Don't bring in your first draft!

What can Picasso teach us musical theatre kids??

Spoiler alert, this Wednesday Newsletter story is 100% plucked from our brilliant masterclass guest from this week. He shared this anecdote and I knew I had to share it with y'all.

Monday night was our Special Industry Guest masterclass with Todd Buonopane, all about COMEDY! Todd has starred on Broadway in ...Spelling Bee, Grease, Chicago and Cinderella. And on TV in shows like Grey’s Anatomy, The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, and 30 Rock.

Folks from our BVC Studio membership and BVC Masterclass subscription attended Monday night's class and a rollicking good time was had by all. And we learned a lot!

The theme of the class seemed to emerge as trying the song again in an entirely different direction. Throwing spaghetti at the wall, if you will, and seeing what sticks.

What worked? What DIDN'T work? Unless we tried it, we would never know all the possibilities for performing that piece, right?

After a particularly wacky take on a song, Todd told us about a trip he took to Barcelona. On that trip, he went to the Museo Picasso which is a museum of just Picasso. But none of his major works are there!

“Stupidly, like I was like ‘We're gonna see Guernica!’ Except it's in the MoMA in New York where I live. So I was like, what is here if his major works aren't here?” Todd said.

One of the points of interest in Guernica is a bull. And apparently, at the Museo Picasso, there's two rooms of 50 to 100 drawings and paintings of different studies he did of just that bull.

“He did it wrong so many times before he found what was right, for him. We are artists too and we have to do it wrong a whole bunch of times, especially in a class like this. Even an audition is a way to realize, I'm not gonna do that next time.”

To take this idea one step beyond our own practicing, Todd urged the us to think about how we utilize class time with our coaches as well: 

"When you're singing for Chelsea and Cynthia and all the other people that they bring in here, don't bring your first draft. Be at least 12 bulls down the road. So when people give you feedback, you're gonna be able to talk intelligently about what you've done because you've because you've worked on it.”

This was such a reminder to me that there are easily 100 ways to explore a piece, a character, or a show. And as artists we GET to do our due diligence by creatively exploring many ways to perform a piece! 

Are you getting stuck performing your first draft?

Break out of that and try it completely differently! You might be surprised by what works.

Much love and happy singing!

-Chelsea