S3E5: Jerusha Cavazos
In this episode, Hayley and Amy chat with performer and writer Jerusha Cavazos about cultivating equitable and supportive theatrical spaces, the boundless complexity of womanhood, the need for nuanced Black women characters, the virtues of showering, and more! Scroll down for episode notes and transcript!
Episode Notes
Hosts: Hayley Goldenberg and Amy Andrews
Guest: Jerusha Cavazos
Music: Chloe Geller
Episode Resources:
Check out Jerusha’s music on Spotify!
Guest Bio:
Jerusha Cavazos (she/her) has appeared on Broadway in The Prom and Off-Broadway in Between The Lines. Regional (select): The Muny, Dr. Phillips Center, Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival, Chicago Lyric Opera, Barrington Stage Company, Gateway Playhouse. TV: Atlanta on FX & FBI on CBS. Jerusha’s original music is streaming on all platforms. @jerushacavazos
Find Jerusha Online:
Website: www.jerushacavazos.com
Instagram: @jerushacavazos
Thanks for listening!
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Episode Transcript
(Music)
Hayley: Hello, beautiful people, and welcome to the Women & Theatre Podcast! We're your hosts, Hayley Goldenberg…
Amy: …and Amy Andrews. Grab a cup of coffee and join us as we talk to people in the theatre industry about their experiences with womanhood.
Hayley: On the pod, we interview people with different gender identities, from different backgrounds, with varying levels of industry experience and professional roles.
Amy: Our goal is to build community and pool our collective wisdom to break down the barriers we continue to face.
(Music)
Hayley: Today’s episode of Women & Theatre is with performer and writer Jerusha Cavazos. Jerusha’s credits include The Prom on Broadway and Between the Lines Off-Broadway. You may have seen Jerusha perform at The Muny, Dr. Phillips Center, Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival, Chicago Lyric Opera, Barrington Stage Company, and Gateway Playhouse. You might have also caught her on TV in "Atlanta" on FX & "FBI” on CBS. Her original music is streaming on all platforms, and you can connect with her @jerushacavazos on social media.
Amy: Hello, listeners. We are here with the phenomenal Jerusha Cavazos. Jerusha, will you please introduce yourself, share your pronouns, and tell us a little bit about what you do in theatre?
Jerusha: My name is Jerusha Cavazos. My pronouns are she/her/hers. And I started off strongly as a musical theatre performer, and I also am now exploring the writing side of the industry as well. I do both.
Hayley: Amazing. Jerusha, can you tell us a little bit about how you came to your creative work and about the shift that you've made into new music as well as in writing?
Jerusha: I grew up in a very musical household. So my dad was on Broadway in the ‘80s. He did My Fair Lady with Rex Harrison.
Amy: Cool!
Hayley: Wow! Oh my gosh.
Jerusha: And it's interesting, ‘cause he left the industry to become a full-time pastor. But I still grew up super musical and then was a competitive gymnast and weightlifter and track runner for quite some time. And then come college, I had said to my dad, “I think I want to really do this and pursue it as a career.” And he - they were never pushy on me, they wanted me to do everything I could - but I think he was very excited. But it was never like… When I tell people my dad was on Broadway, they’re like, “Oh, was he kind of a stage parent?” It was this hidden thing that I knew about, but it wasn't something that was like an active part of my life.
So I started musical theatre in college, and then I moved to New York a couple years after college and then started working. And I'd always been writing since I was about 10, but I was really embarrassed to admit that I was a writer, because I thought that if I told people I was a writer, then that made me less of an actor. But then after some deep thought and work, I realized that both of those things only just make me more of a human. They don't make me less of either of those art forms.
So in 2020, when the world was super silent, I finally just, like, vomited out my writing and started putting music out, and I realized I wouldn't have to see anybody. I just would post it and like, leave. That's there, and then I don't have to go to a bar or a show and see anybody and hear their opinions. That was the one part of the pandemic that I was thankful for, that it gave me some time to find confidence.
And now I'm trying to do both of those things and maintain focus on both, and I'm really passionate about them. I feel much braver saying that I'm a writer now.
Hayley: I love that.
Amy: Wonderful, I love that for you. So cool.
Hayley: Amy and Jerusha, you have a fun meeting story. Amy, will you talk about how you met Jerusha for the first time?
Amy: Yeah, we have a fun meeting story that I don't think Jerusha even knows about, which is, in 2016, my husband Keith and I were on our honeymoon on a cruise ship, and Jerusha was one of the performers on the cruise ship. I can't believe this never came up in talking with you.
Jerusha: How? How?
Amy: And so then, I guess it was the next year in 2017, right, that you did Little Shop with him?
Jerusha: Yeah, everyone got offered contracts to come back to the ship, and I was like, this is either where I get sucked in and I never leave and I never try, or I need to push myself and move to the city. And I did. In 2017, I remember every heartbeat about that year, because I was walking around the city, confused. I remember walking in for Keith.
Amy: And I remember Keith came home from the auditions, and he was like, “This person looks really familiar.” And I was like, “Because she was on the cruise ship!”
Jerusha: This is shocking my mind. Like, we had a lot of honeymooners though.
Amy: Yeah, I mean, it was a lovely honeymoon. We had a great time.
Jerusha: So funny.
Amy: So… on that note, not on that note at all… Jerusha, can you tell us about what you're working on now? What's sparking you creatively right now? What are you excited about?
Jerusha: I am in the middle of a lot of things. I would say I'm now trying to understand the difference between when I'm serving somebody's art and when I'm asking for people to service my art and how I feel in both those spaces. And I'm trying to take the time to understand what I really want to be focusing on.
So last year, I did a couple cool workshops. One in particular was working with the Deaf West Theatre organization.
Amy: Oh, I love Deaf West.
Jerusha: We started working on this right after Between the Lines, and we've done about four sessions now. And the show is stunning. The community is stunning. I'm learning so much. I love that space, and it's the first piece of theatre I have felt butterflies over in a long time. This has been one of the most exciting ventures towards the art and work that I'm trying to serve.
And then on the work that I'm creating and hoping people come to the table to serve with me, I am in the middle of writing my first two pilots.
Hayley: That's so exciting!
Jerusha: It's so exciting. And I don't know what I'm doing, but I like that I don't know what I'm doing. And I'm collabing with a friend who does know what she's doing. So I'm also getting some really cool, free education from someone who's highly educated in this field but also loves my writing and ideas, so wants to take her time out of her day to teach me and guide me. And then also take all of my creative ideas very seriously.
Hayley: That kind of mentorship, like peer-to-peer mentorship, is so important.
Jerusha: Finding a mentor sometimes in this field is so difficult, and people are hesitant with the information they want to give. A lot of it stems from insecurity sometimes, and so I struggle finding people who want to help me in that writing space since it's kind of the newer space. But she's taken me on in that, and so that's been really cool.
So I'm trying to write in that pilot space, which is fun. And then also continue writing all of the single music I'm writing. And then my dream is to start latching on to people's teams, because I want to write pop music for artists, not necessarily myself. I don't really have the desire to push myself as a pop artist, but I love the medium and I know I'm good in it. So I want to be able to write for other voices. It feels more exciting to hear people sing my music than to sing it myself.
Hayley: That's amazing.
Amy: Who's your dream? Like, who would you love to have sing one of your songs?
Jerusha: In this moment, the way I'm writing lately, I'm writing between Olivia Rodrigo and Renee Rapp, my music is in the middle of both of those people. But my dream band is AJR. I'm obsessed with them. I met their manager at a 54 Below show, and I hard pitched myself to him, like, bravely.
Amy: Good for you!
Jerusha: He gave me the email. And so when the demo feels really ready, I'm going to send it and let it be. If they like it, they like it, if they don't, they don't.
Hayley: That's hard to do.
Amy: Yeah, because that's like a big dream that is… You have an email address to send your demo to, you're practically there, it's very much within reach. That's so exciting.
Jerusha: Let the demo be done so I can send it, but it's fine, I'll get there.
Hayley: Jerusha, I'm interested - is there a creative mission that kind of ties all of your work together?
Jerusha: I guess my mission that ties everything together is the way I like to communicate in spaces. I have this philosophy, I try to remind myself and I really believe that no one's at a level that they're not… Like, I'm always like, send the elevator back down. If you're on floor 1 and you believe that the person at floor 10 is the only person who could help everybody at floor 0 out, that's actually not true. You're at floor 1, you can help floor 0. And whoever gets to floor 2 needs to help floor 1 to floor 0. No matter where you're at in the industry, you have something to offer. And that's the kind of spaces I feel the most fulfilled and happy in.
Spaces like that, I try to have in my everyday life, I try to have them when I'm creating art, and I try to have them when I'm in the room and the art's being created and put on my body, because that's what keeps me feeling like I'm doing the right thing with my life.
Amy: Yeah, spaces where people can communicate with one another and can help each other no matter where they're at.
Jerusha: Yeah, there's this old order to things that I don't, it's really icky.
Hayley: Like the hierarchy.
Amy: Yeah, it doesn't help anyone.
Jerusha: I can always tell when I'm in a space where there's this chain of order of like, who's important or who's not. And that puts a really weird taste in my mouth, no matter what position I'm personally sitting in in that room. It makes doing the work harder to me, and it makes the why - the “Why are we here? Why are we doing this? What's the importance of this?” - really difficult to answer.
I think of church back in the day when the bishop was so high and he was untouchable. And I always was such a questioner of authority as a kid, I got in a lot of trouble. I'm like, why is he though? In this world of this church that we're in, if everyone is seen the same in the eyes of this creator, then why am I… I never understood it.
So in theatre spaces, I tend to feel the same. So when everything feels equal, it might be also the Libra in me...
Hayley: I'm a Libra too, and I feel that about equity in spaces and reducing the hierarchy of things. So yeah, Libra vibes.
(Musical transition)
Amy: Jerusha, let's talk a little bit about what being a woman means to you, what it has meant to you, and if there are other aspects of your identity that intersect with that in a meaningful way, we'd love to hear about that too.
Jerusha: Yeah, I love my womanhood. I feel so many complex feelings about the way I go through life in the spaces that I'm in or just in my own space. I, like, all the time feel gorgeous and hot and sexy, and at the same time I feel like a drunken sailor and… I don't even know. I feel so many things at once.
One of my best friends is like, “I don't understand how somebody could be so beautiful and so disgusting.” And I'm like, “That's me!” I grew up very athletic and I was a big, big tomboy as a kid, and I used to force everybody on the playground to only call me Joe. I loved to box and fight boys as a kid. That was just who I was. I went through a phase - this is embarrassing - where I didn't take a shower when I was 7, because I was a hardcore gymnast and I would get chalk all over my body at the gym, and I would want to go to school and show everybody, like, “I was working really hard last night,” so…
Amy: That's so sweet! And also a little gross, but like, really sweet.
Hayley: I get it though, this thing that you're describing, of this beauty and like, ew.
Amy: We're complex.
Jerusha: Exactly!
Hayley: We contain multitudes, yeah.
Jerusha: Literally, I feel like my womanhood is limitless. My closet's limitless, the way I dress myself is insane, the way I want to do my makeup, the way I want to do my hair… Every day I feel like I'm a different version of myself, but i'm always the same me, which I love about myself.
I don't know what the definition of womanhood is. I just know that I feel it, I feel great the way I am. I don't want to change. I don't want to be anything else. I just like it.
Amy/Hayley: I love that. That's beautiful.
Hayley: Jerusha. If you could make one change to the theatre industry at large, wave your magic wand, what would it be?
Jerusha: I think what comes to top of mind for me is the nuancing of Black women in theatre and the role that they play and the roles that they get to play.
My favorite genre of anything - of course, I love to consume some like, big deep think pieces and good cinema - but as a human person who just wants to relax after thinking all day, my favorite things to consume are rom coms, coming of age stuff, and like, silly little things. And I don't feel like I get to ever see Black women in those spaces. Like, just being a silly little girl who has her heart broken and goes on a plane and then finds another love.
Hayley: Like, finds love and has a good time, yeah.
Jerusha: It’s always accompanied with so much more. And I understand that. I don't know if there is actually a way to write a strong story about any Black women without their Blackness being a center of that story, and then of course it's going to come with some weird traumatic stuff that has to be into the story.
But I'm like, also, I came of age. I didn't take showers for a little bit. I fell in love with Albert Einstein, I have a tattoo of him on my wrist. I think I'm a really strange person.
Hayley: I love it.
Jerusha: Anyone listening, I take two showers a day now. But, yeah, I just feel like I'm desperate for the nuancing of Black women on stage and in film, and I'm really tired of seeing Black trauma. And if I am gonna see trauma, I feel like it's so easy to see white people in spaces of like - that's a white person who's experiencing depression, that's a white person who's experiencing joy or rejection or like, triumph. But it almost feels like Black women have to just be one thing. A showstopper, a caregiver. I don't even know if it pushes the narrative. So I'm like, really desperate for that.
Hayley: Yeah, like complex Black women on stage. Yeah, totally.
Jerusha: Yeah. Especially like, I'm first-generation Black American, and then my dad is Mexican, so I'm also Afro Latina, so… There's so many layers to being Black in America that don't get addressed and they're ignored, and I'm desperate to see them come to life and to hopefully be part of those pieces as well.
Hayley: Yeah, I'm excited to see you in those pieces as well. Are there other changes that you would be interested in making to the theatre industry? Since we're about change making here.
Jerusha: We're about change, yeah. You know, just like the way that women's roles are written in general…
Hayley: Yeah, agreed. Hard agree.
Jerusha: It's so… I can predict… I've seen and read so many plays and movies at this point that I'm like, “Oh, this is gonna happen.” My husband has no idea about the industry, like he didn't even know who Lin-Manuel Miranda was on our first date.
Amy: I really love that for him.
Hayley: Yeah, that's sweet.
Jerusha: That's why I married him.
Amy: That's so refreshing.
Jerusha: He's like, I just like you.
Amy: Amazing.
Hayley: You will always be the protagonist.
Jerusha: We'll watch a movie together, and I'll be like, “She's gonna do this because of this and this.” And it always happens the way I say.
Amy: So basically you're a genius.
Jerusha: Or I have a TV addiction, whichever way.
Amy: Or you can see into the future!
Hayley: Yeah, it's interesting, as far as nuancing of women characters, especially in musical theatre… I was talking to a friend recently, and he was asking me, “Can you give me one example of a woman character in musical theatre that passes your sniff test?” And I was like, “I don't even know if I can really give you one.” And here's why. This sounds so bleak - I'm sure there is one, and I've been on the hunt. Disclaimer: I mean Broadway, super commercial musical theatre.
Because I feel like even in the shows where women have agency and they pass the Bechdel test and all those wonderful things, a lot of their desires are still very much rooted in a man somehow or in deeply patriarchal ideas of what women should want.
For instance, take the Baker's Wife in Into the Woods. Famously, a pretty complex woman for the canon. She's still, like, her desires are security or have this fun affair with this man in the woods.
Amy: Sex.
Hayley: Sex. Yes, thank you.
Amy: Yeah, well it's hard, because it's a genre that was built by men, and pretty much exclusively by men, like a lot of our artistic genres. And it's tricky to get out of that structure that is founded in this patriarchal gaze, right?
Jerusha: It’s very hard. I would have to like, sit in silence and really think about a musical that doesn't do that. I don't know off the top of my head...
Hayley: Yeah, that doesn't put a woman in a classic stereotype, or the desires aren't based in these patriarchal ideas and it passes the Bechdel test and all of these things. Like, to me, that's the rubric.
Amy: And the tricky thing is, if a musical checked all of those boxes and did all of those things, would it still be recognizable as a musical? Or would it be a different genre or a different type of genre?
Hayley: That's a really good question, I don't know.
Amy: Hayley's gonna make fun of me, because I'm gonna bring Virginia Woolf into this conversation.
Hayley: I am so excited!
Amy: But Virginia Woolf was basically doing the same project but with the novel, which was a very, very male patriarchal form that she and her friends took and were like, “How do we make this feminine? How do we make it representative of people who are not white men?”, right?
And she has this whole thing that she goes into about how a woman's sentence is different from a man's sentence, in content and in form. It's fascinating. And so this conversation makes me think, like, “How is a woman's musical - how is a musical that treats women as complex human characters, human beings - how would the structure and the form and the content of that have to be different from what's…” Like, what major structural foundational changes would have to happen? It's interesting.
Jerusha: A lot. Like, what is the I want song about? What do women actually want in a musical where they're not obsessed with the male gaze or seeking male validation in a business setting? Because even when it's a strong working woman, she's like, the I want song is about them taking me seriously. When in a world is that not even a part of the equation? There's something else that's a struggle. There's something else about her womanhood that's a struggle. There's nothing that she has to overcome in this I want song. I don't know when it's not also about men.
Amy: Right, well, and in the same way, Jerusha, that you were talking earlier about - can we have a Black woman character where Blackness is not an inherent part of the story? Like, can we have a woman character where womanhood and the patriarchy is not part of that story? It's tricky.
Jerusha: Really tricky. I have to watch a woman go through this like, 15-minute…
Hayley: Self-doubt something?
Jerusha: Yeah, where I'm like - do I ever get to meet a woman in her prime, or do I ever get to meet a woman who just, like, her pride and her hubris is what gets her in trouble? Like The Wolf of Wall Street, but she's a woman! And I can be like, “That was evil!” Am I always hoping that she'll be saved? Like, the damsel in distress of the world will be saved.
Hayley: Yeah, I mean, I'm interested in seeing women who are flawed in ways that we haven't seen them be flawed.
Amy: Right, in ways that women aren't allowed to be flawed. Like, show me a woman character who's disgusting, right? Who doesn't shower.
Hayley: Yeah, oh my god.
Amy: Because that's not allowed, right?
Hayley: Actually yeah, so true. Or like, kind of an egomaniac, but not in that way where it's like, “Oh, she's vain,” “Oh, it's because she's obsessed with how she looks,” right? Because we see that kind of ego, but what are the super-driven, super-competitive women, for example…
Jerusha: I was telling my husband on the train last night - I don't know how we got on this conversation, but I was just like, “Oh yeah, I used to get put in trash cans in middle school.”
Hayley: Oh my god.
Jerusha: And he was like, “You were bullied?” And I was like, “Oh wait, no, I wasn't bullied.” I was bullied by girls, but like, me and my guy friends, we'd play Rock, Paper, Scissors, and whoever lost, we'd all throw the person in a trash can and put the lid on them, and then we'd have to like, roll out of it, and there'd be food on us. But we thought - I thought it was hilarious.
And he was so concerned, and I was like, “Wait, that was so fun.” I love trash cans. Like I could, I could write a whole story on how I love those trash cans.
Hayley/Amy: Please do!
Jerusha: I want to see that. I want to see platonic love between women and women, men and women, people who are nonconforming. I have so many rich and beautiful relationships with people of all genders that are beautiful but have nothing to do with sex. Those relationships just exist because people just want you to be the best version of you.
Amy: Yeah, and people have a connection that doesn't have to be romantic or sexual, it's just a human connection between two humans.
Jerusha: Yeah, but is it interesting? I don't know.
Hayley: Amy and I have talked about the idea of feminine stakes a lot on this podcast. The idea of stakes in a theatre piece that - if you've experienced womanhood, you know it's a big deal, but not necessarily something that is seen as stakes that are big enough.
Jerusha: I was in a workout class a week ago, and this instructor, this guy was, like, “Any injuries? It's gonna be a pretty intense class,” and he was like, “Any injuries to deal with?” And people were like, “My shoulder,” and one woman raised her hand and said, “I'm dealing with some postpartum.” And he went, “Well, that's not really an injury, so anyways…”
Amy: Wow.
Jerusha: That's not an injury to the body? When she's coming back to do an intense core and inner thigh workout? I could see, her face sunk. And that brings me back to what you were just saying, you bring up something like that in a room, and that's not a big deal to a lot of people, to men, and they don't want to hear it.
Hayley: Yeah, well, and just tying it back to what we were talking about before about platonic relationships, I think a lot of times there's this idea that there's not enough drama in that. But I mean, if you've ever been a teen girl, you know that the most drama you ever had was with your best friends and your friend group. For me, that was always the craziest…
Jerusha: The trash can was so much better than my seventh grade female bullies. My best friend in the entire world - we've been best friends since seventh grade because she was my seventh grade bully, and we ended up making amends in eighth grade. And a lot of apologies. And we decided to just never treat each other that way again, and we've been inseparable for many years.
Amy: That's amazing.
Hayley: Yeah, where's the friendship “enemies to lovers” trope? I would like to see that.
Amy: Oh, I would see that story on stage.
(Musical transition)
Amy: So Jerusha, you have this life as a performer, as a writer, as a music maker - how do you think about balancing all of those different hats? And then how do you also think about balancing all of your creative work with the rest of your life and being a person in the world?
Jerusha: That's such a great question. That's what I'm working on in therapy right now.
Amy: Love it!
Jerusha: My husband has this amazing brain where when he says one thing, he does that one thing. And I can't do that. I'm in the shower and I'm reaching for my phone, because I'm like, “Oh god, this song is vomiting out of me. It's perfect.” And then I'm done with that. But then I'm like, writing for another project I'm working on, and then studying sides because I have a self-tape due in 3.5 hours, I need to focus on that. And making sure I go to dance class because I gotta still do that. Go and get a drink with a friend. I'm on a trivia team and I'm in a book club.
The short answer to that question is: I have no idea. I try to give myself a rating of 1 to 5, where 5 being a task I feel passionate about and it's hard, and 1 being a task that I'm not as passionate about and it's not that difficult, and all of the things in between. And so my therapist is like, if you wake up and you want to start working on a 5, but you feel like, “da da da da da,” start with a 1, and then when you're ready, go to a 3. If you're not ready, go back to a 2. Then go to a project that's a 5, eventually. And then release yourself from that when you're done. Don't force creativity where it's not ready to come. So that's what I've been trying.
Amy: That's a really interesting approach to managing your creative energy. I like that.
Jerusha: It feels a little wild, but it feels the most wild in spaces where I'm not allowed to have that opinion.
Amy: Tell us more about that.
Jerusha: If I'm in a new workspace, and I'm not the creator of that project but I've been brought on - there are some relationships I have with other creators who - I know when it's my turn to interject an idea and really respectfully and they're taken really well. But if it's a new setting and I don't know personalities, sometimes I'm like, “Oh, this would be so much better if we just…” and I'll be thinking it, and then after an hour somebody on the team will say it.
Directors are so good at being objective and seeing a picture - how it's gonna unfold. And sometimes the people in the in-between are seeing little moments that can be fixed. And sometimes I'm a little chicken and I'm like, “I just won't say anything and I just want them to like me…”
Hayley: I don't blame you though, because sometimes the spaces aren't - like, the vibe is not right. I always like to work in rooms where everyone's ideas are respected.
Amy: If you want to have spaces like that, you have to curate spaces like that. You have to lay the groundwork to create a space where people feel comfortable speaking their mind.
Jerusha: Yeah. It's an ever-changing lesson I'm learning in rooms. And sometimes in rooms I, like, offer an idea and I feel super confident about that and it's taken so well, I'm like, “Oh, that's so great!” And I'm like “Get it, girl!” I can ride that high for like a week.
Hayley: So, Jerusha, are there things that you've learned in the last couple of years that you would love to tell your past self?
Jerusha: This is such a great question, because I do this thing I call time traveling. It's this therapy thing I started doing during the pandemic when I was going through kind of a rough thing, and I was trying to heal parts of myself. I try to time travel to the future, to the past, and have a conversation with myself.
There's a version of me that will watch it from behind myself. There's a version of me that will let myself experience it again in my body. And there's a version of me that will be on the other side of myself. Not behind myself, not in my body, but as a viewer on the front end of an experience or a feeling that I had.
I write myself a letter at the end of each year. It's like a little love letter. There's nothing deep in it. It's just kind of like, “Hey girl…”, like a check-in. And I read them at the end of each year before I write the next letter. And they're funny. Like, sometimes I've offered myself contracts. I've been like, “Ooh girl, you're signing this thing and it's so fun…”
But I like to go back to 2017 a lot, actually, because that was the year that was so much fun because I had no idea that failure existed. Nobody had said yes yet, but because nobody had said yes yet, I didn't even know what a yes, a big yes could feel like. Getting my heart broken in this industry didn't really exist for me. I just felt on top of the world, like anything could happen. I try to go back to her a lot and become her again.
That gusto, that greenness that you might have even been embarrassed about - that's beautiful. Take that into every room, because you can be seasoned and you can know it all and know who's in the room, but there's this fire of like, “I can make magic happen!” I loved about 2017. So I revisit her a lot when I need some encouragement.
Hayley: I love that you are talking about the wisdom of the younger self, as opposed to this other perspective we have a lot, where it's like, you must grow into your wisdom. But you're right, there's so much wisdom to be found in that raw passion, energy, doesn't know what no or yes feels like. What a beautiful idea. I love that.
Jerusha: My first week in New York, I booked my first lab of this really cool show, because I walked into Pearl Studios and a friend of mine was like, “Are you going in for Emma?” And I was like, “What's that?” And he was like, “Emma, the new musical.” And I was like, “Oh, that just sounds really white. I'm not going in for that.” It was raining and I had rain boots on and a huge sweatshirt, and they had open slots in the EPA sign up. So I just went, “Oh man, whatever. I'm just going to go in there.”
I went in, I didn't know anybody in that room, it was my first week here. The director, who never shows up to EPAs, was at the EPA. I sang with the rain boots and my raincoat, kind of rapped a little bit, I sang, and I didn't know anything. Now I know all those people in that room and I'm like, “The audacity!” And I just worked with that music director, who's put me in like three shows since, because we had such a great time in that space.
But I think about that day a lot. There was this energy of like, “Do you know who's in the room?” And not knowing any of it was the best blessing, because I just went in authentically, dirty, with dirt and rain boots, the way I am.
Hayley: I love it.
Amy: Love it so much. Oh my gosh. Jerusha, we're coming up on time, but I want to hear about what you're most proud of in your life and your work. And it can be not showering.
Jerusha: I love that I shower now. I actually have a shower stool, because I sit down in the shower and think my thoughts.
But I think it's a complex answer. When I first moved to New York, the one goal I had in mind was to fulfill my father's destiny, because I know that his career was cut short because of religious reasons and some trauma there. And there was always this pressure I felt on me, like if I could just finish what he'd started, I would feel like a good daughter. And I put that pressure on myself. And then once I booked Broadway that released, but in this joyous way, where I could actually focus on what I think my destiny is.
I feel right now most proud of the fact that I really, really, really like what I have to offer. I don't sing the way people expect Black women to sing. I don't present in ways that people want me to present. I've worn outfits and people were like, “Sing like Beyoncé!” And I'm like, “Ooh baby, that's not gonna happen.” And I struggled for a long time trying to make myself sound like the next Audra or the next Patina Miller or the next this.
It wasn't until post-pandemic where I really just like what I have to offer in my writing, in my body the way it is, in my flexibility, my limited flexibility. I like it, and I don't want it to change. I just want it to grow and get better, and people will want that. People will want the best version of me and not whatever they were thinking they wanted before.
Amy: Yeah!
Jerusha: It was calming to just be like, “Yeah, this is it. You gotta just like it. I'm fun to work with, so it's gonna be great.”
Hayley: Thank you so much, Jerusha. This has been such a delightful conversation. Before we run away, can you just share with our listeners where they can find you in the world of the internet?
Jerusha: Yes. @Jerusha Cavazos for all forms of social media. And then my music is specifically under just my first name Jerusha, and all my collaborations are there too. And if you're listening and you need a writer on your pop album, I will write your music for you.
Hayley: Thank you so much.
Amy: Thank you so much, this was such a joy.
Jerusha: No, I love this. I'm so honored.
(Music)
Hayley: Thank you for listening to the Women & Theatre Podcast. We’re your hosts, Hayley Goldenberg…
Amy: And Amy Andrews. If you like what you heard, subscribe and give us a 5-star review wherever you listen.
Hayley: You can also follow us on social @womenandtheatreproject to make sure you never miss an episode.
Amy: The music for this show is written by talented Women & Theatre community member Chloe Geller.
Hayley: Thanks for listening, everyone. See you next time!
Amy: Bye!
