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[0:00] Mo Brady: You're listening to The Ensemblist, the only podcast that shows you Broadway from the inside out. Welcome, I'm Mo Brady.

[0:15] Mo Brady: The coronavirus pandemic is taking a remarkable toll on the theater industry across the world. And yet there are glimmers of hope as people are finding ways to collaborate creatively online in this unusual time.

[0:30] Mo Brady: One of those people is Jeanna de Waal, who is one of the co-founders of Broadway Weekends, a self-identified theater camp for adults. Now, Jeanna is also currently starring as Diana in Diana the Musical on Broadway. And yet, during this time away from the show, she has found a way to pivot her company, Broadway Weekends, into something that we can all be enjoying and appreciating online. Here's our conversation.

[0:59] Mo Brady: Hi, would you introduce yourself and tell us what neighborhood of New York City you live in?

[1:04] Jeanna de Waal: Hello, I'm Jeanna de Waal, and I am calling from self-quarantine in Flatiron, Manhattan.

[1:11] Mo Brady: Perfect. And you are one of the co-founders of Broadway Weekends, right?

[1:18] Jeanna de Waal: Correct.

[1:19] Mo Brady: Great. What is Broadway Weekends?

[1:20] Jeanna de Waal: Well, we're going through a bit of a shift right now because—

[1:25] Mo Brady: What has Broadway Weekends been? Let's say that.

[1:27] Jeanna de Waal: Broadway Weekends has been a theater camp for adults. So we started doing these in New York, maybe over two years ago. And then recently we started doing pop-ups all over Northern America by teaming up with the actors in national tours. So it's always led by Broadway performers, and it's very much for adults who do other things in their lives, you know, doctors, accountants, whatever you want to name it, just for fun and theater camp for adults.

[1:58] Mo Brady: Where did you get this idea? I mean, it's such a great idea. Reading the website and hearing you talk about it just makes me smile to think about people being able to share their love of theater in kind of a low-stress way. But where did you get this idea?

[2:15] Jeanna de Waal: So truly where I got the idea was my really great friend runs yoga retreats all around the world. And the way she was describing the benefits of why people attend, I was like, gosh, well, those things sound very in line with what theater brought me as a teenager. So that was the real central impulse. That was the initial sort of idea of we should start this. But then what keeps me going is pretty much every camp we've done to see people enjoying it so much. You know, I think you can sometimes get weighed down a little bit by how tough it is to be an actor, but seeing, you know, doctors and lawyers and people with the real jobs doing theater and finding such joy in singing as a group and dancing as a group, it is such a pleasure as a professional performer to be reminded of the joy of performing. So that's what really keeps me going and pushing through.

[3:08] Mo Brady: So tell us about the journey you went on from deciding you're going to do this to the first workshop that you led. Like that must have been a scary bit of time.

[3:16] Jeanna de Waal: I tend to be one of these like zero to a hundred people. So, you know, I decided and I pretty much set the date in the diary and then pretty much every camp we have, I'm always scared that no one's going to show up. It's sort of that fear never goes away, that no one's going to show up. And then that similarly, that sort of overwhelming joy when people do show up and people have a good time just continues to make me so happy. So, you know, it was a real learning curve. We really didn't know who our demographic was for. Like is this for MFA students who are thinking of doing something else? Is this for girls in their twenties? But our demographic that has sort of found itself and therefore we've sort of catered, tailored our offerings to suit them, are thirties to forties to fifties of people who love musical theatre but really do something else and just want to do this for the fun and have no desire to do this professionally and it's just for fun.

[4:12] Mo Brady: I love on your website how it says there's no upper age limit. It says it multiple times in multiple ways. It's like—

[4:19] Jeanna de Waal: Right, because people are so worried about that. They're always like, this can't be for me, this can't be for me and we're like, it can be. Our teachers are truly experts at what they do and they really can shift and adapt all movement and all vocal lines to suit all abilities and people don't believe that but we're like, really, they really can.

[4:40] Mo Brady: So take us through the kind of crown jewel of Broadway Weekends, the Summer Camp.

[4:46] Jeanna de Waal: Okay, so the Summer Camp, we really went through many variations of what the Summer Camp was. I mean, we started with a one-day version, a three-day version and we tried like different paces, you know, like power through and people can't walk after a day or maybe it was too slow or like, you know, but in the end, we sort of found that perfect pace and that perfect pace is a pace that is still exciting and gives people adrenaline but is fun and feels like a vacation and a celebration, not a boot camp. The most well-received camp, which is now the only camp we do in New York, is a five-day summer camp. So this year, we're doing that July 30th to August 3rd but it's 10 till 6 every day. Mornings are mass dance or movement masterclasses, evenings are singing or acting or acting through song masterclasses and then the middle of the day is a group ensemble number, which means you learn the music, learn the staging, learn the choreography and then, you know, do acting workshops to fully flesh out the characters and it's led by a professional director, a professional choreographer and a professional musical director, really creating that rehearsal vibe and we present these group ensemble numbers at the end of the week.

[5:57] Mo Brady: Love this. Okay. And tell us about what you had mentioned before, the one-day masterclasses that you do around the country.

[6:03] Jeanna de Waal: Oh, yeah. So it's two days. It's Saturday and Sunday morning and we started doing them because so many of the people coming to our New York summer camps were not from New York, were from all across the U.S. and this year, we even had a few international students, which was amazing. So we were like, how do we start doing these other than New York and obviously flying out teachers would dramatically put up our costs and we really wanted to offer, you know, if you imagine all these tours are coming through your city, we wanted to be able to offer a camp that you could do with each cast. You know, I did the Mean Girls one and then I did the Band's Visit one and then I did the Once on this Island one.

We wanted to be able to offer this almost like subscription, like I do them all as they come through. So by that way, the tour teachers are leading the pop-ups and it's just Saturday and Sunday morning before their matinees and you see the teachers in their matinee as well. And it's sort of like the perfect way to work with these amazing casts as they come to your city.

[7:56] Mo Brady: So let's talk about the elephant in the room, which is social distancing. We're in the middle of a pandemic. How do you teach theater lovers when you can't be in the same room as them?

[8:10] Jeanna de Waal: This week was a strange one. The end of last week was also a strange one. So obviously all of Broadway closed and I had a minute to mourn my show and be like—

[8:20] Mo Brady: Right. We should say that you are starring in a Broadway musical currently.

[8:25] Jeanna de Waal: Yes.

[8:26] Mo Brady: Yes. You are playing Diana in Diana.

[8:28] Jeanna de Waal: I'm playing Diana in Diana. And last Thursday they told us we're in the second week of previews and they told us we're going on a hiatus. So my days literally went from personal training in the morning, press in the late morning, rehearsal all afternoon, shows at night, run home, drink your tea, go to the busiest schedule to just like sitting on my couch eating a TV dinner. And then of course all the tours are saying we're closed, I'm canceling pop-ups. I'm like, oh God, I'm just like, everything's dire. And then I was like, but hang on, man, come on, come on, there's got to be a way. So I spoke to some friends and they were like, we'd love to do some online classes. And so we thought, well, why not?

I mean, it seems like that's what the whole world is doing. So we might as well do some Broadway classes. So we set up this Facebook group called Broadway Weekends at Home, Broadway Weekends at Home. We set it up 48 hours ago and we've already got over a thousand followers. So yeah. So our first class is this Monday. We announced the schedule yesterday morning. And everything, we have dance classes on there. We even have a tap class on there. I mean, it's going to be a little bit of an experiment, how it all works. We ask people to be kind. I don't know if we said this, but this is all free.

[8:47] Mo Brady: Right. The online classes we're doing are free, correct?

[8:51] Jeanna de Waal: That's fantastic. And we are paying the teachers. Gosh, you guys are classy.

[8:57] Mo Brady: Who else are teaching these classes?

[9:00] Jeanna de Waal: Let me tell you. Okay, so Sarah Crane from Mean Girls Tour teaching a Mean Girls choreography workshop. Then we've got quite a few sensible ballet bars. Then we've got some reading music classes, some more practical things. We've got a choreography workshop from Mary Page and Ants. Ashley Andrews is teaching Jesus Christ Superstar Choreography. Jeremy Benton's doing tap classes. This is fantastic.

[9:24] Mo Brady: Okay. And again, remind people where they can find all of this.

[9:28] Jeanna de Waal: The Facebook group, Broadway Weekends at Home.

[9:33] Mo Brady: Thank you for continuing to be creative and including other people in your creative pursuits during this time. I mean, I think people are really looking for the opportunity to be together even when distanced. And so this is such a great opportunity to sort of feel connected.

[9:48] Jeanna de Waal: Thanks, Mel. And shout out to any teachers out there who want to teach. If you've got a Broadway credit or a West End credit, we are very interested in having you teach. And the more specific your class can be, and by specific I mean like belting for sopranos or slowing down your vibrato or mixing from a B to a D, the more specific you can be, I think the more it relates to people that that specifically is a class for them. So if you want to get in touch, please, please do. We'd love to have you teach.

[10:29] Mo Brady: Special thanks to Jenna Duvall for sharing her stories with us today. The Ensemblist was produced today by me, Mo Brady. There are two great ways you can be helping The Ensemblist right now. One is by leaving us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts, and the other is by becoming one of our Patreon members. You can do that at patreon.com slash The Ensemblist. Whoever you're listening to us, please make sure you're following us, whether that be on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or on Broadway Podcast Network at bpn.fm. And make sure you follow us on Instagram because that's where we share all of our episodes, all of our blogs from actors across the world, and anything else we're brewing like our new social isolation resource guide. Thanks for listening. Until next time.