Discover the story of Jake, a shining talent in the performing arts, as his mother Ellen Sauchelli joins Leesa Csolak on the Making It Happen podcast. This episode emphasizes the importance of spotting and nurturing talent early on, guiding young performers through the industry, and the essentials of finding effective training programs. Moreover, the discussion tackles the crucial role of networking for parents and the balancing act of supporting your child's dreams amidst family life.
Experience the auditions, triumphs, and trials of a young actor's journey to theater success in this intriguing podcast episode. Learn about the highs and lows, the friendships and experiences that are part and parcel of the theater industry, as narrated by a supportive family. The episode further showcases how pursuing a career for young talents can be a family adventure, especially when balanced with relationships with agents and managers. The podcast is an invaluable guide for budding actors or their families.
In this insightful episode, the unique challenges and demands faced by parents of talented youngsters in the performing arts industry are explored. Our guest Ellen, a veteran of managing her child's rise in the industry, offers a wealth of advice on communication, balance, informed decision making, schooling, audition techniques, and industry expectations.
Alongside, she also underscores the importance of understanding your child's passion, supporting their dream, and maintaining their happiness amidst the whirlwind of performance art. Special insights into dealing with teachers, varying curriculums, and juggling educational and show-business commitments offer listeners a real-world understanding of the intertwined life of stage and school.
Join us for part one of the interview, and don't miss the sequel where we continue to delve into practical advice based on Ellen's experiences. Ellen's work with Stage Door Designs can be found on Instagram at @StageDoorbway. For specific industry advice or to kickstart your performance career, check out Leesa's website at lbctalent.com and schedule a free consultation.
Tune in next Sunday at 8 pm Eastern for part two of our enlightening chat with Ellen.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Music.
(00:07):
Welcome to Making It Happen, a career in the performing arts,
where we discuss how to break into the performing arts industry for yourself
or your child, teen, or young adult.
Guests include professionals who are passionate and share my vision of helping
talented individuals land professional representation and have successful careers in the arts.
My name is Lisa Solak, and I am the CEO and founder of Making It Happen,
(00:30):
a career in the performing arts, having helped hundreds of clients break into
the performing arts business on stage, in films, television,
commercial work, and more.
This podcast is supplemental to my groundbreaking online courses.
For more information, check out all the ways you can benefit from my courses,
how-to videos, live webinars, in-person seminars, and free guides. Go to lbctalent.com.
(00:53):
My guest today is Ellen Socelli.
Hi, Ellen. How are you? Good, Lisa. So good to see you. How are you?
I'm good. I'm good. I'm so glad
you could take the time out of your busy day. I know how busy you are.
It's been a few weeks trying to schedule, and I'm so excited that you're here
to talk to all the listeners.
We have so many parents that are going to learn so much from your story with
(01:16):
your son, Jake, and I'm just really excited to talk to you.
So let's just get right to it. When was it that you realized that Jake was talented in this arena?
Was it once he got involved in, say, musical theater in school,
or was it at a really young age?
Give us a little bit of an idea because there's so many parents that are always
asking me, how do I determine readiness in my child?
(01:40):
Like they're dancing all over the house, they're singing, they're doing all
these things, and I'm not sure if they're good enough, you know?
So when was it and who did you enlist to the professionals to kind of give you
some ideas of whether he was ready or not? Like kind of give us the very beginning of your journey.
So Jake is my youngest. I have two sons and my boys are eight years apart.
(02:02):
So it was almost like two separate families. But Jake was kind of musical and
a little dancey from when he was pretty little.
And I actually was a voice in a theater major in college who,
as my mother used to say, made a bad turn on career day and ended up working in banking.
So we would sing in the car. We'd always have a cast album of of something playing,
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I remember teaching him, I think it was Avenue Q, so inappropriate, but very fun.
And I said to my husband at one point, I said, I think he can sing.
And he's like, oh, come on, how could you know? He's little,
he was maybe four, five, I don't know.
He said, I just, I don't know, he can carry a tune. He was interested in music
(02:45):
in general. He played the piano at home.
We got him a drum kit. He made a lot of noise on the drum kit.
And there was a summer that I was doing a big merger for Chase,
and I needed to work crazy hours.
And he actually hung out with my sister that summer, and her girls were dancing.
And she was taking them out to
a dance school here on Long Island where we live. And Jake was watching.
(03:10):
And all of a sudden, the dance team turned around, and he was doing everything
she was doing, like in the doorway.
And she said, do you want to come in? So, like, you know, his cousins are,
like, significantly older than him. So the next thing we knew,
little teeny tiny Jake was dancing with all these, you know, early teenage girls.
And the next thing I knew, we were taking dance classes. Then it came time for like summer camp.
(03:32):
And so I said, well, let's look for something that's got a little bit of a creative
bend to it and see what he does with it.
You know, never in a million years thinking that we would, you know,
pursue this on a professional level. This was just like, I'm his mom.
He seems to have this talent. Let's see what we can do that will enrich him. And that's it.
So he went to a summer camp called You Stand. I don't know if you've heard of
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it, but it's in Long Island.
You know, Natalie Portman went there and Mariah Carey went there.
And it's a big, beautiful outdoor summer camp.
And he met on his first day of summer camp, Larry Saperstein.
Larry Saperstein, high school musical fame, because he came home that day and
he had taken Larry's backpack home and Larry had taken his.
(04:17):
Somehow Larry's mother got in touch with me. Anyway, long story short,
the boys became fast friends.
Larry, even then at five, was a spectacular, spectacular tap dancer.
And he came home and said to me, I'm going to take tap with Larry.
And I said, OK. And again, long story short, he did. You know,
(04:38):
I said, you'll never catch up to him, Jake.
You know, and for a long time he he was doing pretty well, you know.
And of course, we all know where Larry went with it.
But so that's what he did. And that summer they did a production of Free to Be You and Me.
And when he was done, he came to me and he said, when's my next show?
Now what? And this was how old? He was maybe seven.
(05:01):
Oh, so really young. Okay. And
then somebody turned me on to a theater that's out here on Long Island.
There's a little equity house called the Engelman, the John Engelman Theater.
And I'm sure a lot of the folks that you work with have heard of it.
It's a beautiful little 500-seat theater.
And they were doing a production of Oliver. Well, bring him to the audition.
And who's standing on line at the audition but Larry.
(05:23):
And then went in and auditioned. Jake booked it. He was one of the,
you know, one of the Fagans boys and an orphan and the Oliver understudy,
which was kind of a big deal.
First callback was in the equity building in the city. And I was like, what's happening?
You know, I had a little frame of reference, but I never did it professionally
as a kid. So it's all like, okay, we will just take it a day at a time. So he did Oliver.
(05:46):
By the time Oliver was over, I had gotten him decent headshots that weren't
taken in my backyard. yard.
And I had started to reach out to agents and managers just to sort of figure
out if what we should do next.
And I got a phone call from Shirley Grant, literally from Shirley Grant.
And I don't know if you remember Jake, I'll have to show you the point.
(06:07):
He was little, but he had a big mop of blood. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. I remember. And she said, this is Shirley Grant.
And I just I just want to know, are those real?
Or do you, or do you curl them? I was like, oh, no.
Anyway, long story short, he, you know, we went, we drove to Jersey,
(06:28):
we went and met Stephanie and Dave and Charlie and Jacob Klein.
Then we started spending a lot of days in Manhattan missions,
finding voice teachers, finding dance classes and acting coaches.
Let's dig a little deeper into that. So when you say that you started to find
(06:52):
voice teachers and dance and all of that, did you have help in that regard?
Maybe talk a little bit about that because I think that is so important.
The training piece, even if your child is the top of the heap at their local
school, if they're, you know, booking things like what Jake did initially,
you still have to have that training piece.
(07:13):
I think there are a lot of young people who are maybe five, six,
seven, who get involved in the pro side and they don't do the training. They're cute.
They might be really great at, you know, and comfortable talking with the adults
and with casting and doing what they need to do.
Maybe their memorization skills are great and they end up booking a lot when
(07:34):
they're little, but then there comes a time when there's going to be other kids
who maybe are, when the kids get a little older, let's say eight to 10,
where they're training.
And if you don't have great training, if you're not training with the top people
in the industry, I think it's really difficult to keep the career moving.
So how do you find those people?
(07:55):
That's another thing, like you're a brand new parent, you're brand new to it.
Did you have help? Did the, did the management company help you find people for him to train with?
Did they suggest things or was this something you were on your own?
I think it was a little of both.
I mean, the folks at Shirley Grant gave me, you know, gave me some name and
he studied with a few people and they weren't always a perfect fit.
(08:19):
And then I started to meet people. You know, I think it was probably not very
long when you and I met, you know, a lot of people give stage mom a bad name.
I probably don't have to tell you that.
I have to say with the exception of a select few others that I met along the
way who had experience either because it was also their business or they had
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been doing it with their kids a little longer, really held my hand and helped me to find,
you know, the people who were acceptable to me, a good fit for Jake and could really help him.
It was a phenomenally trained voice teacher, you know, maybe Jake and that person just didn't jive.
I think too, what you're saying about the networking with other parents,
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I think the word stage mom or stage dad gets a bad rep and sadly because of
the press and they love to kind of, you know, do stories on some of these,
you know, artists that made it and became A-list and then they didn't have the
support. They didn't have like a grounded parent.
Maybe the parent had other issues that kind of made it more difficult for them.
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And so we get this bad rep when really the stage mom or dad is more.
Of a support system. Like we're there to be the transportation.
We're there to make sure that they eat and make sure they get enough water and
make sure that they're happy and they're prepared.
And I feel sometimes too, like we're middle management, because if we look at
(09:42):
this as we do as a business,
we kind of are right between the agent and us and getting that information that's
necessary to then make sure that they're prepared and get them to the right
people if we We don't have the expertise to help them.
So, you know, I do totally agree with you that the people that I was running
into immediately when my two boys got signed at that time and Kevin was 10 and Kurt was 15,
(10:11):
the second time we went into the pro side of things and all of the parents at
the top of the industry for me were all very kind, very helpful. full.
They shared the names of, you know, who their kids were working with.
Like I really didn't, I was lucky to not run into people who were not that way.
(10:32):
And you do, you have, you kind of can see them coming a mile away to a certain degree.
I did run into some parents who came from other States who had never been involved
in say an audition for a Broadway show.
And their child is now at the callback and they're just not dressing them the
right way. They're not fixing their hair the way they should.
(10:54):
They're putting way too much makeup on them, you know, all of that kind of thing.
So I totally agree with you in regard to the networking.
I think you have to be calm.
You have to be honestly with you being in business ahead of all of this with
your son was probably a great thing.
Because you understand how to deal with all the different personalities and
(11:16):
types within the corporate space.
Do you agree with that or no? I do. I mean, it's different than the corporate space for sure.
But I understood the importance of networking and how to go about it and how
to, you know, have a professional conversation. Or when it came time to asking
questions about a contract, even the contract at first, you know. Yes.
(11:38):
Completely foreign to me. I have not had that background. I would have been
completely desperate for somebody to hold my hand, you know,
which I know is like very often what you do and how well you help your clients in that regard.
It was a real learning experience for all of us, for us as family,
you know, for Jake, for my husband,
(12:00):
for my other son who didn't see me too much. How did you juggle that?
Because that's another factor that I think is really something that a lot of parents think about.
I have three other kids at home. I have another child at home.
And I had times when I had to leave my son, Kurt.
My oldest son, Steven, was in college. My son, Kurt, was a senior in high school.
(12:23):
You know, Kevin was involved in a show that took us out of the country and I
had to leave the house for a semester of his senior year.
And it was very difficult, you know, to do that as a parent,
you know, lots of tears while I was sitting in Canada.
But, you know, it's something that you do have to have a lot of conversations
about. How did you guys handle it?
It's funny that you say that because we have a lot of similarities in our story.
(12:49):
So Jake got an audition for A Christmas Story, the musical, which everybody
knows landed on Broadway, Pasek and Paul.
And for anybody who's been involved in the progression of musical theater,
you know that those things don't just land on Broadway one day.
They have years and years and years of development before they come.
So Jake auditioned for A Christmas Story. Pasek and Paul were not involved at the time.
(13:12):
And they were auditioning for the world premiere, which was going to be in Kansas City, Missouri.
And so I told my husband Jake's going in for this audition we all watched Christmas
story that night my husband said to me why are you why are you doing this why
are you putting him on this audition you know you can't go to Missouri what
are you gonna Dylan's here and I have a job I was like don't worry he'll never book it.
(13:37):
Says all the parents who right yeah that happens to a lot of people the long
story short he booked it.
And that was his first like paying gig on the stage.
He had done some commercial stuff before that, but what happens?
My boys are eight years apart.
We moved Dylan into college at Drexel in Philadelphia.
(13:59):
We came home, we packed our boxes to be shipped off to Kansas city.
And I said to my husband, I'll see you at Thanksgiving. And Jake and I left
and went to Kansas City. And my husband was like, where did everybody go?
We just, you know, we figured it out. Jake wanted to do this,
you know, when he booked it, of course, that's my husband.
(14:20):
I couldn't have known that he was going to book it. He's young in this,
you know, he's getting started.
He's like, well, we can't say no, right? I'm like, no, I don't think so.
So we made it work. And Vin and Dylan came out for Thanksgiving.
And then we all spent into Thanksgiving together.
And then Vin came back a couple of times when we had a long weekend.
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And it just became an adventure that our entire family went on.
I mean, Jake did Christmas Story twice, once in Kansas City as Randy,
and then two years later on the first national tour.
And that was after Ben and Justin rewrote the whole score.
And that Christmas we spent in a one bedroom bedroom hotel room in Chicago with
(15:02):
Christmas trees that I bought at the Walgreens down the block.
Yep. Been there this day. And I still put them up somewhere in the house as
a little memory. I love that. And truthfully, I.
Hopefully nobody in my family will watch this, but for some of the best holidays I've ever had. Yeah.
It's funny that you say that because a lot of parents that I've worked with,
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as well as even people that have come through guests on the podcast that have said the same,
you know, it's just something about the industry and the people that you meet,
the experiences that you have with your child, the closeness that,
you know, you become so much closer.
Closer because of the process and how it goes.
(15:43):
The kids get to become much more worldly.
They're working with other kids who love the same thing.
And I think it's a very honestly healthy experience in many ways,
if you know how to approach it with your child,
you know, and with the different kind of things and how you have to prepare
(16:05):
them for auditions, for callbacks, for not getting the the project for not being
the kid that goes on on opening night.
Because maybe talk a little bit about how that works with children in regard
to stage work and how the casting works. Can you touch on that a little bit?
Yeah, sure I can. It's funny, when Jake booked Oliver at the Angleman, he was the understudy.
(16:30):
And there's a boy, Michael Kleeman, I don't know if you remember Michael.
So Michael was Oliver. I mean, Michael was so Oliver.
But Jake fully expected that he He would get to be Oliver, right?
He was the understudy, right?
So we're learning the choreography and so on and so forth.
And one night, all the moms were sitting in the audience and Michael was getting sick.
(16:52):
Like we could all hear that Michael was getting sick.
And I, you know, I don't know. I was not that mother that was jumping up and
down saying, Jake's going to go on tomorrow. Sure. I'm going,
well, Jake's going to go on tomorrow.
I've got to put in rehearsal. Yeah, right, right, right. Wait,
stop the train. Stop the train. Explain a put in rehearsal.
Usually once the show opens, right, they take the understudies and they actually
(17:14):
put them into the show and they get to, you know, walk the walk and sing the
songs and do all the staging and and get to practice. Yes.
Because up until the time the show opened, it's the real Oliver or the real whoever.
And so, yeah, so he hadn't even had a chance to do anything other than make
(17:36):
sure that he had the music under his belt and the choreography. Right.
You don't get a chance to touch the props. You don't have a chance to feel the
floor if you're dancing. You have no idea what it feels like.
But he wasn't there only as the understudy. He had a whole nother track youth.
He was working on that. All of a sudden, Michael's voice sounds like it's not
going to get him through the next day.
(17:56):
And the stage manager came to me after and said, I need you here tomorrow morning, like 10 o'clock.
We're bringing the whole cast out from New York. We're going to do a put in
for Jake because he's going to go on tomorrow.
So I have to tell Jake that. Right. So he can be, I don't know,
terrified, excited, see how many tickets we can get and how many people we can get there.
Right. We wake up the next morning to two feet of snow. What?
(18:19):
Two feet of snow. and the stage manager
calls me and he says we can't get the cast here we can't
have a put in rehearsal he said michael's gonna go on
tonight he sounds bad i mean he sounded great he
was fine so there was hi hi hi hi hi yes and a little bit of terror for yes
yes and a drop to the ground you know and and he's a little boy i mean he's
(18:44):
working in a professional world but he's a little little boy.
So when do you think I will get to go on?
And I was like, Jake, you might never, there's no promise of that.
And he was like, just confounded by the whole thing. All over,
he said to me, mom, I really want to play the part somewhere.
Can you find me another, another thing they're doing Oliver?
(19:04):
So I mean, at that time we had just signed with the management company and I
called them and I was like, can you find me an Oliver?
I don't care where it is. You know, let's go. But I was looking,
I just kept looking because Mm-hmm.
Yeah. Some small theater, some community theater program, something.
We found one. We found a little theater in like an Episcopalian church nearby
(19:24):
that was doing Oliver and.
And as it turned out, the people who were producing the show had come to the
argument, had seen Jake in his other role.
And he went in and he auditioned and he got a call back.
And he came home and he said, you know, I could get this. I could get this.
And I was like, yeah, I said you could.
And if you do and if you're Oliver, we will do the show.
(19:47):
Because I had to also now explain to the manager that we were not going to be
available to go on auditions and pay people money.
Yeah. Yeah. Rehearsing in the church basement of this little church. Yeah. You know what?
Let's, let's pivot for a second just to explain that situation.
So when someone is repped by management or an agent, the only way those people
(20:09):
make money and put a food, put food on their table and a roof over their head
is with your commission,
10% by the rules of the game for agents and anywhere from 15 to 30 with your management company.
And so when When you're out, even for a week, say you're going on vacation,
you can't audition for anything that is shooting or running that week that you're off,
(20:31):
and then you're missing anything that is being auditioned for that week,
and anything that might be shooting well after the week that you're off.
Really, for any manager or agent, even if you take a vacation,
it gets tricky. So how much time was he off for that show when he was Oliver
(20:54):
in the community theater?
Community theater, right? It's not like two weeks and we go on stage and go
because they're rehearsing when they can.
They've got adults who have jobs during the day and kids who are going to school.
The whole thing was probably three months. But once he got found out he had the role.
You know, I told the director and the people who were involved in the theater,
(21:17):
I'm like, listen, he can do this and he wants to do this so bad, he can taste it.
And I said, and he could probably go on tomorrow and be ready.
I said, so you got to help me out here, you know, because if he's got to go
to the city for an audition, and he was auditioning for Mary Poppins at the
same time in the final four.
So I said, I said, you got to help me here. And he had an understudy.
(21:41):
So they said, well, this is what we're going to do. We're going to let Brian,
this other little boy who was an understudy, you know, he'll we'll get him ready
and he'll have rehearsals.
And if Jake has to go, we'll rehearse Brian.
And then Jake said to the director, will Brian get a show?
And the director said, if you're sick, Brian will get a show.
And Jake said, I think Brian should get a show.
(22:02):
Yeah. Oh, my gosh. Yeah, I know. Right now, yeah, I feel it too. Yeah, yeah.
Like, I was a proud moment. Yes, of course. A moment. I got a show.
And they worked with us. They understood everything.
They understood what he was doing, what this meant to him, you know,
(22:25):
and our managers work to us hand in hand. They also got it.
But at the end of the day, you are a million percent correct,
right? These people, this is their job. This is their livelihood.
They don't make money if you don't make money. So if a parent is,
you know, if their child's very talented and they go and they head in this direction,
(22:45):
they do have to understand the inner workings of this industry.
Because if they don't, you can definitely make decisions that might not be the best for your child.
And when things actually can be worked out, like when you talked to the people
involved with the community theater, you explained to them the situation.
I think sometimes parents think it's just very cut and dry.
I think when you have a really talented kid and they want them in the school
(23:07):
show or in the community theater show, whatever it happens to be,
and they're doing the pro thing, there are ways to work it out.
And these kids are so in tune to what their responsibilities are and they love it so much.
And if they're doing and trying to juggle all of that, it definitely is something that they can handle.
And I think sometimes parents don't realize that, you know, and,
(23:29):
and on the other side of it too, if you, you know, at the last minute you're
always canceling or, you know, you're saying no to things all the time,
the agent or the manager, put yourself in their shoes.
They're just going to, they're going to go to the next kid.
Your kid's headshot is going to end up on the file folder on the hard drive.
These days, years ago, it wasn't the drawer and the cubbies on the wall.
(23:50):
Yeah. Well, you, well, you left the wall and you went to the back room into the drawer somewhere.
If you weren't, you know, involved, I mean, it's, it's, it's a commitment for,
for parents, you know, to do it because of the years of involvement that our family has had.
I, I will often have people come to me and say, you know.
My kid likes this. What do you think? What do you think? And I hope this doesn't
(24:14):
come out wrong, but the first thing I try to do is talk them out of it.
Just to say, before you promise your child this, that, or the other thing,
sit down with your partner, really have a conversation about what this involves.
And I tell them some of the stories and things that Jake needed to miss.
I mean, little things that seem unimportant like birthday parties or soccer
(24:37):
game, family Thanksgivings because we weren't here.
Your perspective and the way you react to things is also a big part of it.
Like for instance, when Kevin was in Wintuck, he was Jamie in Wintuck,
shared the role with two other boys.
They had a show at Madison Square Garden Theater on Thanksgiving.
(25:01):
And I always hosted Thanksgiving in my home, literally hosted Thanksgiving for like 40 years now.
I think it's time that I'm going to give it to somebody else.
But actually, this past year, we went out to dinner, which was just a joy for me.
But I do enjoy the kids. Everybody, even though they're adults now, they all love that.
But we just reorganized it. The family came to New York, and we made reservations,
(25:25):
and we had our Thanksgiving all together at a beautiful restaurant.
And everybody was very excited, and they all came to the show that day,
And it just all worked out.
So I think sometimes, and there's the excitement, right? It was very exciting
for the nieces and nephews and the different, you know, the family members to
be a part of that and to kind of get an idea of what it was like a day in the
(25:46):
life of a kid who's doing professional work. You know, they thought it was really cool.
So it's how you handle things as well. You know, it's how you,
you know, how you perceive what's going on and how you make it work.
But again, I agree with you having that really, that conversation.
With your spouse and the other people, even the siblings of the child who's doing it.
(26:08):
It's definitely something that everybody has to be on board to understand.
And sometimes when you start it, you don't have all that inside information,
hence a reason to talk to you, a reason to talk to me, you know what I mean,
to get that information so you understand what those things are and how it's going to work.
If your child, the other side of it is the kid has to to do the work, right?
(26:30):
The child's the one, the teen is the one that has to get up and do it.
And I think as a parent, we know in our heart of hearts, if they're that talented
and that passionate about what they are doing, I really do.
I think if it's the parent who's kind of pushing the kid, which I've seen a
little bit of, I don't know if you have, that never works.
I mean, listen, there were definitely times when, you know, an adolescent,
you know, to go to the school dance and of course, the whatever,
(26:54):
I'm sure the words came out of my mouth more than once.
If you don't want to do this anymore, you can stop. I used to check in with
Kevin because he was busier at the time. My son Kurt was older.
So he was in that space where you're 15, 16, 17, and they can get an 18 to 25 to play younger.
He was lucky enough to continue to work in voiceover, commercial work,
(27:17):
all of that space during those years.
But I would take Hey, Kevin, who was much busier, he was in that hotspot for
boys between ages like nine and 13. He was like in that place.
And I used to check in with him. And I actually used to say to him,
you know, we need to have a meeting. Let's have a conversation. You are...
The one doing this, you tell me when you want to meet. You want to do it right
(27:39):
after school? Do you want to do it before you go to bed? You want to get up early tomorrow?
We need a half hour. We have to talk about whatever the thing is that was going
on or what the needs were.
And then he was a part of the decision-making all the time.
So it wasn't him coming home from school and going, oh my gosh,
you have an audition for this or oh, da, da, da, da, da.
And having him feel like, wait, I need to rest a second.
I just got off the bus. I never did that to him.
(28:01):
It was always, please, you know, once he got home and he got settled,
when do you want to meet? Do you want to do it tonight?
You want to get out of the way? You tell me you want to do it in two days.
That's fine. And I would check in my goodness, probably once a month. Are you still happy?
And it's hard because he was very into sports. He was a very good baseball player.
So he was very high on the hog and like the local recreational baseball and
(28:23):
like the, what do they call it?
I don't even remember travel teams, AAU, all of that.
And he had to make a decision at like age 14, 15 about what to do.
And he just, there was never, I'm not sure it was always, Oh no,
no, I'm not, I'm not stopping this.
I'm going to continue to do this. So, so let's go, let's push forward a little
bit. So he, what happened? What was the next space?
(28:47):
Did he spend most of his time doing live performance and stage work on musicals?
Or did he start to lean into film and TV commercial?
Like what, how was that? Because when you're with a manager,
they're trying to cultivate your career.
So they're sending you for everything to kind of see where things land.
You know, another reason why you can't just call a manager and be like,
(29:08):
my child only wants film and television.
I mean, you can't do that. They're trying to cultivate this child not knowing
where they're going to be. So what else was he doing at the time?
What happened next? Yeah. So.
Commercial auditions and he and he
did a number of them he booked more voiceover
commercials than anything else he did one of those mastercard
(29:28):
priceless commercial which was a very funny because a voice teacher a voice
teacher told me early on that jake he thought jake had a little something with
his pronunciation of the letter l and this particular voice teacher kind of
made Jake very aware of it.
And Jake became very self-conscious about his L's.
(29:49):
And so his L's started to become very labored.
So he had auditioned for this MasterCard commercial and it was that whole priceless line.
So that was basically the line that he had to say like, you know,
however many times, but in between all of this, he became aware of this L situation.
So he books it. We're at the studio.
(30:11):
He's recording it. I'm sitting like in like
on the the couch somewhere he's in the booth and and he
is like killing himself with this L and the
the person behind the board looks
at me and she's like what's going on she's like I don't know oh my god I said
(30:32):
I said we just have to like get him to relax and just say it the way he says
it because the way he said it with the little speech impediment or whatever
it was was what booked him the job. That's what they wanted.
Exactly. And now he wasn't doing it.
So I turned to them and I said, can I go in there with him? And they looked
at me like I was crazy. And I probably was now that I think back on it.
(30:54):
And I went in there and I just said, I just said, just keep recording.
And so I went in there and I said, okay, Jake, I'm going to say a word and then
you're going to repeat it.
And we just got like comfortable and we, you know, it was like strawberry playground,
as many words as I could think of that didn't have L's in them.
And then every once in a while I'd throw in a priceless.
And finally he just let it slip and it came out exactly. Nice.
(31:18):
Nice. That's so funny. Heard them in the other room go, that's it.
Yeah. So he did some commercial work. He did a lot of work down at Little Airplane.
He was the voice of Samuel Lovebird in a production of a little show that's called Third and Bird.
He did like, I don't know, 50 some odd episodes of that. So animation voiceover.
Yeah. Animation voiceover where he was the little bird and he had to,
(31:41):
you know, we really enjoyed that work.
It was, you know, he got to meet some amazing people. We were in there like
twice a week, you know, so I had the rearranged schedule at that point.
He was in middle school so that he had like gym at the end of the day so I can grab him early.
And when I went in and said, can I have the schedule that I want for my 12-year-old?
And they supported me. That's nice that you had the support because that doesn't always happen.
(32:05):
So it's definitely something that we could do a whole podcast just on the school
situation and how to juggle that.
And I think it's different for each project. It's different for everyone based
on just the people at the school and what they're They're used to it if they've
ever had to deal with this before.
You know, sometimes it opens up a bag of worms for them because then they have
to let everybody out early and not, you know, list them on the truancy list or whatever.
(32:30):
Yeah, it was not fun taking tests and getting tests and teachers not prepared
to give us what we needed.
Well, yeah, I mean, I think something to tell all the parents out there, in most of the teachers'
contracts, It is not listed that their responsibility includes giving work prior
(32:50):
to when they're teaching it in the room to students who make a choice.
To do the professional industry and try to go to public school at the same time
or whatever it happens to be.
It could be somebody who's doing national equestrian, you know, competitions.
It could be someone who is, I don't know, dirt bike, you know,
national champion. It could be, I mean, there's so many different things.
(33:12):
So I think that's difficult too, because the principal of course is,
you know, the one in charge of the house.
And if there's nothing written in the, the rules from the board of ed for that
district, blah, blah, blah.
I could go on in detail with all of this, but it's hard because the principal
has to say, if I allow this person to do this, leave for three days to shoot
(33:34):
a commercial, leave for a month, whatever.
And so you have to kind of, as a parent, make a decision as to whether you're
going to just sign them out of school.
I literally had to remove him from school Same. Yeah.
And I think too, I think in this country, we are so programmed to do what the
schools tell us to. Do you know what I mean?
(33:55):
So programmed, maybe not so much anymore, but definitely at that time when our kids were young.
And so we think, you know, we have to follow the rules.
We have to do what they say. Sign up for kindergarten this year.
This is what you have to do next. And you're following all these rules to keep
the child's experience a positive one in the school as well.
(34:16):
So when these things come up, it's a little bit of panic sometimes sets in because
if your child is going to a school near the city where your child is working,
those schools tend to understand it because they probably have children who
are involved and it's a little bit of a different feel.
But when you're, you know, in an outlying area, in another state, it's very hard.
(34:36):
I think sometimes it's easier if they're going to miss more than 10 days,
sign them out, sign them back in. I think it makes it a lot easier.
Yeah, interesting. So let's talk about the schooling on set.
Can you talk about that a little bit? I think that might be something that people
would love to hear about.
Like, what was your experience with schooling through the stage work that he
(34:58):
did? I guess like every question, the answer is it was varied.
There was one show that you did where they knew they needed to hire teachers for the kids.
It was a kid heavy show. And what they did was rather than hiring teachers who
had experience in teaching the kids in a balanced way while they were on and
off the stage, while they were in and out of costume, you know, making it work that way.
(35:21):
These teachers were like retired teachers from the public school system.
So they didn't get it. Yeah, because they have to juggle what their work is,
you know, which child is needed in rehearsal, which child is on stage, which isn't.
And it's kind of like you're a short order cook. but most
of the time the experience was amazing and there was usually a
tutor who came with us and traveled with us um i
(35:44):
think it was on location education supported the the
tours that jake did and the out of towns that he did and i mean we have relationships
with those teachers to this day right we still keep in touch and and and those
teachers were amazing you know this is what they They know how to work with
multiple school districts and multiple people's curriculum and kids,
(36:06):
all different ages and stages.
You know, you've got an 11 year old and then you have a 17 year old.
Yes. The curriculum's different. And some people decide to sign on with distance learning programs.
I know we used Calvert. We had other people using Laurel Springs and they're all in the same show.
So they're dealing with that too. Yeah. It takes a very special kind of person
(36:27):
to be that teacher. And, you know, and they're out there.
They really are. I mean, they're some great teachers. But it was a good experience.
Every time he came back, you know, a little help from mom and dad to make sure that we,
are caught up. And I'm pretty sure
that I definitely did one science fair experiment completely on my own.
(36:50):
Don't tell anyone. I think we're
out of the range of being in trouble for that. I think we grew plants.
The kids were involved. They came and sang to some of them and didn't sing to others.
And I remember when he got like an A on him, I was like, Like,
I got an A on my science paper.
But, you know, so for the most part, though, you know, he came back ready to
(37:12):
jump right in and slid right in. It didn't hold him back.
It didn't New York State Regents, Regents Diploma, all the stuff that he needed
to do, graduated on time.
Thanks for watching the Making It Happen, A Career in the Performing Arts podcast.
Tune in next Sunday at 8 p.m. Eastern for part two of my interview with Ellen.
(37:35):
If you'd like to connect with Ellen and Stage Door Designs, follow on socials at Stage Door B-W-A-Y.
Need more info and details about the professional performance industry?
Visit lbctalent.com and schedule your free no-obligation consultation with me.
And follow me on socials at lisasolek underscore lbctalent. By sharing our stories,
(37:57):
we can help other talented individuals land the career of their dreams.
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Music.
Music.
(00:07):
Welcome to Making It Happen, a career in the performing arts,
where we discuss how to break into the performing arts industry for yourself
or your child, teen, or young adult.
Guests include professionals who are passionate and share my vision of helping
talented individuals land professional representation and have successful careers in the arts.
My name is Lisa Solak, and I am the CEO and founder of Making It Happen,
(00:30):
a career in the performing arts, having helped hundreds of clients break into
the performing arts business on stage, in films, television,
commercial work, and more.
This podcast is supplemental to my groundbreaking online courses.
For more information, check out all the ways you can benefit from my courses,
how-to videos, live webinars, in-person seminars, and free guides. Go to lbctalent.com.
(00:53):
My guest today is Ellen Socelli.
Hi, Ellen. How are you? Good, Lisa. So good to see you. How are you?
I'm good. I'm good. I'm so glad
you could take the time out of your busy day. I know how busy you are.
It's been a few weeks trying to schedule, and I'm so excited that you're here
to talk to all the listeners.
We have so many parents that are going to learn so much from your story with
(01:16):
your son, Jake, and I'm just really excited to talk to you.
So let's just get right to it. When was it that you realized that Jake was talented in this arena?
Was it once he got involved in, say, musical theater in school,
or was it at a really young age?
Give us a little bit of an idea because there's so many parents that are always
asking me, how do I determine readiness in my child?
(01:40):
Like they're dancing all over the house, they're singing, they're doing all
these things, and I'm not sure if they're good enough, you know?
So when was it and who did you enlist to the professionals to kind of give you
some ideas of whether he was ready or not? Like kind of give us the very beginning of your journey.
So Jake is my youngest. I have two sons and my boys are eight years apart.
(02:02):
So it was almost like two separate families. But Jake was kind of musical and
a little dancey from when he was pretty little.
And I actually was a voice in a theater major in college who,
as my mother used to say, made a bad turn on career day and ended up working in banking.
So we would sing in the car. We'd always have a cast album of of something playing,
(02:25):
I remember teaching him, I think it was Avenue Q, so inappropriate, but very fun.
And I said to my husband at one point, I said, I think he can sing.
And he's like, oh, come on, how could you know? He's little,
he was maybe four, five, I don't know.
He said, I just, I don't know, he can carry a tune. He was interested in music
(02:45):
in general. He played the piano at home.
We got him a drum kit. He made a lot of noise on the drum kit.
And there was a summer that I was doing a big merger for Chase,
and I needed to work crazy hours.
And he actually hung out with my sister that summer, and her girls were dancing.
And she was taking them out to
a dance school here on Long Island where we live. And Jake was watching.
(03:10):
And all of a sudden, the dance team turned around, and he was doing everything
she was doing, like in the doorway.
And she said, do you want to come in? So, like, you know, his cousins are,
like, significantly older than him. So the next thing we knew,
little teeny tiny Jake was dancing with all these, you know, early teenage girls.
And the next thing I knew, we were taking dance classes. Then it came time for like summer camp.
(03:32):
And so I said, well, let's look for something that's got a little bit of a creative
bend to it and see what he does with it.
You know, never in a million years thinking that we would, you know,
pursue this on a professional level. This was just like, I'm his mom.
He seems to have this talent. Let's see what we can do that will enrich him. And that's it.
So he went to a summer camp called You Stand. I don't know if you've heard of
(03:54):
it, but it's in Long Island.
You know, Natalie Portman went there and Mariah Carey went there.
And it's a big, beautiful outdoor summer camp.
And he met on his first day of summer camp, Larry Saperstein.
Larry Saperstein, high school musical fame, because he came home that day and
he had taken Larry's backpack home and Larry had taken his.
(04:17):
Somehow Larry's mother got in touch with me. Anyway, long story short,
the boys became fast friends.
Larry, even then at five, was a spectacular, spectacular tap dancer.
And he came home and said to me, I'm going to take tap with Larry.
And I said, OK. And again, long story short, he did. You know,
(04:38):
I said, you'll never catch up to him, Jake.
You know, and for a long time he he was doing pretty well, you know.
And of course, we all know where Larry went with it.
But so that's what he did. And that summer they did a production of Free to Be You and Me.
And when he was done, he came to me and he said, when's my next show?
Now what? And this was how old? He was maybe seven.
(05:01):
Oh, so really young. Okay. And
then somebody turned me on to a theater that's out here on Long Island.
There's a little equity house called the Engelman, the John Engelman Theater.
And I'm sure a lot of the folks that you work with have heard of it.
It's a beautiful little 500-seat theater.
And they were doing a production of Oliver. Well, bring him to the audition.
And who's standing on line at the audition but Larry.
(05:23):
And then went in and auditioned. Jake booked it. He was one of the,
you know, one of the Fagans boys and an orphan and the Oliver understudy,
which was kind of a big deal.
First callback was in the equity building in the city. And I was like, what's happening?
You know, I had a little frame of reference, but I never did it professionally
as a kid. So it's all like, okay, we will just take it a day at a time. So he did Oliver.
(05:46):
By the time Oliver was over, I had gotten him decent headshots that weren't
taken in my backyard. yard.
And I had started to reach out to agents and managers just to sort of figure
out if what we should do next.
And I got a phone call from Shirley Grant, literally from Shirley Grant.
And I don't know if you remember Jake, I'll have to show you the point.
(06:07):
He was little, but he had a big mop of blood. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. I remember. And she said, this is Shirley Grant.
And I just I just want to know, are those real?
Or do you, or do you curl them? I was like, oh, no.
Anyway, long story short, he, you know, we went, we drove to Jersey,
(06:28):
we went and met Stephanie and Dave and Charlie and Jacob Klein.
Then we started spending a lot of days in Manhattan missions,
finding voice teachers, finding dance classes and acting coaches.
Let's dig a little deeper into that. So when you say that you started to find
(06:52):
voice teachers and dance and all of that, did you have help in that regard?
Maybe talk a little bit about that because I think that is so important.
The training piece, even if your child is the top of the heap at their local
school, if they're, you know, booking things like what Jake did initially,
you still have to have that training piece.
(07:13):
I think there are a lot of young people who are maybe five, six,
seven, who get involved in the pro side and they don't do the training. They're cute.
They might be really great at, you know, and comfortable talking with the adults
and with casting and doing what they need to do.
Maybe their memorization skills are great and they end up booking a lot when
(07:34):
they're little, but then there comes a time when there's going to be other kids
who maybe are, when the kids get a little older, let's say eight to 10,
where they're training.
And if you don't have great training, if you're not training with the top people
in the industry, I think it's really difficult to keep the career moving.
So how do you find those people?
(07:55):
That's another thing, like you're a brand new parent, you're brand new to it.
Did you have help? Did the, did the management company help you find people for him to train with?
Did they suggest things or was this something you were on your own?
I think it was a little of both.
I mean, the folks at Shirley Grant gave me, you know, gave me some name and
he studied with a few people and they weren't always a perfect fit.
(08:19):
And then I started to meet people. You know, I think it was probably not very
long when you and I met, you know, a lot of people give stage mom a bad name.
I probably don't have to tell you that.
I have to say with the exception of a select few others that I met along the
way who had experience either because it was also their business or they had
(08:39):
been doing it with their kids a little longer, really held my hand and helped me to find,
you know, the people who were acceptable to me, a good fit for Jake and could really help him.
It was a phenomenally trained voice teacher, you know, maybe Jake and that person just didn't jive.
I think too, what you're saying about the networking with other parents,
(09:01):
I think the word stage mom or stage dad gets a bad rep and sadly because of
the press and they love to kind of, you know, do stories on some of these,
you know, artists that made it and became A-list and then they didn't have the
support. They didn't have like a grounded parent.
Maybe the parent had other issues that kind of made it more difficult for them.
(09:22):
And so we get this bad rep when really the stage mom or dad is more.
Of a support system. Like we're there to be the transportation.
We're there to make sure that they eat and make sure they get enough water and
make sure that they're happy and they're prepared.
And I feel sometimes too, like we're middle management, because if we look at
(09:42):
this as we do as a business,
we kind of are right between the agent and us and getting that information that's
necessary to then make sure that they're prepared and get them to the right
people if we We don't have the expertise to help them.
So, you know, I do totally agree with you that the people that I was running
into immediately when my two boys got signed at that time and Kevin was 10 and Kurt was 15,
(10:11):
the second time we went into the pro side of things and all of the parents at
the top of the industry for me were all very kind, very helpful. full.
They shared the names of, you know, who their kids were working with.
Like I really didn't, I was lucky to not run into people who were not that way.
(10:32):
And you do, you have, you kind of can see them coming a mile away to a certain degree.
I did run into some parents who came from other States who had never been involved
in say an audition for a Broadway show.
And their child is now at the callback and they're just not dressing them the
right way. They're not fixing their hair the way they should.
(10:54):
They're putting way too much makeup on them, you know, all of that kind of thing.
So I totally agree with you in regard to the networking.
I think you have to be calm.
You have to be honestly with you being in business ahead of all of this with
your son was probably a great thing.
Because you understand how to deal with all the different personalities and
(11:16):
types within the corporate space.
Do you agree with that or no? I do. I mean, it's different than the corporate space for sure.
But I understood the importance of networking and how to go about it and how
to, you know, have a professional conversation. Or when it came time to asking
questions about a contract, even the contract at first, you know. Yes.
(11:38):
Completely foreign to me. I have not had that background. I would have been
completely desperate for somebody to hold my hand, you know,
which I know is like very often what you do and how well you help your clients in that regard.
It was a real learning experience for all of us, for us as family,
you know, for Jake, for my husband,
(12:00):
for my other son who didn't see me too much. How did you juggle that?
Because that's another factor that I think is really something that a lot of parents think about.
I have three other kids at home. I have another child at home.
And I had times when I had to leave my son, Kurt.
My oldest son, Steven, was in college. My son, Kurt, was a senior in high school.
(12:23):
You know, Kevin was involved in a show that took us out of the country and I
had to leave the house for a semester of his senior year.
And it was very difficult, you know, to do that as a parent,
you know, lots of tears while I was sitting in Canada.
But, you know, it's something that you do have to have a lot of conversations
about. How did you guys handle it?
It's funny that you say that because we have a lot of similarities in our story.
(12:49):
So Jake got an audition for A Christmas Story, the musical, which everybody
knows landed on Broadway, Pasek and Paul.
And for anybody who's been involved in the progression of musical theater,
you know that those things don't just land on Broadway one day.
They have years and years and years of development before they come.
So Jake auditioned for A Christmas Story. Pasek and Paul were not involved at the time.
(13:12):
And they were auditioning for the world premiere, which was going to be in Kansas City, Missouri.
And so I told my husband Jake's going in for this audition we all watched Christmas
story that night my husband said to me why are you why are you doing this why
are you putting him on this audition you know you can't go to Missouri what
are you gonna Dylan's here and I have a job I was like don't worry he'll never book it.
(13:37):
Says all the parents who right yeah that happens to a lot of people the long
story short he booked it.
And that was his first like paying gig on the stage.
He had done some commercial stuff before that, but what happens?
My boys are eight years apart.
We moved Dylan into college at Drexel in Philadelphia.
(13:59):
We came home, we packed our boxes to be shipped off to Kansas city.
And I said to my husband, I'll see you at Thanksgiving. And Jake and I left
and went to Kansas City. And my husband was like, where did everybody go?
We just, you know, we figured it out. Jake wanted to do this,
you know, when he booked it, of course, that's my husband.
(14:20):
I couldn't have known that he was going to book it. He's young in this,
you know, he's getting started.
He's like, well, we can't say no, right? I'm like, no, I don't think so.
So we made it work. And Vin and Dylan came out for Thanksgiving.
And then we all spent into Thanksgiving together.
And then Vin came back a couple of times when we had a long weekend.
(14:40):
And it just became an adventure that our entire family went on.
I mean, Jake did Christmas Story twice, once in Kansas City as Randy,
and then two years later on the first national tour.
And that was after Ben and Justin rewrote the whole score.
And that Christmas we spent in a one bedroom bedroom hotel room in Chicago with
(15:02):
Christmas trees that I bought at the Walgreens down the block.
Yep. Been there this day. And I still put them up somewhere in the house as
a little memory. I love that. And truthfully, I.
Hopefully nobody in my family will watch this, but for some of the best holidays I've ever had. Yeah.
It's funny that you say that because a lot of parents that I've worked with,
(15:23):
as well as even people that have come through guests on the podcast that have said the same,
you know, it's just something about the industry and the people that you meet,
the experiences that you have with your child, the closeness that,
you know, you become so much closer.
Closer because of the process and how it goes.
(15:43):
The kids get to become much more worldly.
They're working with other kids who love the same thing.
And I think it's a very honestly healthy experience in many ways,
if you know how to approach it with your child,
you know, and with the different kind of things and how you have to prepare
(16:05):
them for auditions, for callbacks, for not getting the the project for not being
the kid that goes on on opening night.
Because maybe talk a little bit about how that works with children in regard
to stage work and how the casting works. Can you touch on that a little bit?
Yeah, sure I can. It's funny, when Jake booked Oliver at the Angleman, he was the understudy.
(16:30):
And there's a boy, Michael Kleeman, I don't know if you remember Michael.
So Michael was Oliver. I mean, Michael was so Oliver.
But Jake fully expected that he He would get to be Oliver, right?
He was the understudy, right?
So we're learning the choreography and so on and so forth.
And one night, all the moms were sitting in the audience and Michael was getting sick.
(16:52):
Like we could all hear that Michael was getting sick.
And I, you know, I don't know. I was not that mother that was jumping up and
down saying, Jake's going to go on tomorrow. Sure. I'm going,
well, Jake's going to go on tomorrow.
I've got to put in rehearsal. Yeah, right, right, right. Wait,
stop the train. Stop the train. Explain a put in rehearsal.
Usually once the show opens, right, they take the understudies and they actually
(17:14):
put them into the show and they get to, you know, walk the walk and sing the
songs and do all the staging and and get to practice. Yes.
Because up until the time the show opened, it's the real Oliver or the real whoever.
And so, yeah, so he hadn't even had a chance to do anything other than make
(17:36):
sure that he had the music under his belt and the choreography. Right.
You don't get a chance to touch the props. You don't have a chance to feel the
floor if you're dancing. You have no idea what it feels like.
But he wasn't there only as the understudy. He had a whole nother track youth.
He was working on that. All of a sudden, Michael's voice sounds like it's not
going to get him through the next day.
(17:56):
And the stage manager came to me after and said, I need you here tomorrow morning, like 10 o'clock.
We're bringing the whole cast out from New York. We're going to do a put in
for Jake because he's going to go on tomorrow.
So I have to tell Jake that. Right. So he can be, I don't know,
terrified, excited, see how many tickets we can get and how many people we can get there.
Right. We wake up the next morning to two feet of snow. What?
(18:19):
Two feet of snow. and the stage manager
calls me and he says we can't get the cast here we can't
have a put in rehearsal he said michael's gonna go on
tonight he sounds bad i mean he sounded great he
was fine so there was hi hi hi hi hi yes and a little bit of terror for yes
yes and a drop to the ground you know and and he's a little boy i mean he's
(18:44):
working in a professional world but he's a little little boy.
So when do you think I will get to go on?
And I was like, Jake, you might never, there's no promise of that.
And he was like, just confounded by the whole thing. All over,
he said to me, mom, I really want to play the part somewhere.
Can you find me another, another thing they're doing Oliver?
(19:04):
So I mean, at that time we had just signed with the management company and I
called them and I was like, can you find me an Oliver?
I don't care where it is. You know, let's go. But I was looking,
I just kept looking because Mm-hmm.
Yeah. Some small theater, some community theater program, something.
We found one. We found a little theater in like an Episcopalian church nearby
(19:24):
that was doing Oliver and.
And as it turned out, the people who were producing the show had come to the
argument, had seen Jake in his other role.
And he went in and he auditioned and he got a call back.
And he came home and he said, you know, I could get this. I could get this.
And I was like, yeah, I said you could.
And if you do and if you're Oliver, we will do the show.
(19:47):
Because I had to also now explain to the manager that we were not going to be
available to go on auditions and pay people money.
Yeah. Yeah. Rehearsing in the church basement of this little church. Yeah. You know what?
Let's, let's pivot for a second just to explain that situation.
So when someone is repped by management or an agent, the only way those people
(20:09):
make money and put a food, put food on their table and a roof over their head
is with your commission,
10% by the rules of the game for agents and anywhere from 15 to 30 with your management company.
And so when When you're out, even for a week, say you're going on vacation,
you can't audition for anything that is shooting or running that week that you're off,
(20:31):
and then you're missing anything that is being auditioned for that week,
and anything that might be shooting well after the week that you're off.
Really, for any manager or agent, even if you take a vacation,
it gets tricky. So how much time was he off for that show when he was Oliver
(20:54):
in the community theater?
Community theater, right? It's not like two weeks and we go on stage and go
because they're rehearsing when they can.
They've got adults who have jobs during the day and kids who are going to school.
The whole thing was probably three months. But once he got found out he had the role.
You know, I told the director and the people who were involved in the theater,
(21:17):
I'm like, listen, he can do this and he wants to do this so bad, he can taste it.
And I said, and he could probably go on tomorrow and be ready.
I said, so you got to help me out here, you know, because if he's got to go
to the city for an audition, and he was auditioning for Mary Poppins at the
same time in the final four.
So I said, I said, you got to help me here. And he had an understudy.
(21:41):
So they said, well, this is what we're going to do. We're going to let Brian,
this other little boy who was an understudy, you know, he'll we'll get him ready
and he'll have rehearsals.
And if Jake has to go, we'll rehearse Brian.
And then Jake said to the director, will Brian get a show?
And the director said, if you're sick, Brian will get a show.
And Jake said, I think Brian should get a show.
(22:02):
Yeah. Oh, my gosh. Yeah, I know. Right now, yeah, I feel it too. Yeah, yeah.
Like, I was a proud moment. Yes, of course. A moment. I got a show.
And they worked with us. They understood everything.
They understood what he was doing, what this meant to him, you know,
(22:25):
and our managers work to us hand in hand. They also got it.
But at the end of the day, you are a million percent correct,
right? These people, this is their job. This is their livelihood.
They don't make money if you don't make money. So if a parent is,
you know, if their child's very talented and they go and they head in this direction,
(22:45):
they do have to understand the inner workings of this industry.
Because if they don't, you can definitely make decisions that might not be the best for your child.
And when things actually can be worked out, like when you talked to the people
involved with the community theater, you explained to them the situation.
I think sometimes parents think it's just very cut and dry.
I think when you have a really talented kid and they want them in the school
(23:07):
show or in the community theater show, whatever it happens to be,
and they're doing the pro thing, there are ways to work it out.
And these kids are so in tune to what their responsibilities are and they love it so much.
And if they're doing and trying to juggle all of that, it definitely is something that they can handle.
And I think sometimes parents don't realize that, you know, and,
(23:29):
and on the other side of it too, if you, you know, at the last minute you're
always canceling or, you know, you're saying no to things all the time,
the agent or the manager, put yourself in their shoes.
They're just going to, they're going to go to the next kid.
Your kid's headshot is going to end up on the file folder on the hard drive.
These days, years ago, it wasn't the drawer and the cubbies on the wall.
(23:50):
Yeah. Well, you, well, you left the wall and you went to the back room into the drawer somewhere.
If you weren't, you know, involved, I mean, it's, it's, it's a commitment for,
for parents, you know, to do it because of the years of involvement that our family has had.
I, I will often have people come to me and say, you know.
My kid likes this. What do you think? What do you think? And I hope this doesn't
(24:14):
come out wrong, but the first thing I try to do is talk them out of it.
Just to say, before you promise your child this, that, or the other thing,
sit down with your partner, really have a conversation about what this involves.
And I tell them some of the stories and things that Jake needed to miss.
I mean, little things that seem unimportant like birthday parties or soccer
(24:37):
game, family Thanksgivings because we weren't here.
Your perspective and the way you react to things is also a big part of it.
Like for instance, when Kevin was in Wintuck, he was Jamie in Wintuck,
shared the role with two other boys.
They had a show at Madison Square Garden Theater on Thanksgiving.
(25:01):
And I always hosted Thanksgiving in my home, literally hosted Thanksgiving for like 40 years now.
I think it's time that I'm going to give it to somebody else.
But actually, this past year, we went out to dinner, which was just a joy for me.
But I do enjoy the kids. Everybody, even though they're adults now, they all love that.
But we just reorganized it. The family came to New York, and we made reservations,
(25:25):
and we had our Thanksgiving all together at a beautiful restaurant.
And everybody was very excited, and they all came to the show that day,
And it just all worked out.
So I think sometimes, and there's the excitement, right? It was very exciting
for the nieces and nephews and the different, you know, the family members to
be a part of that and to kind of get an idea of what it was like a day in the
(25:46):
life of a kid who's doing professional work. You know, they thought it was really cool.
So it's how you handle things as well. You know, it's how you,
you know, how you perceive what's going on and how you make it work.
But again, I agree with you having that really, that conversation.
With your spouse and the other people, even the siblings of the child who's doing it.
(26:08):
It's definitely something that everybody has to be on board to understand.
And sometimes when you start it, you don't have all that inside information,
hence a reason to talk to you, a reason to talk to me, you know what I mean,
to get that information so you understand what those things are and how it's going to work.
If your child, the other side of it is the kid has to to do the work, right?
(26:30):
The child's the one, the teen is the one that has to get up and do it.
And I think as a parent, we know in our heart of hearts, if they're that talented
and that passionate about what they are doing, I really do.
I think if it's the parent who's kind of pushing the kid, which I've seen a
little bit of, I don't know if you have, that never works.
I mean, listen, there were definitely times when, you know, an adolescent,
you know, to go to the school dance and of course, the whatever,
(26:54):
I'm sure the words came out of my mouth more than once.
If you don't want to do this anymore, you can stop. I used to check in with
Kevin because he was busier at the time. My son Kurt was older.
So he was in that space where you're 15, 16, 17, and they can get an 18 to 25 to play younger.
He was lucky enough to continue to work in voiceover, commercial work,
(27:17):
all of that space during those years.
But I would take Hey, Kevin, who was much busier, he was in that hotspot for
boys between ages like nine and 13. He was like in that place.
And I used to check in with him. And I actually used to say to him,
you know, we need to have a meeting. Let's have a conversation. You are...
The one doing this, you tell me when you want to meet. You want to do it right
(27:39):
after school? Do you want to do it before you go to bed? You want to get up early tomorrow?
We need a half hour. We have to talk about whatever the thing is that was going
on or what the needs were.
And then he was a part of the decision-making all the time.
So it wasn't him coming home from school and going, oh my gosh,
you have an audition for this or oh, da, da, da, da, da.
And having him feel like, wait, I need to rest a second.
I just got off the bus. I never did that to him.
(28:01):
It was always, please, you know, once he got home and he got settled,
when do you want to meet? Do you want to do it tonight?
You want to get out of the way? You tell me you want to do it in two days.
That's fine. And I would check in my goodness, probably once a month. Are you still happy?
And it's hard because he was very into sports. He was a very good baseball player.
So he was very high on the hog and like the local recreational baseball and
(28:23):
like the, what do they call it?
I don't even remember travel teams, AAU, all of that.
And he had to make a decision at like age 14, 15 about what to do.
And he just, there was never, I'm not sure it was always, Oh no,
no, I'm not, I'm not stopping this.
I'm going to continue to do this. So, so let's go, let's push forward a little
bit. So he, what happened? What was the next space?
(28:47):
Did he spend most of his time doing live performance and stage work on musicals?
Or did he start to lean into film and TV commercial?
Like what, how was that? Because when you're with a manager,
they're trying to cultivate your career.
So they're sending you for everything to kind of see where things land.
You know, another reason why you can't just call a manager and be like,
(29:08):
my child only wants film and television.
I mean, you can't do that. They're trying to cultivate this child not knowing
where they're going to be. So what else was he doing at the time?
What happened next? Yeah. So.
Commercial auditions and he and he
did a number of them he booked more voiceover
commercials than anything else he did one of those mastercard
(29:28):
priceless commercial which was a very funny because a voice teacher a voice
teacher told me early on that jake he thought jake had a little something with
his pronunciation of the letter l and this particular voice teacher kind of
made Jake very aware of it.
And Jake became very self-conscious about his L's.
(29:49):
And so his L's started to become very labored.
So he had auditioned for this MasterCard commercial and it was that whole priceless line.
So that was basically the line that he had to say like, you know,
however many times, but in between all of this, he became aware of this L situation.
So he books it. We're at the studio.
(30:11):
He's recording it. I'm sitting like in like
on the the couch somewhere he's in the booth and and he
is like killing himself with this L and the
the person behind the board looks
at me and she's like what's going on she's like I don't know oh my god I said
(30:32):
I said we just have to like get him to relax and just say it the way he says
it because the way he said it with the little speech impediment or whatever
it was was what booked him the job. That's what they wanted.
Exactly. And now he wasn't doing it.
So I turned to them and I said, can I go in there with him? And they looked
at me like I was crazy. And I probably was now that I think back on it.
(30:54):
And I went in there and I just said, I just said, just keep recording.
And so I went in there and I said, okay, Jake, I'm going to say a word and then
you're going to repeat it.
And we just got like comfortable and we, you know, it was like strawberry playground,
as many words as I could think of that didn't have L's in them.
And then every once in a while I'd throw in a priceless.
And finally he just let it slip and it came out exactly. Nice.
(31:18):
Nice. That's so funny. Heard them in the other room go, that's it.
Yeah. So he did some commercial work. He did a lot of work down at Little Airplane.
He was the voice of Samuel Lovebird in a production of a little show that's called Third and Bird.
He did like, I don't know, 50 some odd episodes of that. So animation voiceover.
Yeah. Animation voiceover where he was the little bird and he had to,
(31:41):
you know, we really enjoyed that work.
It was, you know, he got to meet some amazing people. We were in there like
twice a week, you know, so I had the rearranged schedule at that point.
He was in middle school so that he had like gym at the end of the day so I can grab him early.
And when I went in and said, can I have the schedule that I want for my 12-year-old?
And they supported me. That's nice that you had the support because that doesn't always happen.
(32:05):
So it's definitely something that we could do a whole podcast just on the school
situation and how to juggle that.
And I think it's different for each project. It's different for everyone based
on just the people at the school and what they're They're used to it if they've
ever had to deal with this before.
You know, sometimes it opens up a bag of worms for them because then they have
to let everybody out early and not, you know, list them on the truancy list or whatever.
(32:30):
Yeah, it was not fun taking tests and getting tests and teachers not prepared
to give us what we needed.
Well, yeah, I mean, I think something to tell all the parents out there, in most of the teachers'
contracts, It is not listed that their responsibility includes giving work prior
(32:50):
to when they're teaching it in the room to students who make a choice.
To do the professional industry and try to go to public school at the same time
or whatever it happens to be.
It could be somebody who's doing national equestrian, you know, competitions.
It could be someone who is, I don't know, dirt bike, you know,
national champion. It could be, I mean, there's so many different things.
(33:12):
So I think that's difficult too, because the principal of course is,
you know, the one in charge of the house.
And if there's nothing written in the, the rules from the board of ed for that
district, blah, blah, blah.
I could go on in detail with all of this, but it's hard because the principal
has to say, if I allow this person to do this, leave for three days to shoot
(33:34):
a commercial, leave for a month, whatever.
And so you have to kind of, as a parent, make a decision as to whether you're
going to just sign them out of school.
I literally had to remove him from school Same. Yeah.
And I think too, I think in this country, we are so programmed to do what the
schools tell us to. Do you know what I mean?
(33:55):
So programmed, maybe not so much anymore, but definitely at that time when our kids were young.
And so we think, you know, we have to follow the rules.
We have to do what they say. Sign up for kindergarten this year.
This is what you have to do next. And you're following all these rules to keep
the child's experience a positive one in the school as well.
(34:16):
So when these things come up, it's a little bit of panic sometimes sets in because
if your child is going to a school near the city where your child is working,
those schools tend to understand it because they probably have children who
are involved and it's a little bit of a different feel.
But when you're, you know, in an outlying area, in another state, it's very hard.
(34:36):
I think sometimes it's easier if they're going to miss more than 10 days,
sign them out, sign them back in. I think it makes it a lot easier.
Yeah, interesting. So let's talk about the schooling on set.
Can you talk about that a little bit? I think that might be something that people
would love to hear about.
Like, what was your experience with schooling through the stage work that he
(34:58):
did? I guess like every question, the answer is it was varied.
There was one show that you did where they knew they needed to hire teachers for the kids.
It was a kid heavy show. And what they did was rather than hiring teachers who
had experience in teaching the kids in a balanced way while they were on and
off the stage, while they were in and out of costume, you know, making it work that way.
(35:21):
These teachers were like retired teachers from the public school system.
So they didn't get it. Yeah, because they have to juggle what their work is,
you know, which child is needed in rehearsal, which child is on stage, which isn't.
And it's kind of like you're a short order cook. but most
of the time the experience was amazing and there was usually a
tutor who came with us and traveled with us um i
(35:44):
think it was on location education supported the the
tours that jake did and the out of towns that he did and i mean we have relationships
with those teachers to this day right we still keep in touch and and and those
teachers were amazing you know this is what they They know how to work with
multiple school districts and multiple people's curriculum and kids,
(36:06):
all different ages and stages.
You know, you've got an 11 year old and then you have a 17 year old.
Yes. The curriculum's different. And some people decide to sign on with distance learning programs.
I know we used Calvert. We had other people using Laurel Springs and they're all in the same show.
So they're dealing with that too. Yeah. It takes a very special kind of person
(36:27):
to be that teacher. And, you know, and they're out there.
They really are. I mean, they're some great teachers. But it was a good experience.
Every time he came back, you know, a little help from mom and dad to make sure that we,
are caught up. And I'm pretty sure
that I definitely did one science fair experiment completely on my own.
(36:50):
Don't tell anyone. I think we're
out of the range of being in trouble for that. I think we grew plants.
The kids were involved. They came and sang to some of them and didn't sing to others.
And I remember when he got like an A on him, I was like, Like,
I got an A on my science paper.
But, you know, so for the most part, though, you know, he came back ready to
(37:12):
jump right in and slid right in. It didn't hold him back.
It didn't New York State Regents, Regents Diploma, all the stuff that he needed
to do, graduated on time.
Thanks for watching the Making It Happen, A Career in the Performing Arts podcast.
Tune in next Sunday at 8 p.m. Eastern for part two of my interview with Ellen.
(37:35):
If you'd like to connect with Ellen and Stage Door Designs, follow on socials at Stage Door B-W-A-Y.
Need more info and details about the professional performance industry?
Visit lbctalent.com and schedule your free no-obligation consultation with me.
And follow me on socials at lisasolek underscore lbctalent. By sharing our stories,
(37:57):
we can help other talented individuals land the career of their dreams.
If you're enjoying this podcast, please like and subscribe below and hit the
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