How to Succeed In Theater (by sacrificing everything)

Today’s episode features the couple behind Broadway In Love, Libby Servais and Stephan Stubbins. Stephan and Libby are a married couple with a toddler who have created and self-produced an act called Broadway In Love that they are performing around the world on stages large and small. We talk about working as a married couple with a young child, creating their own show, having a morning routine, a...

This episode features triple-threat performer and now director, Tia Altinay. Tia’s resume is fully loaded, including the national tours of Bombay Dreams, High School Musical, Mary Poppins, and Hamilton, as well as Broadway’s Mary Poppins, A Christmas Story,  Aladdin, and Some Like it Hot. Just over a year ago, Tia experienced a true nightmare during a performance. Her story of overcoming and thriv...

Today’s episode features Hair and Wig Supervisor Kelly Flanagan. Kelly is currently on tour with SIX the musical, and I had the opportunity to get a haircut from her in Salt Lake City the last time I visited the tour. Kelly’s had a rich thirty-year career on the road, working on many of our favorite shows including Beautiful, Memphis, and Hamilton. During this time, she also raised two kids. It’s...

This episode features one of my favorite guests to date, the incredible, Tony-nominated L Morgan Lee. L Morgan was nominated for her brilliant work in a role she originated in the Tony winning best musical A Strange Loop. Before our interview, I knew little else about her life and I’m truly honored to have given her a space to tell her unbelievable story of not only discovering but also embodying...

Hi there! Today’s guest is actor, director, choreographer, and dance professor Joy Clark. Joy is the ultimate embodiment of her name, finding joy in her own journey as well as empowering students to find it in theirs. Currently on the dance faculty at FOUR universities in the Boston area, Joy also finds time to direct, choreograph, and perform. Her story is unique to her and I think you’ll enjoy h...

This episode features TWO guests, Leah Edwards and Dimitri Pittas, founders of Holy City Arts and Lyric Opera in Charleston, South Carolina. Originally conceiving "HALO" in 2019 as a more traditional Opera company, COVID forced them to pivot. And not only surviving but thriving during that tricky time, they came to understand and nurture their community in ways that will forever change t...

This episode features audio engineer Kevin McCoy, who most recently spent the last five years with the And Peggy company of Hamilton as their Head of Audio. Prior to that, he was on the road touring with many theatrical productions for his entire career. Kevin is warm and welcoming, thoughtful, smart and kind. What he does is complicated, important, and very impressive.  Find Kevin! https://www.ke...

Today’s episode features Matt Crabtree, a theater, film, and television actor who can be seen on the Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Harlem, Brass Tactics, and many more. Today, we discuss starting his theater career in New York, moving to LA to pursue film and television, then moving back to New York to do all three. He is also the master of the side gig, and living in New York on the cheap.  Find Matt: M...

This week’s episode features multi-hyphenate artist Tasi Alabastro. Tasi is an actor, designer, photographer, gamer, and all around creator of cool things. In this episode, we discuss how to JUST START, how to network, how to live that multi-hyphenate life, and feeling like a late bloomer. I’m inspired by his approach to work/life balance, his ability to trust in the process and HIS process, and t...

This week we feature the Executive Artistic Director of City Lights, Lise Mallette. Lisa is a truly inspirational, passionate and compassionate leader. In this episode we discuss her career path beginning as a performer, how to find and nurture the audience of your theater company, the gutsy world premiere of a new play about gun violence, and impacting your community through hard conversations, c...

Episode 10 features many different interviewees all from the Boleyn Company of Six, the musical. The Boleyn Company is the tour that host Katie Coleman toured with as music director. The company is still touring and Katie was lucky enough to go back and sub for a couple weeks in Cleveland where she recorded snippets of conversations with company members, asking them for: advice for other people on...

Today’s episode is a bit different than usual because instead of your host Katie Coleman interviewing a guest, we have George Psarras from City Lights Theater Company interviewing me! City Lights is a very special place that is near and dear to Katie's heart. One of her all time favorite theater experiences was when she got to music direct their production of Lizzie in 2017. City Lights has t...

Today’s episode features a great friend of mine, Rachel Dart - a New York director who most recently worked on the Broadway play Summer 1976. Today we discuss Rachel’s path from playwright to director, creating a safe rehearsal room and showing up authentically in it, how to negotiate your contracts, how Rachel’s side gig as a sex ed teacher helped her be a better director, and how to ask for the...

Today’s guest is Kevin Surace - producer, investor and VP of operations at WitzEnd Productions , the company behind Some Like it Hot, A Beautiful Noise, 1660 Vine, and Diana. He is also a Silicon Valley executive, but I met him many years ago as a drummer. In this episode, we discuss WHAT IT REALLY MEANS to be a producer, new strategies for helping a show make it on Broadway, why producers are act...

Today’s guest is Chloe Nadon-Enriquez, coming at us straight off of Broadway’s Bad Cinderella. I caught her while she was in New York, just before flying back to close the And Peggy tour of Hamilton, where she was a swing for a couple years just after graduating from Northwestern. Chloe is not only super talented, she is also SMART - she has a degree in Neuroscience, and ran a fruit fly lab during...

Today I am sharing with you a conversation with Avanthika Srinavasan. Avanthika was born in India, spent her childhood in Singapore, and her teenage years in New Jersey. She went on to study at Princeton and ACT, and is now here in New York pursuing a career in theater and film and TV.  We discuss work/life balance, cultivating community, and finding her place here in the city while she begins wha...

Today’s guest is none other than everybody’s favorite choreographer, Jim Cooney. With a resume too long to even begin, Jim is currently the associate choreographer of the My Fair Lady national tour AND he is the founder of Amplified Artists, an online community full of resources for performers. In this episode, we discuss the myth of the “starving artist”, “no budget budgeting”, and how to market...

Please welcome, Broadway’s Sleeping Beauty, Ashley Chiu! Ashley is one of the principle princesses in Once Upon a One More Time, currently at the Marriott Marquis here in New York. Today we chat about her journey to broadway including her very intentional approach to creating a balanced career, an extremely impressive COVID pivot, and finding her muggle prince charming.  Find Ashley on IG and TikT...

This episode is with one of the smartest and most talented humans in our industry, Camden Gonzales. Cami and Katie met working on Hamilton in San Francisco in 2019, where they spent many hours together in the rehearsal room – Cami was a dance captain AND a swing. NOW she is the global associate choreographer of Moulin Rouge. In this episode, you’ll hear stories about her leading all of the kids in...

Michelle Markwart Deveaux is the CEO of FaithCultureKiss Voice Studios and Founder of The Speakeasy Cooperative. When she's not teaching singers, actors, podcasters, and influencers to use their voice to change the world, Michelle revels in the nitty-gritty of entrepreneurship, business shenanigans, and personal development. She and Katie met 15 years ago when the did Breaking Up Is Hard to D...

Find us! on IG @howtosucceedintheater https://howtosucceedintheater.buzzsprout.com Theme Music Composed by Rachel Dean and Orchestrated by Katie Coleman