Amy Marie Stewart
Someone Else's Shoes
The purpose of this project is to provide a collection of transcriptions from the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020. This project seeks to give a platform to all parts of the vocal performing arts to better understand the lived experiences and mentality of those professionals. In collecting stories from the COVID-19 pandemic, Amy Marie Stewart, voice teacher and Founder of TheoryWorks, discussed the onset of the pandemic and, as this interview took place in the midst of the New York City Surge, how the pandemic was taking its toll on the city.
Amy Marie Stewart, voice teacher and Founder of TheoryWorks
Interviewed April 6, 2020
TB: I like to start these interviews with something positive. What is the best thing that has happened to you in the last week?
AMS: Honestly, it is so simple but reading; finding time in the day to sit down with a novel. I find by the end of the day when I've been teaching—I usually teach until seven or eight at night normally—I'll come home on the subway, make dinner, and maybe have enough brain cells to watch an episode of Schitt's Creek. Then I am out because I go to sleep around 10:00 pm and that doesn't leave a lot of time for reading, which I love to do. So I can finally take advantage of my reading nook, which is right off my patio. Everyone is talking about self-care, but this feels like an actual gift to myself, as opposed to optimizing myself.
TB: Would you mind telling me a bit about your background and what your daily work looks like?
AMS: That's a bigger question than it actually sounds. I am from Colorado and studied opera and then went to Chicago and got my master's degree in opera. I was doing the opera thing but had a come-to-Jesus moment in my mid-20s. I thought, "I'm a coloratura soprano, and if Santa Fe or St. Louis are calling me back, then it is probably not going to be my career." I decided to put my 'eggs in a different basket' and moved to music theater. And I was so surprised when I booked my first contract after a month and even more so when they said they wanted to give me $400 and I said, "A month?" And they replied, "No, a week." That surprised me because, in opera at one time, that would have been my monthly stipend, so I thought it was great. (And the fact that you can move over to musical theater and make more money should tell you about the opera industry.)
Shortly thereafter, I began teaching. A couple of years into that career, I noticed the marked difference between musicianship from opera singers to those in musical theater. One student of mine had a dream audition for Fun Home as Medium Alison, but she couldn't learn the music in time. In fact, during our coaching, it got to the point where I was plunking out notes, and then she asked, "Do the sticks on the notes make the note sound higher or lower?" She was reading the stem direction and not the placement of the note head. We tried to get her ready, but it was too much and only three days. She cancelled and was devastated but wondered where she could go to learn how to read music. I was sure that there was some platform that was singer-specific, but there wasn't. So, I spent three years writing the program. I partnered with a company and released the content about three years ago. [TheoryWorks] My pre-corona daily schedule was teaching from my studio that I rent in Midtown from Tuesday to Friday. I would normally teach four to seven students a day, mainly auditioning musical theater actors. On Mondays—and all the hours in-between—I have extra administrative stuff for TheoryWorks and commercial auditions because I am getting back into acting.
TB: You are living in New York City, in the heart of the pandemic right now. Could you describe where you were and how you first realized that you were going to be affected by this pandemic?
AMS: It is interesting to look back three weeks ago because it feels like eons ago now. March 13th was the last day I taught. I stayed home that following Monday… and then ever since. I had this sense that it was all kind of coming on around like March 9th. That night, I ordered all of my groceries because I knew it was going to be time to hunker down. I figured that New York City would be the epicenter to any kind of transmission. So, if anyone was going to get shut down, it was probably going to be us.
TB: How did this affect your work?
AMS: It affected each job differently. Voice teaching has started to increase again in the last five days. But everything had really slowed for the first two weeks, and I only had two of my regular students. One was transitioning to another job at Google, and they had a six-week period where they were not working anywhere but still getting a paycheck. So this was a fun way for them to spend the time before going back to work.
Right now, all of the auditioning actors are in such a struggle. We don't know where the musical theater industry is going, and it is slowly transitioning to self-tapes. So with nothing to prepare for, actors aren't coming in for voice lessons. But also, they are probably trying to apply for unemployment. There aren't many voice lessons to speak of. I've actually been doing some self-tapes myself. Casting agencies are just holding general auditions, where there are no productions coming up, and they are interested in getting to know some new talent. For the last two years, I have been dealing with some chronic illness that is now fully diagnosed. Therefore, I wanted to put myself forward for projects in the future.
For TheoryWorks, I am TheoryWorks. [Laughter] There is no other person that does all of the administration and a majority of the coaching. It is basically all me at the moment. Also, actors are used to budgeting for a dance class, vocal class, acting class, on-camera class, or to get in front of casting directors. They are not used to budgeting out for a theory class. It is great that TheoryWorks is the only one online doing this, but it is also working against us because people aren't quite sure how something like this works yet.
We are now in a moment where everyone has to move online, and we are finding out about ourselves in this moment. A few individuals, who have kept tabs on us over the years, are checking back in to see what we are doing and if we would be willing to work with them. As a result, I have been working feverishly in the last two weeks to get a proposal together so we can start pitching schools now.
TB: Can you tell me a bit about what the impact on your life in New York City has been? What are you seeing?
AMS: The number one existential presence and reminder in day-to-day life in New York is the omnipresent sound of ambulance sirens. As soon as I wake up, I hear them when I do yoga outside and in the parks walking around. I haven't heard them in the last 20 minutes, which is actually odd because I hear them at least every ten minutes. That constant soundtrack is one element.
Another is waiting in line to get into grocery stores. My favorite spot is a butcher across the street called The Meat Hook. It is a smaller store, and usually [now], we have to wait, but the line is only three or four people because they are trying to allow for social distancing. But this past weekend, we tried to get into our primary supermarket, and the line was literally around the corner. Each one of those people was spaced out and in masks. But we looked up the street, and we couldn't even see the end of the line. Grocery shopping has become a totally different endeavor.
You can do takeaway from bars and restaurants, but the stores that were open a week ago are now closed. Our bagel store, which was open and doing take away, is now closed. About a third of restaurants that were doing delivery last weekend are now gone this weekend.
TB: What would you say is the hardest lesson you have learned so far in this situation?
AMS: This anxious feeling that hangs over me constantly to be productive. It isn't about having enough time to do things because I now have enough time. Anytime I take out my laptop, I feel like I am running out of time to build a successful business, send emails, do an ad campaign, or file unemployment. But there is actually an abundance of time. So there is this anxious feeling to produce, and whatever you do produce is not enough, and you have to produce more. So, it is not actually down to time management.
I'm reading a book called How to do Nothing, and I thought it was going to show how to slow your mind down, etc. But it is actually much more philosophical. It's about the way that we interact with our capitalist society. Fair warning, it is not in favor of capitalism and about detaching from the attention economy, like Facebook and these scrolling systems where our free time is not actually free. You are giving your time over to become an algorithm so that Facebook can make money. Our attention has spread so thin that we feel a constant pressure to produce. This book is about unplugging yourself from that system. That has been the biggest lesson for me in the past two weeks. I always thought my problem was not enough time, but that is not true.
TB: Could you tell me about how this has affected your financial health?
AMS: The answer is both really bad, but I've also gotten lucky. My partner is a songwriter and singer. He is heavily impacted because he was ready to release an EP. To do so, he had hired someone to do PR and get him signed to a new record label. But no one is signing new artists right now. That large-scale investment on his part has been put on indefinite standby. Plus, he freelances as a creative director for events. All of the events he was working on for IBM and Apple were cancelled. He is pitching Samsung tomorrow for an online replacement conference, so for now, he is okay. But at first, we were scared he would lose his job.
For me, I was making $1,300-1,500 a week, and now I am making more like $300. So my actual income is now really low. But we don't know if we will have any rent freezes or if there will be a bill that comes through the New York State Senate. I literally just won a lawsuit today, though. I was hit by a car two years ago in the middle of a crosswalk, and she settled today. That settlement is coming through at just the right time. I've also filed for unemployment, which should put me at about $1,000 a week. With all of this together, we are thinking this is not as bad as we thought.
TB: How has this impacted you as a creative individual?
AMS: I am just completely stunted. After I make some pitches for TheoryWorks and getting that together, I have a backlog of blogs that I want to write. I have some views on the entertainment industry and how we are auditioning that I would like to put out. But I'm in a state where I can't accept input right now, and there is not a lot of output happening beyond administration and business stuff. We are all just holding our breath right now.
TB: Reflecting on the past, how different was your life six weeks ago?
AMS: I play in a rock band, and we had our last show right before the shutdown, which is only three weeks ago but feels like forever ago. When I saw them, we were hugging, we said hello, we weren’t social distancing— that phrase wasn’t even part of our lexicon at the time. And at that period, everyday I was up at 8:00 am. I am out the door by 9:00 am. I am on the subway. I go to my favorite coffee shop to answer emails. I would teach all day. I’d pack my lunch. And I wasn’t even home until 8:00 or 9:00 pm or so, right?
So the other day, I saw my business heels at the bottom of our shoe bucket by the door, and they literally looked like someone else's shoes. It took me a minute to even realize that those were the shoes that I wore when I played with the band and again, it’s not even been a full month. Right before the pandemic, I had completely redone my wardrobe to be more professional, I’d ordered a bunch of new pieces. But just the other day, I reorganized my closet so I would have better and more immediate access to my yoga apparel. And, of course, rather than being on the subway everyday, I’m now playing a lot more Animal Crossing. I haven’t played this many video games in years. So, life literally couldn’t be more different. It’s literally night and day.
TB: What is one thing that you are most grateful for in this experience?
AMS: I am grateful to have time from a professional standpoint, and from a personal standpoint, I just signed up for an app called Curable that looks at the interrelationship between pain and the psyche. It is a series of therapeutic exercises to reduce chronic pain. I bought the yearly membership on Cyber Monday, but now I am actually doing it. I have also wanted to carve out more time actually to read in my corner.
But the first thing that came to mind is how much my relationship with my partner is deepening. Over the past year, I have been really deliberately extending my weekend through Mondays, making it a work from home day. That means we get those three days together. Other than that, it was just slivers of time in the evenings usually. Now we have to negotiate our time. He likes alone time to write and be creative, which has presented some logistical realities. We have settled into a routine and are having fun. It is really deepening our relationship, having to negotiate how we exist together.
TB: How do you see this changing the musical landscape moving forward?
AMS: That is really the question. From my unique perspective, I have been thinking about online education. We are going to be so much more used to this online format. And I have found so much research to support a flipped-classroom model. To me, that is the best format for learning something like music theory. I can talk to the novice and explain basic concepts like what a quarter note is. I say put it up online, let people absorb it, work at their own pace, and then bring their questions into a one-on-one session. We are finding that we can get through three to four weeks of what would be a college beginning music theory course in an hour, and they feel like they have an excellent grasp of it.
On the flip side, we are going to find the value of the interpersonal connection. It will have much more meaning, emotion, and connection behind it. It won't be frivolous. Maybe it will change back, but for a while, it will be more mindful. I would also love to see the industry acknowledge the importance of in-person community and then really invest in each other.
TB: What about the other side of your life? How do you think that the performer and teacher of performers will evolve?
AMS: I can tell you that I hope it will evolve. This was actually the subject of a blog post that I wrote about how singers are not in control of their own creative output. Especially in musical theater but also to a large degree in opera—they leave it up to the higher-ups to dictate what your type or your fach is and what pieces you should be singing. Actors are always asking what they should sing for this audition or that audition. I now refuse to give them individual song titles. Instead, I say, "Here are the artists you need to listen to. Get curious. Get creative. And take charge of your creative tastes." Because that is what makes an artist, if they lack taste, then they lack artistry.
I am seeing a lot of people putting up performances of themselves just singing music that they like. There is more content that they're sharing online. I hope to see more creative autonomy and less reliance on industry members dictating what someone should or shouldn't do. They need to have the opportunity to take the reins in what they sing and how they sing it.
TB: Dovetailing into that, what is your advice to young artists in both disciplines?
AMS: Well, we are already moving towards this self-tape phenomenon with people recording at home and then sending it in. I just had an audition where I went through 12 different sides [short segments of a script, used for auditions], picked one, recorded it, and sent it. For 90% of these self-tapes, you are choosing what the content is. So I would take this time to f*** all the rules and destroy all the conventions truly.
I do the musical theater direction for a company called Reel-U (https://www.reel-u.com/). It is run by the wonderful actors and creators, Mackenzie Barmen and Anthony Michael Irizarry, and I direct the musical theatre reels. Our idea was to make musical theater reels more cinematic, more personal, and less presentational. Because even if you are trying to get a theater job, you are using a film medium, which means that it has to be more personal. I want to record a Poulenc aria and do a really wild take on it. I've got three months at home, why not? Don't let someone else dictate the rules. If you have a better idea, do your better idea. Put your own content out there because the industry is moving in that direction. You need materials on YouTube and a website. When I did the hiring for the film The Farewell, I would curate a list for the director, Lulu Wang. She would then go through and handpick people off of their videos online.
Most importantly, though, I am of the school of 'don't play by the rules.' Especially right now, there are no rules. We need to take the reins back for artists. The number one thing that holds back opera singers and musical theater singers is that singer/songwriters get up and make the craziest sounds that are so good because they are free. They don't have some tastemaker in their head auditing what they do. They just express themselves. We have to get back to that place. My number one piece of advice is to get creative. Get weird. Get wild. Because it is probably going to be really exciting and we want to see it.
TB: Thank you, that is some good advice. Last question, what is your favorite video binge?
AMS: We are almost finished with Schitt's Creek, but tonight, we play Scrabble with my family over the internet. We just saw The Sting the other night too. It is a 1974 Paul Newman and Robert Redford film. We loved it. I am also getting myself through the Hilary documentary, and then playing a lot of Animal Crossing.
TB: It has been a pleasure to catch up with you. Thank you so much for chatting with me.
“Non, monsieur mon mari” from Les mamelles de Tirésias by Poulenc
Amy Marie Stewart, soprano
Jessica Anderson, piano
“When my mother dies” from The Memory Show
Music by Zach Redler and lyrics by Sara Cooper
Amy Marie Stewart, soprano
James Rushin, piano
Addendum:
May 9, 2021
AMS: The pandemic has been one prolonged exercise in circling through the same activities: cook in the kitchen (far too often, tacos are on the menu), work on TheoryWorks at my laptop, teach a few voice lessons, read, and play Animal Crossing. That might sound monotonous: and in some ways, of course, it was, but these are the things that I love doing. I love networking and building new content for my business, and having the time to bond with my partner in the kitchen. I could easily spend my days reading for hours. One main thing I hope that we retain in the months ahead is a movement away from "the hustle." We've all been talking about it on social media, and I hope it sticks. Because while I'm getting valuable work done, I'm also much more protective over leisure time. I'm sleeping more and sleeping better. I've found this new freedom to be so valuable, especially as someone with chronic illness (Ankylosing spondylitis, small fiber neuropathy, occipital neuralgia, and migraine).
There have been two projects for TheoryWorks that have been the most exciting. First, we've launched a series of successful online masterclasses that focus primarily on the intersection between musicianship and performing. And second, TheoryWorks has developed an online course in music theory for incoming college freshman Voice Performance and Musical Theatre Majors to help them prepare for their entrance exams in the fall.
For now, one can feel the momentum towards reopening: where there used to be silence or sirens, there are now the sounds of small groups staying out late and having fun. It's a great sound, and I've missed it. I was fortunate to be fully vaccinated in April. And as a result, our TheoryWorks classes and my voice lessons will move back to in-person in July. Most surprisingly, in one week, I'm leaving to help prepare the Celebrity Silhouette cast to return to service in July. (Frankly, I can't believe it: I booked an airline ticket. I need to pack. You could pinch me, and I still won't believe it until I'm on the plane.)
That said, I feel a little like I did the week before the first lockdown. Everyone's optimistic, and I'm happy to share some of that. But I'm concerned about vaccine hesitancy and that it leaves the door open for more variants, perhaps even one that the vaccine isn't effective at preventing. Both the positive and negatives are all possibilities, so like with the airplane: I'll believe it once it's happening.
About Amy Marie Stewart
@AmyMStewartNYC is a voice teacher, actor, and the founder of @TheoryWorksNYC, an online resource specializing in music theory classes for actors and performers. She was most recently heard as a soloist on A24's score for @TheFarewell, which was short listed for an Academy Award for Best Score. Amy's voice students have performed on Broadway, in regional houses, and with the Rockettes, and is a Vocal Director with @CelebrityCruisesEntertainment. www.amymstewart.com / www.theoryworks.com / @TheoryWorksNYC
