, yes, have a goal. Have a dream. And make a plan so the plan can change.

What you have control over are the inputs you contribute and the seeds you plant.

Those actions are the things that will create the surprises you could never make up, outcomes that are better than the ones you dreamed of no matter how specific and measurable you make them. That’s been my experience.

So there it is — look for a community where you can serve.

Seek out and invest in the best training you can find.

And get to work. Take a hard, honest look at your current skills, share the ones that you do best, and invite your friends to help. You’ll be making a community and training opportunity all at once.

You keep doing that, and you’ll see surprises appear everywhere. You’ll have the satisfaction of sharing, giving, and helping other folks. You’ll know you’re investing in making your skills first rate. And, you’ll be making meaningful work that you can center your creative attention on and have something to invite folks to.

You get those three actions rolling on a regular basis, and you’ll see all kinds of great things spring up in your life and career.

Now, if you’re like me, and you want to get to work, but you have forty seven things you want to work on and don’t know where to begin, so you get overwhelmed and end up binge listening to podcasts about vulnerability and finding your purpose, I made a video for you —

How to know what to do with your life in 24 hours.

This exercise I learned was very helpful, and I want to share it with you.

And most of all, remember there’s only one you, and somebody needs to hear the story only you can sing.

Love much — Dan

PS I’m creating something very exciting and special, and you can get in here for free ––

I just started this online group for theatre singers.

It’s going to be a community where folks help each other out and collaborate.

There’ll be courses and tools for

vocal technique, successful auditioning, storytelling and song interp, life tools for creatives, step-by-steps to make your own work, audition book/rep SOS, sheet music shares…

and any other help you need — let me know, and we’ll build it!

I’m making a place where theatre singers can access top notch training tools while you connect with and help each other.

Here’s where you can join — (I’m going to turn it into a paid membership later, but you’d be in for free forever) — I’d love to see you there as we’re just getting off the ground. There’s already been so much great connection and interaction among our first 21 members. Get in!

www.skool.com/dan-callaway-studio-4139

Find THE perfect song — and other horrible advice that tanks musical theatre careers

May 22, 2024 / dancallaway

If you’re an auditioning music theatre performer, you own a 3-ring binder that casting folks call your book.

Have you stopped to ask yourself — how do I feel about my book?

What’s my relationship to this small library of musical theatre and contemporary commercial repertoire that’s meant to represent my best narrative vocal skills?

What guidance have I followed to curate this collection?

And is it doing me any favors?

There’s a pile of audition book assumptions based on terrible, unquestioned advice humming around in music theatre singers’ heads that keep them stuck and frustrated.

These untrue rules plop good singers’ pics and resumes right into the NO pile.

And the crazy thing is that a lot of these beliefs, they picked up from fancy, expensive degree programs.

So, you’re now wondering — what is this horrible advice?

Have I indeed fallen prey to it like a tap dancing lemming?

And, are these beliefs killing audition opportunities like Sweeney Todd on meat pie BOGO day?

Well, let’s get into then, shall we? Not the meat pies. The LIES. The liiiiiies.

There are many.

But to keep it simple, I’ll break it down to just 3 for you today.

Lie number one can be illustrated by the following tale:

It was the end of a long day of auditions for the music theatre program at Elon University — I was tired, and I was forcing myself to stay engaged.

A lot of kids had invested time, effort, and plane fare to be there, so I wanted to be there for them.

It had turned out to be a disappointing day.

Singers were nervous. Few folks seemed to be able to connect or open up. There was a lot of ok-yet-boring singing.

When I hear auditions, I listen carefully, but I don’t initiate the forward lean or try to coax people out.

If their heart is open, they prepared well, and they live wholeheartedly in their story, I’ll be irresistibly drawn in.

That was not happening a lot on this day.

In fact, there were three different singers who all came in singing “How Deep is the Ocean” by Irving Berlin.

It was clear they’d all coached with the same college prep organization because all three of them had IDENTICAL gestures, emotional colors, and vocal choices.

Only, they weren’t their choices. And it was clear.

Someone had shellacked a performance onto them, and the only thing I remember is that three young women wasted their money and time on terrible audition prep that gave no consideration to who they were.

One singer came in, though, and I don’t remember her first song. It wasn’t a great fit, and there were a couple of vocal struggles. And cool — it was a college audition. You gotta give professors something to do for four years, after all.

But this singer drew me in because her love of singing hadn’t been squished out of her through hours of robot coaching, and her sound hooked up with her heart. You know what that feels like when you hear it.

So, we asked her to sing something else.

She offered “No One Else” from Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812.

It’s a beautiful song, AND I’d heard it a lot — always with the same earnest, furrowed brow expression, staring longingly at one nebulous point in the distance.

I groaned inside, but sure. Let’s hear it.

By the time she finished, I said — “You just made me love that song again.”

She didn’t have perfect technique. She didn’t belt the high note at the end with particular prowess. There may have been a couple of wonky rhythms.

And who cared? She LOVED that song, and she sang it with an open heart. Thank GOD.

If I’d been coaching her at that point, I might have encouraged her to find something that wasn’t so trendy and perhaps overdone. But, she loved that song, sang it well and with her heart, and caused me to love it again, too.

So, lie/horrible advice #1 is — you have to avoid overdone songs.

Nope, not if you do them well and from your singular point of view.

Songs are usually overdone for a reason: they’re usually quite good.

The other advantage of singing well known material is that table folk can feel smart for knowing the song and then focus on how you do it.

If you sing unfamiliar material, I’m going to be devoting a brain cell to — wait, do I like this? Hmmm. I dunno. I think they could have made a better choice with “How Deep is the Ocean.”

So yeah, go ahead and be like terrific New York based singer, Broadway veteran, and voice teacher Christina Saffran did at an audition in LA when she sang the appointment before me.

You know what she sang? “I Dreamed a Dream.” And she killed it. I’ll put her website in the PS.

The second group of unhelpful advice harmonizes, however dissonantly, with avoiding overdone songs.

This particular falsehood wastes your time, makes you obsess over things that don’t matter, and blame your material for things it has no control over. Poor material.

I’ll tell you a story about myself and how this shook down for me.

Back in 2001 —

🎵 Way way back many centuries ago, not long after the Bible began! 🎵

I was doing outdoor drama on the Outer Banks of North Carolina.

One of my fellow company members had his finger on the PULSE of the latest new musical theatre coming through the pipeline (He did go on to be a very effective audition coach and busy working actor.)

He recommended I get the new book of John Bucchino songs, Grateful.

There was one song in there that would be great for me. It was called “Better than I,” and it was written for The Prince of Egypt prequel.

Aaron, the recommender, hit the nail on the head with my vibe.

The song was faithy, sung directly TO God, and was, indeed, communicated by a hero of the Old Testament, Joseph.

🎵 Go go go Joesph, you know what they say…🎵

(You’re welcome for the week of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat ear worms.)

I used this song all the time.

No one else was singing it. It was pretty. It had high notes, a terrific key change, and it suited me.

I don’t think I ever got called back when I took it in the room.

It is a beautiful song, but it’s about someone who already figured something out.

There was little conflict, and while I do believe one can sing to God, it makes the make-believe harder in an audition room. It just does.

But, this song was so particular to me, and I developed a feeling of ownership and attachment to it. And I should have sung it in my club act.

It wasn’t doing what an audition song is supposed to do:

Tell a clear story with a beginning, middle, and end, demonstrate the ability to sing with artistry and authentic heart connection, and solve a specific casting problem for the production you’re auditioning for.

But, I believed this song was the perfect song for me, and I thought it helped me stand out.

It may have been perfect for a Wednesday night at the Unitarian Universalist Open Mic Fundraiser, but it didn’t do me any favors at my Dr. Zhivago callback.

And that’s because I believed terrible advice #2 — there’s the perfect audition song for you, and your choice of material alone will cause you to stand out.

Nope.

There are thousands of theatre songs. So, there are hundreds of songs that could be perfect for you depending on many factors.

And your clever choice of material isn’t going to help you stand out.

No one’s going to be behind a table and say, “Well, that lacked conflict, drive, and clarity, but wow, you sure went deep into the Lincoln Center archives. Let’s collaborate 7 hours a day in a rehearsal hall.”

If you sing the crap out of “Popular” and put a specific point of view on it that’s yours alone, that would stand out to me.

Remember that singer who sang freaking “Popular”? Broke out into the Charleston during the la la section? Epic.

So, remember — there are hundreds of songs that can be perfect for you.

And your material choice alone cannot make you stand out. You stand out when you prepare, do excellent work, and open your heart.

Which brings us to the third falsehood you can disabuse yourself of and therefore lift a heavy, unreal audition burden off your shoulders.

This one is tricky, though, because this one is false until it’s not. I’ll explain what I mean later. As in most things — more than one thing can be true.

Imagine you go to a party, and the host of the party is a director you want to work with.

You’ve met them a few times before, and there’s rapport, but you really want to make a great impression.

You arrive with a couple of friends, and it’s a daytime party, and your host, the director, directs you to the drinks station where they’re serving just one cocktail. (Ina Garten always says, “Just serve one cocktail. How easy is that?”)

It’s a delicious, fresh gin, cilantro, and cucumber situation with sparkling something, and everybody’s sipping their glasses talking about how zingy and clean it is.

The problem is, cucumber makes you irrationally gag, you have the gene that makes cilantro taste like soap, and you haven’t drunk gin since an unfortunate evening of questionable life choices at an Irish pub on 2nd Avenue in 2003.

Your host hands you a tall glass of icy cocktail goodness with muddled cukes and Dawn dish detergent, and what do you do?

Ask for a water?

No! You choke down your bevvy, and lightly wretch/exclaim, “What an interesting flavor!”

Your host tops you up throughout the party, and soon you’re sneaking into the bathroom to empty the contents of your glass into the toilet only to surreptitiously re-emerge declaring that you need to switch over to water since you’re driving.

Your friend says, “No worries, I can dr—”

“NO!” you shout like Moira Rose. “I’ll drive.”

We do all kinds of dumb things to please people who can give us things we really want like jobs and shows.

And this shows up in people’s audition books all the time.

Agents visit schools and ask students, “What are you going to use for this show that’s currently running on Broadway?”

College seniors graduate from BFA programs thinking they need to be ready with perfect cuts suited to 7 Broadway shows.

In the meantime, they completely forget about the hundreds of regional theaters across the United States producing golden age revivals, Stephen Sondheim revues, and the complete works of Kander and Ebb.

There’s a wide breadth of style and representation of eras in musical theater.

If you don’t naturally vibe ’80s hair band, then it’s not wise for you to target all the regional productions of Rock of Ages.

What I’m saying is this.

There’s a style world, a narrative world, and a an energetic world that appeals to you on a cellular level.

You might want to do high-knee time steps in 42nd Street for the rest of your life, or your dream might be to play Fosca in every production of Passion in perpetuity.

There’s a way of doing musical theatre that appeals to you, and it’s important you know what that looks like.

I ask voice students at the beginning of the semester to describe what their dream career and work would look like. Go ahead and ask yourself.

What kind of shows would you do?

What kind of stories would you tell?

What style of music would you sing?

What would production aesthetics look like?

What kind of venues would you be performing in?

What kind of people would you be working with?

This gives them and me a sense of what their narrative and artistic values are.

Then, we can make a clear judgment about what kind of repertoire resonates most powerfully for them.

It’s super important to know this because you may be able to make the right sounds singing “Crazy on You,” but there’s somebody who rolls out of bed breathing that style like Pat Benetar and Animal from The Muppets had a rock monster baby.

You might be more at home singing “Not a Day Goes By.”

If that’s true, it’s important that you know it.

Pay attention to what styles and stories resonate deeply and satisfy you. That’s going to be the direction where you thrive effortlessly.

So, the bad advice here is that your book needs to be filled with everything that makes you current and marketable right now.

You need to have multiple contemporary commercial songs that apply to all the different styles being produced on Broadway stages so that you can be ready for any and all auditions.

All I’m saying is — it’s okay for you to know that you’re not the vibe for Hadestown or Oklahoma!. You’re more of a Beautiful: The Carole King Story kinda gal.

When you know what you love and what lights you up, your audition book will reflect who you are because it’ll be full of songs that shine your values.

You won’t have to worry about branding and setting yourself apart. Singing the things you love will tell that story.

Now, a distinction has to be made here — there’s a big difference between shoehorning yourself into a musical style because you think that’s what’s getting hired now versus opening yourself to possibility.

When I was in my 20s I got called in for Rent a lot.

Every time I went in, I thought, “Wouldn’t it be great if I actually could sing this? I can’t do this style.”

And sure enough, a rock singer I was not.

But I kept getting called in, so casting felt like I had potential.

Every time I went in, my head kept saying, “You’re not right for this. You’re a fake rock singer. This is so stupid. Why did they call you in?”

I’m not saying that I would’ve been Broadway’s next Roger, but what would have happened if I’d taken in the information that table folk saw that possibility in me?

Several years later, I got called in for Deaf West’s production of Pippin — for Lewis, Pippins brother. I’d always wanted to work with them ever since I saw their Big River in 2003 (not the same night as the Irish pub gin debacle).

The breakdown asked us to to wear a form-fitting T-shirt so they could see the bods. (Do they even do that in breakdowns anymore? Oof. I get anxious remembering it.)

That freaked me out because it was LA, and I was like, if they want a major gun show, they can find it. My agent, the inimitable Gerry Koch, said, “Dan, just go in and let them decide if you’re not right for the project.”

I ended up getting called back in for the voice of Charles, and I got to collaborate with one of the best actors I’ve ever worked with — Troy Kotsur.

The Academy thought so, too, because his skill got recognized with an Oscar a couple years ago. If you don’t know his work, look him up. He’s tremendous.

If I’d stayed home and not gone in and sang my Don Henley cut at Center Theatre Group that day, I would’ve missed out on one of the best theatre experiences of my life. Questionable casting breakdown and all.

And one quick PS on this, if you want a clear guide about what to include in your audition book, I recommend casting director Merri Sugarman’s book From Craft to Career.

She shares a very clear breakdown of categories that are flexible and will cover your bases as a music theatre singer.

She also wrote one of the most straightforward explanations of how to talk to an audition pianist. It’s an excellent book, and if you do what she says, you’ll see results.

So, quick review of our three audition book falsehoods —

Number 1 — You have to choose new, clever, and obscure material for you book.

Nope. Familiar works great, and things are usually overdone for a reason. Go ahead and sing those songs with skill and wholeheartedness.

Number 2 — there’s the perfect audition song for you, and your choice of material alone will cause you to stand out.

Nope.

There are thousands of great songs, therefore hundreds that can share your best skills. And you don’t get points for clever song choice if you’re not actually delivering on it.

And Number 3 — your book needs to be filled with everything that makes you current and marketable right now.

I mean, an audition book filled only with Gilbert and Sullivan will have a very narrow usage, but the truth here is — focus your book on the styles and aesthetics that ring truest to you.

Feature your strengths, and at the same time, open your heart to embodying possibilities your ego might rule out because it’s new and unfamiliar.

Don’t sit in a chair in the middle of an audition room singing “One Song Glory” thinking, “Why’d they even call me in?” They called you in. Prepare, make clear choices, and then do them the courtesy of letting them make their own decisions.

That’s the beauty of being a theatre singer, after all —

You get to embody a different identity with every song you sing. Your irreplaceable voice and soul empathizing and looking through someone else’s ego lens. You get to make all kinds of sounds.

And speaking of new sounds, have you ever started working with a new style, started making the sounds — you were getting nods from teachers and music directors, but your brain was like, “That’s not YOU! YOU don’t sound like that! Who even ARE you?” Just me?

Well, I made a video for you — 3 simple questions that’ll unlock any style you want to sing.

Then you’ll be tootling off to your South Pacific audition in the morning followed by your Jagged Little Pill callback later that day and maybe some My Fair Lady tomorrow. How easy is that?

And please always remember, no matter what song you’re giving a tempo for, there’s only one you, and somebody needs to hear the story only you can sing.

Love much, Dan

PS Here’s Christina Saffran’s website.

PPS Here’s Merri Sugarman’s book that’ll tell you how to set up your audition book, talk to an audition pianist, and have more satisfaction and control in your career — From Craft to Career: A Casting Director’s Guide for the Actor

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