At first, being a storyteller, it was fun to dress up and fun to sing songs and pretend to be very dramatic - all of that stuff was just fun early on.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
When I was younger, acting, singing, and dancing was what it was all about.
I always enjoyed participating in artistic endeavors, and I remember in high school participating in chorus, drama and singing madrigals, mainly because they were an easy A. I loved being in plays and musicals too, but you didn't really get credit for those.
All I wanted to do was read, to be told stories. Stories were full of excitement and emotions and characters that entertained and often inspired.
In my early shows, I wanted to put myself through a new childhood, disintegrating my whole identity to let the real one emerge. I became a human jukebox, learning all these songs I'd always known, discovering the basics of what I do. The cathartic part was in the essential act of singing.
I loved being on stage. I was in elementary school when I started, so I couldn't say that it was about the building of characters.
It was a big step, to go from not talking to people to stepping on to a stage. That's when I felt the most comfortable, because I could do anything I wanted to and say anything I wanted to, even if people didn't laugh.
There were times in my career I went a little further than I wanted because of expectations. Doing certain things onstage when children were in the audience, wearing certain clothes, singing certain lyrics.
I started performing in high school. There was a pretty great drama department at my school, and that's when I started doing plays and musicals.
When I first started doing my comedy act, I just desperately needed material. So I took literally everything I knew how to do on stage with me, which was juggling, magic and banjo and my little comedy routines. I always felt the audience sorta tolerated the serious musical parts while I was doing my comedy.
Before I did comedy, I'd freestyle with all of my friends. In high school and into college, I recorded songs with my friends, not to perform but just to play for them. So I've had interest in music for a while. Early on, I'd host a lot of music open nights or hip-hop nights, so a lot of my early experience performing was around music.
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