S5E4: Julie Richardson
In this episode, Hayley and Amy talk with composer and orchestrator Julie Richardson about balancing multiple personal and professional roles, redefining the boundaries of womanhood, finding a creative process that works for you and a creative community that inspires you, and more. We also highlight Lesya Ukrainka as part of our Women’s History Month Playwrights You Should Know series, in partnership with Expand the Canon. Scroll down for episode notes and transcript!
Episode Notes
Hosts: Hayley Goldenberg and Amy Andrews
Guest: Julie Richardson
Music: Chloe Geller
Episode Resources:
Space by L M Feldman at Central Square Theatre
Check out Julie’s pumpkin carving and other amazing projects on her website!
Musical Theatre Writing Collective
Hello Sunshine - Reese Witherspoon
Make Time: How to Focus on What Matters Every Day by Jake Knapp and John Zeratsky
Women’s History Month:
Expand the Canon - Stone Host by Lesya Ukrainka
Trailblazers of the Week:
Other:
Donate to the Collective Transformation fundraiser for Transgender Law Center!
Guest Bio:
Julie Richardson (she/her) Jis a Boston-based musical theater composer, orchestrator, music director and sound designer. Her musical HACK, PUNT, TOOL, written with collaborators Daniel Levine, Rachel Bowens-Rubin, Zara Barryte, and Danbee Kim, was produced in 2012 by the MIT Musical Theater Guild and had a revival with the same group with a revised book and score in 2017. Julie orchestrated the world premiere production of JACK & AIDEN by Tova Katz and Lane Michael Stanley at Ground Floor Theatre in Austin, TX in 2023. She is currently composing the music for an adaptation of Virginia Woolf’s TO THE LIGHTHOUSE with collaborator Amy Andrews. Julie is also a YouTube creator with a channel called Finishing the Score, in which she invites viewers to follow along with her songwriting journey and learn new skills along the way. Her video topics range from composition and lyric techniques to music software and audio gear. She is a proud founding member of the Musical Theater Writing Collective, as well as a member of The Dramatists Guild, Maestra, ASMAC and Ring of Keys.
Find Julie Online:
Follow To the Lighthouse on Instagram
Check out Julie’s YouTube channel
Thanks for listening!
Who do you want to hear from next on the Women & Theatre Podcast? Nominate someone here.
The Women & Theatre Podcast is created and produced by Hayley Goldenberg and Amy Andrews. Please like, comment, subscribe, follow us on Instagram and Facebook, and consider making a donation to support our work. Thank you for listening!
Episode Transcript
(Music)
Hayley: Hello beautiful people, and welcome back to the Women & Theatre Podcast! We’re your hosts, Hayley Goldenberg…
Amy: …and Amy Andrews. Grab a cozy beverage and join us as we talk to women and gender-expansive folks about their experiences at the intersection of womanhood and theatre.
Hayley: On the pod, we cultivate open conversations across identities and professional roles…
Amy: We look for opportunities to support one another in growing our careers…
Hayley: And we pool our collective wisdom to build the equitable theatrical spaces of the future.
(Music)
Hayley: Hello, how are you?
Amy: Hi! I'm good. How are you?
Hayley: It's Sleepy Girl Hour up here in Canada.
Amy: Is it? It's a rainy day, that makes it Sleepy Girl Hour here, too. Yeah.
Hayley: It's sleepy. Let's - with the sleepy being said, let's dive into Roses and Thorns. Do you wanna go first?
Amy: Yeah, sure. My Rose is - so last weekend, I had the absolute pleasure of co-producing this cabaret called Collective Transformation: New Works from the Musical Theatre Writing Collective, and it was - oh, such an experience! It was an evening of new musical theatre. My collaborator Julie, who we're gonna talk with today, she and I had a song in the show as well. So I had a producer hat and a writer hat on, they looked very cute together.
And the best part is it was a cabaret fundraiser for the Transgender Law Center. So we had this incredible, amazing group of transgender and non-binary artists - performers and musicians and writers and producers - and it was just, like, the most gorgeous night that was celebrating gender diversity and new musical theatre. And it was so much work, and it was a dream to see it all come together. I'm really proud of that work, and that is, like, a rose that is just gonna keep on “rose-ing,” I think.
Hayley: Awww.
Amy: Yay! My Thorn this week is - this is, like, a big-picture thorn. You know, like, when those big-picture problems, like, all of a sudden feel personal to you? Right now, I'm feeling that way about the way that our society not only devalues art, but like, at this point - at this particular moment in history, is like, actively seeking to undermine art and turn it into political propaganda. That's a thing that has been really…
Hayley: Woof, yeah.
Amy: Yeah, like, hitting home on a very personal level for me this week. And it just - I just, like, sometimes wanna take people and shake them and be like, “What is wrong with you that you don't value art and beauty as essential elements of humanity?” Like, it just does not compute and makes me a little wild. That's my Thorn. What about you, Hayley?
Hayley: Yeah, I've been saying all season that the state of the world is my Thorn. It feels relevant today.
Amy: And It continues to be, yeah.
Hayley: It continues to be my Thorn. I think - like, specifically, ableism is a thorn. Like, just as somebody with an invisible illness, dealing with things that are hard to explain to people sometimes, like, lesser known mental health challenges and how that plays in with the state of the world at the moment is scary. Yeah, it's just weighing me down this week. And just knowing that our society's, like, not set up to support disabled folks, not meant to support women right now, people with uteruses… It's, it sucks. So I'm feeling it. It hurts.
Amy: It does, yeah.
Hayley: It hurts, and I keep asking myself, like, how is anybody standing right now? Like, how is anybody coping? It's just really hard. So, not to be too heavy, listeners, but that's where I am right now.
Amy: No! Yeah, and I wanna remind you listeners, that - like, literally that the act of coping is in itself a form of resistance. And like, that's not always easy, but it's also important to remember.
Hayley: And also, it's okay if you're not coping today, like, you're allowed to have a bad day.
Amy: Yeah, 100%. Yeah.
Hayley: And then my Rose is Amy and I recently did our very first official community event in person at my apartment, and it was so amazing to gather so many women and gender-expansive folks in a room together. And you know, we've been talking a lot about community and the importance of community, and it just felt like a really real representation of what can happen when you bring folks into a room together.
And it goes back to why Amy and I started this project in the first place, of the idea of getting women and gender-expansive folks in a room together and seeing what kind of change we could make by being in space together and talking to one another and having transparency about resources and things we wanna change and how we might go about changing them and share ideas and wisdom and everything. So I'm really proud of that.
Amy: It was such a magical event. I just wanna send a shout out to everybody who came, everybody who showed up and made the event such an incredibly special night. It was so, so very cool to have all of us come together and be able to share those really important conversations. So thank you.
Hayley: Yeah, I love it. Thanks for being with us. It really means the world. Well, Amy, do you wanna introduce who we're gonna be speaking to today? Because I know she's a really big person in your world.
Amy: Yes, I would love to! Oh my gosh. Listeners, today we are speaking with Julie Richardson, who is my fabulous collaborator on To the Lighthouse, which is the show we're currently writing. Julie is incredible. Julie does it all. Julie is a composer and an orchestrator, and she is also a mechanical engineer. She's also an incredible mama. I love our collaboration so much, and I think she's phenomenal, and I can't wait to dig into her thoughts about creative work and balancing all those roles that she has. I think she's brilliant, and I'm so excited for y'all to meet her.
Hayley: let's talk to Julie.
Amy: Yeah, let's do it!
(Musical transition)
Amy: But first, for Women’s History Month, we’ve teamed up with Expand the Canon to bring you a series of Playwrights You Should Know About.
Hayley: This week's Playwright You Should Know About is Lesya Ukrainka. Lesya Ukrainka was a Ukrainian writer, translator, and activist. During her childhood, her mother submitted Ukrainka's work to literary journals under the pseudonym Lesya Ukrainka, meaning approximately “Ukrainian woman”, to protect her identity in the wake of suppression of the Ukrainian language under Russification. Ukrainka was a devoted Marxist and remained politically opposed to Russian Tsarism for her entire career. Her revolutionary activities and controversial publications led to her arrest in 1907, and she remained under Tsarist watch for the remaining six years of her life. She died in 1913, leaving behind an impressive portfolio of work and a legacy of activism that cemented her as one of the most significant literary figures in modern Ukrainian history. She has featured on the 200 Hryvnia banknote.
If you've always wished you could see Lady Macbeth take on Don Juan, check out her play The Stone Host, written in 1912. Learn more about the play and Ukrainka on This is a Classic, a podcast by Expand the Canon.
(Musical transition)
Amy: Hello, beautiful people. Julie, welcome to Women & Theatre!
Julie: Hi! It's so wonderful to be here. Thank you for having me.
Amy: Yay! Thank you for being here. To get us started, can you please share your pronouns and tell us a little bit about what you do in theatre?
Julie: Yeah, my pronouns are she/her, and I am a composer and orchestrator.
Hayley: Fabulous. Julie, can you tell us a little bit about something that's inspiring you right now?
Julie: Yeah. Maybe a week and a half, two weeks ago, I got to see a new show, a world premiere of a play up here in the Boston area, which combined all of my most favorite things. This play was called Space, and it was about the American women in aviation and space from, like, the dawn of aviation up to today and into the future. And it was sort of like this cross-time collection of… I think it was Bessie Coleman up through…
Hayley: Come on, Bessie Coleman! I love Bessie Coleman.
Amy: Yes!
Julie: Right? Yeah, like, up through Sally Ride, Mae Jemison - like, all of these very awesome folks. It combined feminism and science and a little bit of queerness, and it was just so good. It’s by L M Feldman and Larissa Lury, and It was a world premiere with the Central Square Theater. They do an annual Women in Science production, and this was their annual production. It was amazing, and I loved it, and it makes me want to write a musical about women in science.
Amy: Yay!
Hayley: Okay, well, when the two of you work on that musical about women in science, please call me and I'll direct it.
Amy: You know it, you know it.
Julie: Amazing.
Hayley: Let’s make that happen. Okay, fabulous. Well, before we get into the meat of this interview, we're gonna get started with a fun little flash round of questions. The first question is: If you were an animal, what would you be?
Julie: I've always wanted to be able to fly. And so the first thing that comes to mind is a bird. And I think that it would be whatever bird can fly the fastest, so I can get back and forth between New York and Boston as fast as possible.
Amy: Oh, what a good answer! Fast-flying bird. Julie, what is your weirdest hobby?
Julie: Probably pumpkin carving. This is something that I picked up in college just for fun. There was a pumpkin carving contest happening in our dorm, and I decided that to try to win the contest, I was gonna carve the face of our RA, who was judging the contest. He did not pick my pumpkin. But it got me excited about creating my own patterns, like, just taking a picture in Photoshop and turning it into a pattern. And I think my favorite carving that I've done was one of Ruth Bader Ginsburg shortly after she passed.
Hayley: Obsessed.
Amy: Yes. There are pictures of your pumpkin carving on your website, right, Julie?
Julie: There are, yeah. I made a video, like a time lapse of me carving that one. That was fun.
Amy: Nice.
Hayley: Very good. Julie, what quote or mantra is speaking to you right now?
Julie: Probably “Consume less, create more.” I feel like I'm constantly having to remind myself of that.
Amy: That's really very resonant right now. Yes. Agreed.
Julie: Yep.
Amy: Julie, what is your favorite musical?
Julie: Ugh. Ugh. This is so hard.
Amy: Yeah.
Julie: But I think it has to be Wicked. It's just, like, just so good.
Hayley: Good is good, you know?
Julie: Right? “For Good” is, like, my top favorite musical theatre song ever.
Amy: That’s a good one.
Julie: Like, it just gets me every time.
Amy: Yeah. It just speaks to those relationships between women in such a way that, like, nothing else does.
Julie: Why aren’t there more musicals with, like, a powerful female friendship at the center? There need to be more of those.
Amy: Why aren't there?
Hayley: You know, maybe the patriarchy,
Amy: Maybe we should write them. Maybe we are writing them.
Julie: Yeah! Hey, if it doesn’t exist, write it yourself.
Amy: Absolutely.
Hayley: Julie, what's your song of the moment?
Julie: My song of the moment… Because I am, like, deep into writing this elaborate Act 1 finale, I have been listening to the “Tonight Quintet” from West Side Story…
Hayley: Obsessed.
Julie: …and really, like, looking at how it's built and just grabbing ideas for structure. And I love that. So that's a great one.
Hayley: For our listeners who are composers, that's a really good trick. I'm sure most of you know this, but you know, if you're feeling stuck with something, find a reference song that you can go deep-dive into as a way to help you.
Well, thank you so much for playing along with our flash round, Julie. Could you tell us and our listeners a little bit about how you came to your field and creative work?
Julie: Yeah, absolutely. So I got my start in music back in fourth grade as a violinist. Never really, like, thought about the possibility of writing music until I got to college. I took a music theory class, just 'cause we were required to take a bunch of different kinds of humanities classes, and I was like, “Oh, music theory sounds fun.” And we had an assignment to write a piece of music. And it just, like, blew my mind that there were structural rules about how music works and how to put it together.
I've always been a techie kind of a person. I'm a mechanical engineer by day. And so, like, knowing how to put together music was really instructive to me. And at the end of that class, I was like, “Oh, I really wanna write more music. What kind of music do I like? I like musical theatre. I should write a musical.” And embarked on finding some fellow folks in the Musical Theatre Guild. We ended up writing a show together within the span of one year. We conceived of the idea to write a musical about undergraduate life at MIT and then put it on. And it was, like, one of the most incredible experiences.
Since then, I took sort of a winding path through some other creative disciplines. I did sound design, music direction, even had a stint with a photography and videography side business, before finding my way back to - like, writing musical theatre is really what I want to be focusing on right now. And then, so a couple years ago, I started finding fellow musical theatre folks online. And that is how I found my lovely collaborator, Amy Andrews, with whom I'm currently writing our musical To the Lighthouse. So, long journey.
Hayley: Woohoo! Okay, well, since I have both of you here… I wanna go back to the part of this where you're also a mechanical engineer, 'cause that's fascinating. But since you just mentioned Amy and your collaboration, can you two talk a little bit about what you're making together and what you love about collaborating?
Julie/Amy: Yeah/yes!
Julie: So after Amy and I took an online musical theatre writing class together - shout out, Musical Theatre Writing Collective and Michael Radi!
Amy: Mm-hmm. We love you!
Julie: We just, like, really clicked in the song we were paired on together. And Amy suggested we do a collaboration and was like, “Hey, I've been thinking about writing an adaptation of Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse. Are you interested?” And she sent me a copy of the book, and I read through it, and there’s just such rich character material in that book, and really awesome themes of legacy and how we leave our mark in the world that I was really excited to explore.
And so, yeah, I’m thrilled that Amy and I have been able to work on that for the last two years. I'm doing music, and Amy's doing book and lyrics. Do you wanna add anything, Amy?
Amy: Yeah. I wanna shout out to the very first song that we wrote together, which was a character establishment song for Alice in Alice in Wonderland. And it was a really cute song that I still love and that still gets stuck in my head sometimes. And yeah, in terms of what I love about our collaboration, I'm usually the, like, more organized person in a collaboration. Which is wonderful, and can also be a burden at times. And like, Julie puts my organizational skills to shame. like Julie is just…
Julie: I don’t know if that’s true. I feel like we’re both organized.
Amy: We are both very organized, which makes it an amazing collaborative experience. Yeah, like, for this Act 1 finale that we are in the midst of writing right now, Julie came to me two weeks ago and was like, “Here's this spreadsheet that breaks down all of the different characters and all of the different, you know, melodic ideas and hooks and, like, the dramatic work that each of them is doing, and how they all come together throughout the song.” And it is the most - like, if you're a spreadsheet person, it is the most beautiful thing I've ever seen in my whole life, this spreadsheet about our Act 1 finale.
Hayley: Shout out to the spreadsheet girlies around here, okay?
Julie: Oh my gosh.
Amy: For real.
Hayley: We know you. We love you. We are you.
Amy: Yeah.
Julie: Yes. My brain might as well be a spreadsheet.
Amy: (laughs) And like, in the best way, in the best way.
Hayley: Also, speaking of spreadsheets… Oh, sorry. Go ahead.
Amy: Oh no. Please speak about spreadsheets.
Hayley: I was going to say, speaking of spreadsheets, I feel like that's a good segue to talk about your mechanical engineering and how you balance these two careers. Talk to me about how you do that. That's so wild. You have these two huge careers next to each other. What's that like?
Julie: Yeah, it is wild. I will say that, like, acknowledging a privilege that I have is I've found a company that very much wants its employees to have work/life balance, and so I am able to, like, know that the time outside of my work is my time or my family time, you know?
And so, the way that I have managed to handle all of this is - like, I wake up at 6 AM, have my morning routine, and then 7 AM to 8 AM is my writing time. And I try as best as I can to erect fences around it, make sure that things don't encroach on it. And, you know, of course, life things happen, but in general, it works out pretty well. And with just that one hour a day over the last two years, we've managed to… We're more than 60% of the way through the score and have had a couple of Zoom readings and all of that, reworked the synopsis a couple of times. And so I'm really proud of that. Like, being able to consistently sit down and put that in.
And, you know, it certainly helps… This sort of is a segue into, like, balancing with being a parent. So I have a two-and-a-half-year-old, and like, that's also…
Hayley: Wait, just stop down for a second so that listeners can take a deep breath and take that in. You are not only a musical theatre composer, but you are a mechanical engineer, and you're a mom. So just take that in, listeners, for a sec, 'cause I feel like I need that to wash over all of you. It is over me. Anyway, go on.
Julie: It’s many, many things. I don't always get the sleep that I need to, but it is… You know, in the time that my daughter was a newborn and I wasn't really doing any creative outlet, I found myself, like, really lost, and like, I didn't really know who I was, and I was like, “Am I even a composer anymore?” So it was really important for me to find a way to get that back and make sure that I was doing it on a regular basis, because it's important for my mental health. And I also want to model for my daughter that it is important to take time for yourself to do the things that matter to you creatively.
Amy: Yeah. As the mother of a daughter too, I feel exactly the same way. Like, the way that we are able to model for our kids pursuing our passions and making our art and telling our stories. Especially in this wild world we're living in right now, it is so important to teach our children - and particularly our daughters - to be able to do that for themselves.
Julie: Yeah, absolutely.
Amy: Cool. Yeah.
Hayley: That's beautiful. Thanks for sharing that, both of you. That's gorge.
Julie: Thank you.
(Musical transition)
Hayley: Julie, I wanna ask you about your creative mission for your work. If you had to put a name to it, what would you say that would be?
Julie: I really love telling stories about people who are, like, finding their power in places that people don't expect them to. So like, women who are succeeding in science or who want to be artists in 1910 in a world that doesn't want them to be an artist and wants them to just be a mom. Like, that's something that I really love. And I love bringing characters to the forefront who historically have not had the center-stage time. Particularly as a queer woman, that's something… Like, women and queer stories, those are things that I really love to tell and hope to be able to tell more of them as my career goes on.
Amy: Fabulous. Very cool. Well, that is a perfect segue into talking about womanhood, so let's go there! Can you talk to us a little bit about how womanhood fits into your identity and how all of that comes together to impact your theatrical work?
Julie: Yeah. Womanhood is an interesting topic. I have always been a person who kind of defies some of the gender norms that were being thrust upon me in terms of, like, not wanting to wear frilly dresses or, you know, act certain ways. I love being able to redefine what the boundaries of womanhood [are]. And sort of like expand that and show that there are so many different ways to be a woman, and all of them are okay. So that's something that is very meaningful to me. The second part of your question was about…?
Amy: …how womanhood and gender, if at all, impacts your theatrical work.
Julie: Yeah. Certainly in the stories that I choose to tell, and maybe… Certainly the lens through which we tell them. I love, I think it was actually something I heard from Amy at one point, that writers have the power to create the world in a way that we want to see it. So like, the way that you talk about a subject or, you know, treat it in your work can illuminate for the viewers, like, “Oh, the world could be like that. Why isn't it like that? Let's make it like that.”
Hayley: Yeah. I love that you said that. That's something I feel really strongly about in storytelling also. There are so many different things that stories can do. You know, we can look at the past and what was, but we can also do this beautiful thing of illuminating a potential future that we want to see or just invite audiences to see things in a different way. Yeah, that's something I think a lot about in my writing as well.
Amy: Very good stuff.
Hayley: So Julie, speaking of changes that we can create via theatre, I wanna ask you about if you could make one change to the theatre industry, what would it be and why?
Julie: Yeah. I think that there would be such value and power in, like, shifting who are essentially the gatekeepers of what gets shown in New York. Like, traditionally and historically, there have been a certain small subset of, you know, people of a narrow demographic making those choices and with the money. I've seen evidence that there are, like, smaller production houses focused on more diverse types of stories these days, and I think that's really awesome. So it would be identities of who are the producers, and then what kinds of stories are they elevating?
But also going along with that, like, you also really need funding in order to have those smaller producers be able to bring those things up. I know you said one thing, that's two things. More funding for the arts.
Hayley: No, no. Go off, go off. Yeah.
Amy: We are here for it.
Julie: More funding for the arts. Yeah. Yeah. Certainly, that's a bit of a challenge in this country right now, things not going in that direction, but hopefully we'll get there in the future. More funding for the arts.
Hayley: I think zooming out too, to say, like, more funding for the arts goes back to something we talk about a lot over here, which is making sure that society values art as being essential.
Amy/Julie: Yeah!
Hayley: …because there are other countries that do value art more as a society and will put their money where their mouth is. And so if we look to those models - you know, how can we bring that over to America and, yeah, make it more a priority.
Amy: Yeah. And I think a lot of it comes down to drawing - like, very explicitly drawing the links about what art does for our society, like, the value that it has. And we - I feel like we often make those points as the social value of the arts, like the kind of people and the kind of society that it helps to build. But I think, fortunately or unfortunately, in today's landscape, we need to start making more of a connection between the economic impact that art can have as well. 'Cause both are important.
Julie: Absolutely. Absolutely.
Hayley: Yeah, that's making me think about what Reese Witherspoon did with Hello Sunshine and her company. Because her big thing was using the data of, like, how women's stories do actually, in a financial sense, move the needle. And she's been so successful. So I think it just goes to show that these stories are what people wanna see.
Julie: Yeah. Reese Witherspoon, that's a great example. Like, someone who took it upon themselves to use their position of power to, like, create a new gateway where once there was not one.
Amy: For sure.
Hayley: Yay!
(Musical transition)
Amy: Julie, could you talk a bit about what's your ideal space in which to create theatre? I know you're really passionate about finding a creative community. Do you wanna talk about what that looks like in your life?
Julie: Yeah, yeah. Bringing this back a little bit to the Musical Theatre Writing Collective… This was something that was, like, really a game changer for me in terms of how I think about my theatre writing. Like, how motivated I am on a day-to-day basis to continue to create things.
There’s just so much power and value in finding a group of people who are all really excited about making stuff and then getting together and sharing it with each other. And if you can particularly find a group that you can be, like, pretty consistent with, where they start to know your body of work and can provide more specific feedback and be like, “Oh, hey, you know, this song reminds me of this other song of yours.” That's happened in writing groups, and with Amy too, where she's like, “Oh, I love the way you drew on this theme from this song.” And I'm like, “Oh, I didn't even think about that. Good catch.” So like, having this creative community to bounce ideas off of.
Hayley: Mirror back to what you're already doing, so that you can make it even more intentional and make your art yours, you know?
Amy: Yeah.
Julie: Exactly, yeah. And thinking even beyond the Musical Theatre Writing Collective, like, the times in my life that I’ve felt most excited are the ones where there's just this, like, palpable energy of a group that's really excited about making stuff. Like, as an undergrad at MIT, I felt that too. Even though the kinds of things that everyone was making were, like, so different. You would just see someone really, really working hard on building a rollercoaster in their quad of their dorm. And like, you know, you'd be really excited about it and fired up about, you know, going to make something of your own, even if it was not a rollercoaster in the quad of your dorm.
Amy: Yeah, that group energy. Julie, you and I were talking earlier this week about the production process, and how exciting it is to get a group of people together and collaborate on a show. And so often as writers, we're in our little, you know, in our little houses or coffee shops writing in isolation or just with one or two collaborators. And it's exciting to get to that point where we're all coming together. So the ways that we can mimic that process as writers - like, to come together in a group of writers - it's really special and magical.
Hayley: Ah yes, the shouting into the void of, “Will anyone ever see this?” Like, this thing that's meant to employ so many people.
Julie: Yeah. It’s such a long development process that - like, if you were doing it on your own, it would require superhuman amounts of faith that it will ever pay off. But like, if you're in a group, you can cheer each other on. And then, like, you can also be so excited when your fellow writers’ projects make and hit milestones. And it's like another element of being able to get excited about progress is seeing their progress too.
Amy: Absolutely.
Hayley: I love all of that. Yeah. Community is so crucial, I feel like, to what we do.
Amy: Yeah.
Julie: It really is.
Hayley: Cool. Julie, I wanna ask you about how you think about cultivating your creative practice, because I know that that's so important to you. And you already spoke a little bit about the - like, you know, that hour that's sacred to get your writing work done. And so I'm just curious if you have any further thoughts on cultivating the creative practice and how you maintain that when life gets crazy and all of that stuff.
Julie: Yeah. We already talked about the time blocking element of it, basically, like, setting aside a time to make it happen. There's a book that I have listened to that I often think about in terms of, like, creating a life that's sustainable to create a creative practice, which is called Make Time. And it's about managing your time, attention, and your energy.
So like, even if you have all the time in the world, you can't really make progress on something if you don't have focused attention or the energy to do so. And I'm constantly working to try to maintain those things. Particularly the energies one is the challenging one with a full-time job and a kiddo. Just, like, getting to sleep on time is the - like, that would be the great thing. If I could get enough sleep, I would have more energy, you know, in the mornings. And so, just trying to balance those kinds of things.
But yeah, like finding ways to boost your energy throughout the day. You know, all of the classic ones: Eating right, some time to move your body. And even if you can't have any significant exercise, like, just taking a 10-minute walk at lunch or something. I always find that those things are a great pick-me-up. So even though they don't seem like they would be part of a creative practice, it's all in support of it. It's like… Designing your life in a way that you can do all of those things is something that I find really fascinating as an engineer. I'm like, “Oh, life is just another design project.”
Amy: Right. How do we optimize it?
Hayley: I love that.
Julie: Yeah, exactly!
Amy: No, but I really… A thing I really love about you, Julie, is how intentional you are about creating those systems for yourself to support your creativity. I think it's really, really admirable.
Julie: Thank you. It's always an experiment.
Amy: I wanna be you when I grow up.
Julie: Awww. Well, I wanna be you when I grow up.
Amy: Oh, well, look at that.
Hayley: This is so cute. So I just wanna ask you one more question, Julie, because we wanna respect your time. And time is very important in your life. So what are you most proud of in your life and in your creative work so far?
Julie: I’m most proud of, first and foremost, my family. I have a fabulous wife and a fabulous daughter, and they are my rock. But beyond that, I’m proud of my creative practice. Being able to - like, I have not always been a person who is consistent about sitting down and writing. And so, this is sort of like something that I’ve come to in the last couple of years. Frankly, being a mom kind of helped, because I really, really have to be intentional about it.
And then also, like, my collaborations and my creative community. Like, that's also something I'm really proud of, having built things that I didn't know I was missing in my life. And then, now I have them, and I wouldn't change it for anything.
Amy: That's amazing.
Hayley: I love that. I love that.
Amy: Yeah, so good. Julie, where can people find you on the internet?
Julie: Yeah. So I've got a YouTube channel at Finishing the Score where you can follow along with my songwriting journey and some things that I'm learning along the way. Also on Instagram @finishingthescore. And you can also find my website, www.jhrichardson.com, where it's kind of like a whole collection of the things that I do, including that pumpkin carving video that I mentioned earlier.
Amy: Yay!
Hayley: Love that. Go watch the pumpkin carving video, listeners!
Amy: So exciting.
Hayley: Thank you so much for being here with us, Julie.
Amy: Thank you, Julie!
Hayley: You’re a delight. We are so grateful that you are a part of this community and looking forward to sharing your wisdom with all the listeners.
Julie: Aww, thank you, friends. What a lovely time spending with you, and I hope you have a wonderful day. Bye!
Amy: Thanks, you too! Bye!
(Musical transition)
Amy: Yay!
Hayley: That was so great. I love Julie.
Amy: Me too! She's the best.
Hayley: Yeah, but you get Julie all the time. I don't get Julie all the time.
Amy: I know, I know. I'm really lucky.
Hayley: The spreadsheet of her brain is very admirable. And I also love that she's so creative and then so, like, organized and, you know, in touch with the logic side, it's awesome.
Amy: Yeah. Her right brain/left brain balance is wild. It's so good.
Hayley: Yeah. So I love - like, I love so much about that interview, but I think the idea around cultivating a creative practice and keeping that promise to yourself, and how much you can get accomplished with just one hour every day - like, that is really sitting with me.
Amy: Yeah. And she - I mean, Julie is so disciplined about that hour. Like, the way that she continues to keep this project moving forward just through an hour a day, it's really - it's incredible, and I so appreciate it. Yeah, I also loved the conversation that we had about creative community and just how that can support us as writers and as theatre makers. I love that, and I know that's a value that all three of us really share.
Hayley: Yeah. I love that so much. Well, I think that's time that we uplift the people who inspire us. I've been inspired a lot today by you and Julie already, but do you have a Trailblazer of the Week?
Amy: Yes! So my Trailblazer of the Week this week is Molly Marinik, who is a dramaturg that I have had the pleasure of connecting with over the last few months. We connected kind of randomly - well, no, not kind of randomly. We connected through a cold email I sent out, so shout out to the cold email, listeners. But Molly and I have been…
Hayley: I think we have a shout out to that on every episode of this season.
Amy: I think we do! As we should, yeah.
Hayley: And that's okay. As it should be.
Amy: Yeah, so Molly and I have been having really interesting conversations for the last couple of months about submission opportunities for musical theatre writers and the gaps that exist in that world. And Molly is doing this amazing work building this thing called The Bridge that is creating opportunities, submission opportunities for mid-career, mid-process musical theatre writers to further develop their work. And the way that she's going about it is so cool. She's being so intentional in having a lot of conversations with writers and producing organizations and stakeholders about what's working, what's not working, what's needed, where the gaps are. It's - like, she's approaching it very like a dramaturg, as a research project, and it's amazing and I love what she's doing. So, way to go, Molly, you inspire me.
Who is your Trailblazer of the Week, Hayley?
Hayley: Come on, Molly!
Amy: Yeah, Molly. Go for it!
Hayley: Woo hoo. My trailblazer of the week is Ms. Chloe Geller, who - you might recognize the name from knowing her because she's fabulous, but also because she has written the music for this podcast. Chloe's one of my brilliant collaborators. We're working on a musical called Faye together, along with the wonderful Julia Sonya Koyfman. And Chloe is just absolutely eating it up right now. She is the music assistant on Floyd Collins on Broadway. And yeah, Chloe is just one of those people who has the hustle from the top of her head to the bottom of her toes. She just really goes after what she wants and is just always crushing it with getting so many jobs, and she just, like, makes these things happen for herself, and I just really admire that about her.
She's also super kind and funny and lovely, and I'm grateful to collaborate with her. She's a genius, and I feel lucky to get to make musicals with her.
Amy: Yeah, and she's a brilliant composer too. Her music is gorgeous. Including the music that she wrote for our theme song.
Hayley: Yeah, when I say she's a genius. Yeah.
Amy: Yeah, go on, Chloe Geller.
Hayley: Yeah. Love you, Chloe, if you're listening! And yeah, if you haven't heard her music, check it out. She actually won the Write Out Loud contest a couple years ago for her song “Pity Party,” which is out on YouTube with Taylor Louderman singing on it. So you can check that out, we’ll link it in the show notes maybe.
Amy: Check it out!
Hayley: Yeah. So shout out to Chloe, sending you love and admiration always.
Amy: Yay! Always. Amazing. Well, Hayley, I want to hype you up today, my friend, my collaborator. I just - you're amazing. I love all the things you do. I wanna hype you up specifically because, thinking back to our amazing networking event that we threw, it was so, so cool to see you showing up for this project in that community space, and just being such an amazing representation of what we're trying to do here at Women & Theatre. It was so good.
You know that, that feeling that you get - maybe you know what I'm talking about, listeners - when you, like, see your spouse or someone you love shining, and you see everyone around them just, like, watching them shine and taking them in. I was feeling that way at the networking event. I was just watching you shine and watching other people enjoy your light, and it was so beautiful.
Hayley: That’s so nice. That's really, really nice. Thank you for that. You're gonna make me cry over here.
Amy: Oh, no!
Hayley: Amy, I just wanna hype you up for how you're showing up for your people, babe. You always do it, and you are so consistent about it. And yeah, you're just really good at identifying need and meeting it and doing it, oftentimes, without people having to ask. And then, you know, when they do ask, you're always kind of ready to take it on, and I love that about you, the way that you care for your people. It rocks.
Amy: Thank you!
Hayley: And I feel lucky to get to have you in my life and as my collaborator, so, yay.
Amy: Right back at you, friend. Yay. Hey, listeners, go take care of your people!
Hayley: Take care of your people, and take care of yourself, babes.
Amy: And take care of yourself.
Hayley: It's a rough world out there.
Amy: Yeah.
Hayley: Go take a nap. Go do something kind for yourself today. Love you all. Take care of yourselves this week.
Amy: Thank you for listening and watching.
Hayley: We will see you next time.
Amy: See you next time. We love you listeners! Bye!
(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 was written by talented Women & Theatre community member Chloe Geller.
Hayley: Thanks again for listening, everyone. See you next time!
Amy: Bye!
