Marissa Davis
Interview Highlights
The path to success in the arts is not linear. There is no one way to succeed.
Make your own work instead of waiting for permission. Lead with your values instead of your resume.
People-centered art helps us figure out who we are and reflects our truest selves back to us.
In the hierarchical structure of the theatre industry, women are taught to compete for proximity to male power.
The Divine Feminine and Divine Masculine exist in all of us. The Divine Masculine is like a riverbank, providing structure to the Divine Feminine, which flows like the river itself.
Open, flowing collaborations grow from relationships of mutual respect, generosity, and love.
Bio
Meet theatre educator, musician, and writer Marissa Davis!
Instagram: @mdavis1545
Marissa Davis (she/her) is a New York City-based writer, voice teacher, music director, and performer. She is a teaching artist at Professional Performing Arts School and a private voice instructor for all ages. She has served as the music director and composer/lyricist for several devised musicals, such as Secrets of Sweetfield, smARTS, Scene(s) of the Crime, and Once Upon a Pandemic. She has also served as music director, arranger, and creative consultant to several one-woman shows such as And the Spoon Ran Away with the Spoon: A Lesbian Cabaret, Hopelessly Devoted to Me, and Empty Room. She is currently working on a poetry collection and personal essay collection, as well as co-writing an original musical about female inventors who have been lost to history.
“At the core of being an educator is the creative process - making things that weren’t there before be there.”
About Marissa
Hayley: We are so lucky to be joined today by the wonderful Marissa Davis. Marissa, would you please tell us about your roles in the theatrical space?
Marissa: I am a theatre educator, and my training is mostly in musical theatre performance. I’ve been playing piano since I was eight. I kept that up so I could make some side money when I moved to New York to perform, and then it snowballed and ended up becoming most of my job. I teach voice lessons for middle school students at a professional performing arts school in New York City, and I have worked with many youth theatre programs in the city as a music director or teaching artist. In addition to that, I teach private voice lessons, and I am also a composer and a writer, both in the theatrical realm and outside of it. I’ve written music and lyrics for several devised musicals for kids. I am also working on a show called Mother of Invention with Hayley Goldenberg, about the forgotten female inventors of history.
Amy: Can you tell us about your transition from performance to education?
Marissa: The last formal audition I went to was for a national non-Equity tour. I got there and stood in line forever - people had gotten there at 4 AM. They took all of our headshots and said, “We’re going to put you into groups and give you a time to come back, and when you come back, we’ll type you.” And I said NO. I can’t come back at 2 for you to tell me I’m not typed into the show in the first place. I can’t miss work to be typed out.
You have to be able to afford your life. I don’t know how a person can make a salary that supports even a mediocre life in New York and live the audition lifestyle. I can’t bartend, then show up for an audition at 4 AM and make sure I’m seen before I have to go to work at 2 PM. I don’t know how to do that. I don’t know how anybody knows how to do that.
So I realized this isn’t going to work. If I’m gonna get my foot in the door, it’s gotta be the back door. Everyone wants the front door. So wherever there’s an opening, I need to wedge my foot in. I can’t keep going in the same direction as everyone else, because I can’t stand out that way and I can’t live my life that way.
I’ve built this world of teaching in theatre from the ground up. I didn’t expect this to be what I did with music and theatre, but I’m glad. It’s a great spot to be in.
Hayley: I agree with you, Marissa, and that lack of balance isn’t discussed in college programs, so it’s unexpected for many performers and artists.
Marissa: The path to success is not as linear as people want to believe. And there is a tremendous amount of grief around that. There isn’t one single way to succeed in the arts.
I sometimes feel like I failed because I gave up on something I wanted to do. But if you can fulfill the artistic intention you have for yourself and your life outside of performing, does it matter if it’s not on stage? Everyone encourages us not to go into the arts, so when we shift focus, there’s a lot of “Told you so.” But that’s an oversimplification of a complex industry that actually has a million directions you can go in.
Also, it’s 2021 - everyone is making their own stuff, and that’s going to compete with the normal avenues of getting in the door. The web series you fund on Kickstarter, the musical you get a grant for, the project that grows on social media - the more people move their own work forward instead of waiting for someone else to give them work, it will start to tip the scale.
Barriers to Theatrical Spaces
Hayley: Marissa, what are some of the barriers to accessing theatrical spaces?
Marissa: For me, getting in the door was fine, but staying in the door was often challenging. I’ve seen a lot of favoritism toward men - male teachers, male music directors - particularly in programs that are run by women.
It goes back to these toxic ideas of femininity and what it means to be a woman in power. Many women who rise to leadership positions think (maybe falsely) that to be in charge means to lead like a man. Being another woman who comes in with a voice and a point of view and strong principles and values has often worked against me. It’s like I have to compete with another woman because there can’t be two people who know what they’re doing and are both women or women-identified.
A barrier I have found frustrating is that systemically, women are taught to compete for proximity to male power. And when women forgo those stereotypically masculine ideas about leadership and work collaboratively, more can get done. I think there’s room for a lot of voices to be heard, for spaces to be more communal.
Amy: I’m glad to hear that because that’s literally our mission on this project!
Marissa’s Creative Mission
Amy: Marissa, can you tell us about your creative mission?
Marissa: I believe in the artist as a person in this world, a member of humanity. Everything I want to create, teach, and be a part of initiates from: Who are we as people? What are the universal things that connect us, and how do we use art to unpack what makes us who we are? To break through the things that hold us back?
So much of the work we do in any art form is the unpacking of the self, and we get better at the art the more we unpack ourselves. So I always start with: What’s going on inside? And how do we bring that to the work in a way that’s productive? That helps you find tools for being confident, being in your body, accessing challenging emotions? Especially with kids, who are learning all of these things for the first time. Kids want to talk about it, to break through the things they feel are holding them back.
Hayley: I love that so much. It feels so beautiful and true to you.
Womanhood and Its Benefits
Hayley: Marissa, what does being a woman mean to you?
Marissa: I think about the idea that the Divine Feminine and Divine Masculine are a part of all people. But our society has deeply gendered them into MAN and WOMAN, and if you have a combination of those things as a man, you’re girly or weak, or as a woman, you’re a bitch.
To me, femininity and womanhood are about flow and community-building, holding collaboration as more important than the individual. The masculine is like the banks of the river, it gives direction to things. And the feminine is the river itself, the flow. It moves on its own, it moves with the tide in cycles. It’s about finding that place of flow amid the linear, structural thinking that is more masculine in nature.
Amy: I love that, because the idea of the Divine Feminine flowing river has a flexibility that enables you to think creatively about nontraditional ways to reach your goal.
Amy: How has being a woman been a benefit to you in your life and career?
Marissa: The first part was realizing that the linear path was not going to work for me, it was only going to work against me. The way I’ve been successful is by understanding that who I am as a person is the thing that makes people want to work with me.
Especially in a teaching role where my job is to help other people do their best work - I could be the best pianist you’ve ever met, and it might not make me good at my job. So I’ve learned to lead with my personhood and my humanity and my values: this is who I am, this is what I stand for and what I believe in - rather than “Here’s my resume.”
That’s how the phone started to ring. It’s how I’ve gotten every single private client. And that’s my favorite thing about how I have built my career in the arts, because it reflects what I value, which is people. I feel it speaks for me if people are saying “Hey, call her. She’s great, she’s gonna be great with your kids.”
Marissa’s Current Projects
Amy: Marissa, what projects are you working on right now?
Marissa: I’m working on Mother of Invention with Hayley, which has been a joy and a journey. My favorite thing about Mother of Invention is that it’s been a master class in process making. Our process has been very cyclical, and there’s been a beautiful ease and flow and transparent communication in the partnership.
I’ve loved the journey of: How do you and I write the best possible musical we can, and where does that come from? How do we build the relationship required to make the art? That goes back to my values and person-first perspective. If Hayley and I can connect and understand each other and work through disagreements, then we’re building the art out of a relationship that’s functional, loving, generous, and awesome. So then the work will also be loving, generous, and awesome.
Hayley: On Mother of Invention, we’ve used the image of a spiral. We’re working toward a specific point, but our journey has a cyclical nature to it. There’s something exciting to me about our collective womanhood and the community we’re building around this show.
Amy: I appreciate how intentional you two are being about every aspect of the creative process to make it a relationship-first process. That’s beautiful and unfortunately rare.
Hayley: To me, that’s a more feminine theatrical space.
How to Improve the Theatre Industry
Amy: Marissa, if you could make a change to the theatre industry, what would it be?
Marissa: First: no more revivals of musicals. Ever. There are so many people making good art, and it’s never going to be seen because Broadway is a money machine. And the landscape of the industry can’t really change if the people who pay for theatre are not the people who make it. So long as the same people have money and don’t expand their worldview of what makes good art, it’s gonna be hard for anything that’s new, innovative, diverse, equitable, to get its foot in any door.
The other change would be finding better ways to understand the meaning of collaboration. We understand roles in a hierarchy, but we have to normalize the idea that everyone in a collaboration has a wide breadth of knowledge. We put people into very distinct roles: “You are the director.” “You are the costumer,” and we don’t leave room for an open and flowing approach. Don’t get me wrong, sometimes I like it when people stay in their lane. But you never know what fun nuggets of inspiration will come up when you take into account more than one point of view.
Amy: And hierarchical collaborations tend to reinforce existing systems of oppression. So it becomes men telling women how to do their job, white people telling Black people how to do their job.
Hayley: Capitalism and art-making don’t go together well, because the capitalist workplace isn’t conducive to creativity. People are separated into boxes in the name of efficiency. But efficiency is not the point of making art. The business space is not welcoming to anyone who’s not a rich white man, so we have to fit ourselves into the mold.
Final Thoughts
Amy: Marissa, here’s a final question for you. What are you most proud of in your life?
Marissa: The work I’ve done on devised shows is something I am tremendously proud of. I’m proud of that work because I got to create shows for young people, for their voices to be heard the way they want to be heard so that they can see themselves reflected back. That’s the point of art - seeing ourselves and what we value, who we are and our identities reflected back to us. Art that comes from the truest human experience. I’ve been tremendously proud to be able to hold that space for kids.
I’ve loved talking to you both. Thank you for this opportunity. I’m so excited to read about other women in the industry, and I hope every step of this gives the theatre a more collaborative, feminine approach. I hope we can find what that is.
Amy: Collaboratively, together, we can.
Marissa: In community.
