This is an All Ears English podcast episode 1806.
Make it on Broadway and in life.
Three tips with producer Alan Seals.
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Are you moving to New York City with a dream to be on Broadway?
Or do you just want to reach the highest level of success in your global career?
You are your own product.
What does that mean?
Find out today with my guest Alan from the Broadway Podcast Network and Talks at Google.
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Hello, Alan.
Welcome to All Ears English.
How are you today?
I'm good.
How are you doing, Lindsay?
Good.
I'm so excited to have you on the show.
Guys, on today's show we have Alan Seals, and he is a Broadway producer, the co-founder and CTO of the Broadway Podcast Network and the original global lead of Talks at Google.
That is an awesome resume, Alan.
I'm excited to have you on the show.
How are you doing today, by the way?
Let's start off with that.
Oh, I am great.
I'm here in Brooklyn, New York, here in lovely USA, and it's a warm.
What is it?
73 degrees Fahrenheit, which I don't know what that translates to in Celsius, but man, people are walking around in shorts for the first time.
It's beautiful.
This weather always puts me in a great mood.
I love it.
And I'm so excited to get into this today because Alan, you have experience again as a producer on Broadway.
You've seen Broadway.
I know a lot of our listeners have heard about Broadway, have maybe visited New York and have attended a show.
I've been to Wicked, I love that one, Phantom of the Opera, love Broadway.
You also are coming to us from New York City, right?
This is the city that we dream about.
It's worldwide, it's known around the world.
And so I'm excited to get your insight here on this idea for our listeners of becoming your own product so that you can succeed in the working world.
Or if you do, if our listeners do decide to come to New York to make a life, what does that mean?
When we say you are your own product?
If you decide to go into the wonderful world of acting and performing and putting yourself out there for the world to judge and critique and just watch all the time right, then you have to realize that you have your own brand.
And content creators on TikTok or Instagram or Facebook or wherever the case is.
They get this and they realize that.
And it equates to you as a performer because...
You showing up and being great at dancing, and or being great at singing and or being great at acting.
And now you basically have to be all three.
You have to be a triple threat to to make it make it.
I put in air quotes on Broadway.
Right.
Right.
But, along with that, some people will make it there by sheer luck, but the majority of us make it there because of our drive and continued pursuit of trying new things, putting yourself out there and, as to your point, marketing yourself, because you are your own product.
You are a product, an entity that you're trying to sell to producers, to casting agents, to directors, to audiences, because you want people to want you for their projects.
I love that.
It's so good.
And then to take that idea, you are your own product guys into your professional life.
If you're working in a company in New York City and you are from Japan or Korea or Brazil, You need to know this too, right.
It's like a stage presence.
So on today's episode, Alan is gonna show us three things that we need to think about to get into that prime spot mentally and physically, to be able to have that stage presence, to be our own product And to perform again so we can get the raises we're looking for right.
Get on the teams, get the projects we want, right?
I'm sure it's not easy to always get that project that we know we're capable of, but we never quite get the chance right, Alan.
Right.
And I think along these lines as well, you said we don't quite get the chance.
There's part of this industry that just dictates you have to create your own chance, which again goes back to marketing yourself and making your own opportunities.
Like you look at the success story of Lin-Manuel Miranda.
And creating In the Heights and Hamilton.
And now he is everything Disney lyrics and composition.
He's composing music all over the place.
And, as a person of Latin descent in the New York area, at the time there was hardly any roles for him.
So he just went off and wrote his own stuff.
And then he went and performed it and found somebody who believed in him and created these opportunities, and then created another, and created another.
And now he's giving back.
And this is more commonplace.
But the point of bringing up the story is that if...
What you want doesn't exist.
Go make it.
And then get the word out.
And people are going to come to you.
Because if you feel like you're alone in this industry, in theater especially, I promise you you're not.
Everybody wants to belong.
Everybody wants to feel this way.
And this translates into the corporate life, too, because...
You hear famously about imposter syndrome all the time.
And at Google, right?
That's one of the common running themes is like, do I belong here?
I'm at one of the best companies in the world.
And now all of a sudden, I don't belong next to these people.
This is crazy.
Ooh, I love that.
I love that you hit that, Alan.
Yeah.
What else?
Yeah.
And the imposter syndrome side of things.
To get over that.
That is really embracing who you are on the inside, which makes you absolutely unique and different.
Because step one, look around and realize... you're there because you deserve to be there.
Right?
Everybody, again, going back to what I just said, everybody else feels the same way.
They're just afraid to admit it.
So you deserve to be there.
Then, once you realize you're supposed to be there, what opportunities do you want to make for yourself?
And then, if it's in theater, if it's on Broadway, If you don't see a type of show you want to be in, go write it.
Try taking a music class and learning how to write music.
If you want to sing higher or sing in a different way, or whatever the case is, always look ahead and say this is where I want to be.
And here are the opportunities I'm going to make for myself to get there.
Yeah.
And that translates directly to Broadway Podcast Network and why that exists.
Okay.
Awesome.
I love it.
We're going to get to that in just a minute for sure.
But I love that you said imposter syndrome, because I know our listeners here.
Guys, when it comes to speaking a new language or working in English, our second language is This can come up right.
We have all experienced this and today's episode is so interesting because we've got the Broadway parallel and we're drawing the connection between the working world and getting a sense of you know what does it take.
So let's go into those tips then.
More specifically Alan, here let's go through them.
So what would be that first tip for our audience that they can do to really perform and get what they want in their work lives or just in their lives in general?
Well, I mentioned it a little bit already.
And in a nutshell, tip one is embrace what makes you different.
Don't try to be like others, because if you're trying to be like somebody else, you're never going to be the best version of yourself and you're never going to be them.
You will always be you.
And look at someone like Josh Gad, the voice of Olaf in Frozen.
He's got this kind of nasally, silly voice and he's made this whole career out of that.
Now right, and everyone loves that character Olaf, and everyone loves it.
And when you're different, like Gilbert Gottfried right, like he just passed away but uh comedian, he talked like this.
He's got this thing where he's just doing this voice.
So you look at everybody who's unique And what makes them stand out is because they're doing something nobody else did and they ran with it and they embraced it and translating that into the corporate life.
You can come in as a manager.
You can come in as a low level employee.
You can come in as at any level in a company and say, all right, what are my strengths?
What makes me different from anyone else, and i'm gonna dig into that and help and use that as my magic, special superpower yeah, powers to make everybody else around me better.
I love it, because a rising tide lifts all ships.
You make everyone else better.
They're gonna, in turn, make you better, and it's the cyclical yes, the cyclical process.
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Yeah.
Find your quirks, find your strengths and amplify them.
Don't try to hide them.
Don't push them under the rug.
I do want to make sure we just review your next two tips here, Alan.
But I want to ask one question here, because our audience is so international.
I think this can be different culturally around the world, right?
Different cultures encourage less of this or more of this.
So what would you recommend for someone who's coming from another culture, where maybe it's not quite as praised to pull out our quirks and our differences and our, our strange tone of voice or something unique?
I mean, what would you say to them?
How would they handle that?
Well, I always say you know, read the room, which is a phrase that means look around and see who you're with, judge what the situation is and figure out what would be the most appropriate in that situation.
Again, playing to your strengths, not giving other people what you think they want.
Yes, because so there's.
There is a subtle difference, and so, for people who are in other situations um, If you feel, I mean, I guess I'll take a step back.
If you feel that something is not right, if it's pulling at the back of your neck, then don't do it.
That doesn't feel right.
But if you feel like this warmth in your chest, your solar plexus, pulling you forward, that's the direction you need to move in.
Yeah.
And so it gets a little bit, you know, kind of metaphysical when we're getting into this bit.
But to answer your question, I feel like the best thing to do is to evaluate the situation.
Again, read the room.
And, and think about this ahead of time and maybe even write it down.
What are my strengths?
What are my weaknesses?
And focus on those strengths and say this is what I'm going to bring into the situation applicable to the room and the situation that I am in.
And here's how I'm going to make it better.
Yes, I love it.
So good.
I think, you know, guys, so listen into yourself.
I think that is such an important tip.
Feel into how you're feeling at that moment.
Our body sends us a lot of signals and we're going to get a little bit more into the body real quick here, in just a second.
But so good.
I would say you guys should be studying these cases.
Who is the person who does Olaf's voice again?
What's his name?
Josh Gale.
Okay, guys, so look up Josh Gad and study his career.
I think we can get a lot of inspiration from these Broadway actors and actresses.
So good.
So Alan, can you tell us real quick what the next two pieces are that we should keep in mind?
Yes, I will.
In addition to Josh Gad, you mentioned Wicked, Kristen Chenoweth, who was the original Glinda in Wicked.
Again, this tiny lady with, again, she can do this kind of nasally voice.
And she turned this into this iconic role that is now just often imitated, never duplicated.
Fantastic, guys.
Again, case in point.
Exactly.
So get inspiration from these people.
I love it.
Okay.
All right.
So what would be just real quick, what would be the next thing, Alan?
Yeah.
My next thing is is whenever you can plan ahead and as, as Any good business person will tell you, you need a business plan.
You need to plan ahead.
You need to strategize.
And my next tip is just don't put yourself in a position, especially when moving to New York, where everything is stupid, expensive.
Don't put yourself in a position where you have to work to live.
Yes.
And what I mean by that is that if all you're doing is working working, working because you have to to make ends meet, then you're going to lose sight of of your goals.
You lose sight of the opportunity to grow yourself, to make the connections, to do the networking, to go to the events that are going to help you get where you want to be.
So I have friends that when they first moved to New York they didn't make it because they didn't plan ahead.
They just showed up with the false sort of confidence to say, I'm here and where's my job?
And literally there's 8 million people who live in this tiny little 12 mile island we call Manhattan.
Yeah.
And not all of them are actors granted or aspiring actors, but there's a lot of people here.
So how do you stand out?
That goes back to what you've already talked about.
But, in terms of this tip, if you're getting a job that is keeping you out until midnight one two three, four in the morning, like if you're serving tables, waiting tables, serving in a bar,
Yeah, open calls, guys.
Open calls start sometimes at 6 am, and just so our listeners know alan, what is an open call now?
Again, this is speaking directly to our listeners who actually are trying to go on broadway, but i like this idea of adding white space into our live space to breathe, right.
So what is an open call?
Just real quick?
So an open call is um, It's required for all big shows, like go back to Wicked again, right?
So the ensemble of Wicked is going to have periodic required open calls because the show is always required to look for more people to add to their roster, their ensemble.
So if it's a closed audition, that means that me, as an agent or somehow like, I reached out to you and I said Lindsay, I want you to audition for Glinda.
Here's your script.
Come in and check it out at this particular time.
But an open call is just we have a bunch of it's basically like a career fair for one show.
Interesting.
So usually auditions are like eight to five.
The line begins, the sign up for auditions begins at 6 a.m. or earlier sometimes.
And you show up and you hope you can get seen for the day.
And you hope that you can get picked out of a crowd of sometimes hundreds or thousands of people to be that one person they're looking for, or be if they're looking for two or three or four people.
There's literally hundreds that show up throughout an open call.
So if you've been waiting tables or serving drinks behind a bar until 4 am, you are just not going to be able to do it guys.
So again, and yeah, New York is the center of where people come when they have a dream.
You know, when I lived there, I noticed that everyone was trying to do something amazing.
So you need to give yourself that space and that time.
Let your body rest.
That leads into the last thing, Ellen.
What was your final tip for our listeners on how to perform, how to be their best, perform and get what they want in life?
So my final tip is never stop learning.
Don't lose your humility.
Realize there's always more you need to know.
If you're an expert in something, keep practicing.
If you are on Broadway, if you've made it the best.
Broadway stars that I have worked with are always in voice lessons.
They're always taking dance classes.
They're always doing new readings for things to stretch them.
And on my podcast I host my own podcast that I end every episode with three questions, one of which is what advice would you give to your younger self and younger people listening now starting out down a similar path?
And the most common answer I get for that is the first tip, which is embrace what's different.
And then the next common answer is always keep learning and never stop trying to improve, because you're always.
It's super easy, because dancing singing acting, all of this is a muscle.
And just like any muscle, if you're not exercising it regularly, it'll start to atrophy.
It's going to start to go away.
And then as you get older, it takes longer to get back into it, just like anything.
Right.
So always keep learning.
Take classes, especially in New York.
There are dance classes.
There are sometimes free classes you can sign up for, depending on what may or may not qualify for and voice lessons acting classes workshops going going to open calls even if you don't need the job is good experience to handle to know how to handle an open call once you do need the job i love it the more experience you get the better you are and tony winner andre de shields one of my favorite actors who's who just left hadestown when he uh accepted his tony speech a couple years or accepting his tony in his speech a couple years ago he said the top of one mountain is the bottom of the next never stopped climbing deep i love it i And that just exemplified what I'm saying is that he got a Tony Award.
He's on Broadway.
He's... This dude is...
Later on in years, we will say he's more experienced and just won his first Tony.
And that's what he's saying.
Like, never stop.
Never give up.
And you're going to get there.
And once you get there, stop for a second.
Look around to make sure you know where you are and how far you came, because it is a great accomplishment.
And then keep learning.
Keep learning.
Always be a student. keep learning, always be a student.
I think that is such a good place to leave it.
That really is what high performers do guys, as you've seen on Broadway, that's what they do.
And in the world, no matter what you want to do with your life.
Keep learning.
I love it and I love the idea again of getting inspiration through Broadway actors and actresses and interviews with them.
Tell us a little bit about your podcast, Alan.
Yes.
So my podcast that I host myself is I have two.
One is the theater podcast with Alan Seals.
And the other one is with a friend, a mutual friend of ours, Heather Vickery called Was It Chance?
And my first podcast.
I talked to my solo podcast.
I talked to Broadway stars and sometimes TV and film stars, just about what makes them unique, what makes them human.
I love to get into these behind the scenes moments of Talking about things with them that really get them excited.
And one of my favorite things to discuss is how do they deal with success?
Success is stressful.
To maintain that level is sometimes emotionally exhausting.
Right.
I love to figure out and talk to them about that and how they maintain that.
And then the other podcast, Was It Chance?
It's just so much fun.
It's a comedy podcast with Heather where we take these people and we're like what is essentially a moment of failure that, or what's a moment in your life that most people would have seen as failure, that you've turned into failure a success story.
Okay.
And was it chance that these things all happened in your life was basically the, the, was it chance?
I love it.
I love it.
So tell us one more time.
So the first podcast is was it chance and tell us the the, your your show with interviewing the Broadway uh, actors and actresses, what is the name of it?
Again,
That is just The Theater Podcast with Alan Seals.
Okay.
And all of this is on Broadway Podcast Network.
Okay.
And so you can go straight to my podcast, my solo podcast at bpnfm slash ttp for The Theater Podcast.
And then Was It Chance is bpn.fm slash wasitchance.
All right, good stuff.
So guys, I want to encourage you to go over and check out Alan's work and see what he is up to over there.
Take inspiration from these interviews, where you get that extra, that little glimpse into the lives of very successful New York City actresses and actors.
I love it.
Well, Alan, thank you so much for coming on All Ears English today.
This has been great.
Thank you.
Thank you for having me.
Absolutely.
Take care.
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