This week on Out of the Air features the new Toll Theater executive director Emily Nelson discussing their 2024 season. Next, Almost Fairy Tales filmmaker Jessica Renzo discussing her lifelong grant for silver screen filmmakers for 65 plus age students. Our spotlights on LaPorte County Symphony's April 20th Beatlemania concert. Express yourself you are, and show the world your heart. Express yourself you are, and show the world your heart. You're in the know with Esther and Larry, part of the air today.
They're in the know with Mary and Esther, part of the air are we. Express yourself you are, and show the world your heart. Express yourself you are, and show the world your heart. Welcome, you're listening to Art on the Air on Lakeshore Public Media, 89.1 FM, WVLP 103.1 FM, our weekly program covering the arts and arts events throughout Northwest Indiana and beyond. I'm Larry Breckner of New Perspectives Photography, right alongside here with Esther Golden of The Nest in Michigan City.
Aloha everyone. We're your hosts for Art on the Air. Art on the Air is supported by an Indiana Arts Commission Arts Project Grant, South Shore Arts, and the National Endowment for the Arts. Art on the Air is heard every Sunday at 7 p.m. on Lakeshore Public Media, 89.1 FM, also streaming live at LakeshorePublicMedia.org, and is available on Lakeshore Public Media's website as a podcast. Also heard on Friday at 11 a.m. and Monday at 5 p.m. on WVLP 103.1 FM, streaming live at WVLP.org, and Tuesdays at 4 p.m.
on WDSO 88.3 FM. Our spotlight interviews are also heard Wednesdays on Lakeshore Public Media. Information about Art on the Air is available at our website, Breck.com slash AOTA. That includes a complete show archive, spotlight interviews, plus our show is available on multiple podcast platforms, including NPR One. Please like us on Facebook, Art on the Air WVLP, for information about upcoming shows and interviews. We'd like to welcome to Art on the Air Spotlight from the LaPorte County Symphony Orchestra, the Executive Director, Emily Yannis, and she's going to tell us about some of the things that have just passed from the symphony and some of the things that are coming up.
Emily, welcome to Art on the Air Spotlight. Thank you for having me. Nice to see you, Emily, as always. Well, Emily, in March you've had some busy times. You had your third classical concert and then Hoosier Star and everything. So those things are progressing well and you had good turnouts. Yes, that's right. Yes, absolutely. One of our highest turnouts for Hoosier Star auditions in years. So very, very exciting. Lots of talent. So those finalists will be announced shortly in the coming weeks.
Oh, excellent. Are you present for the auditions? Yes. Yes. Oh, exciting. It's a lot of fun. Do you get to judge? No. No, no, no. We have three outside judges. Okay. Well, I mean, you know, with your vocal background, you know, you'll be a significant person. That's true. That's true. But I think, yeah, I think I recuse myself from judging. Very good. So, well, you have, I guess you might say, the final concert of your regular season.
I know you'll have a summer concert. So tell us about that. That's right. So April 20th, 7 p.m., at the LaPorte Civic Auditorium, we have a Beatles group called Classical Mystery Tour. And they are coming, and they will be our guest soloists, if you will. They're four gentlemen who portray the Beatles. And the symphony will be playing along with them. They'll be playing a couple pieces on their own, but mostly they'll be accompanying these four guys who portray the Beatles.
And they're fully costumed and the whole bit. So it's going to be a fabulous, fabulous evening of fun Beatles tunes. Do they just take one period of the Beatles, or are they going to, I know some of the groups, and maybe they do a standalone concert, they do the different periods of the Beatles. You may not be able to accommodate that in an orchestra setting. I believe they are. I believe they start out kind of in the, well, it's based on the Beatles coming to America.
So they're in 1964 when they came to America. But I do believe they go through, there are costume changes, for sure. So they do move through some of the eras. That's great. And I'm sure that's kind of like, any kind of Pops-type concert, that's going to be really a big sellout for you. So you still have tables and seats available for that? Yes, so we'll have table seating available for $35, and then balcony seating available for $25 for adults, and $22 for seniors.
Kids, as always, are free for our subscription concerts, and students, college and high school students with ID. Okay. Does that include grad students, maybe? Yeah, they have a school ID! Well, speaking about students, are the student apprenticeships about wrapping up, and how does, I was just thinking about the apprenticeship program. I think it's wonderful. Yeah, yeah, I'm glad you asked. Well, we just had, in February, we had a very lovely student apprentice recital. Our six apprentices played an afternoon concert at the Presbyterian Church of La Porte.
They each played a solo piece that they had performed for ISMA, for the state competition. So that was really fun to get to hear them and feature them on solo pieces. And yes, this concert will be their last time performing with the symphony for this season. We do hope the ones that are not graduating will come back and play again next season. Sounds great. Now, you have some other fun stuff that's not necessarily concert-related. I think it's at Swing Valley's restaurant.
It's what, kind of a music trivia night? Can you tell us all about that? What happens at that? Sure, yeah. It's actually a lunch. It's our Friends of the Symphony group. And it's a luncheon, and there's going to be music trivia with prizes and bragging rights. So it's going to be a lot of fun. We have a lot of fun at the Friends of the Symphony luncheon. So that's a group that is just advocates for the symphony.
They do volunteer work. They give financially. And they're just our ambassadors. Welcome anyone to join, of course. Is that kind of like a fundraiser also for the symphony, just a little bit? Yes, yes. It acts as that as well. So, and a fun way to kind of learn some music trivia and get challenged with that. Yeah, I know. I hope I'm not such a shame. I better brush up. Well, you have good news about Carolyn. Her contract has been renewed.
Is that correct? That's right, yes. Very exciting. Our music director, Dr. Carolyn Watson, has renewed her contract through 2027. So we're very excited to have her lead the orchestra artistically for the next three seasons. And I'll just comment, she has done a remarkable job with it. I think really, I mean, it's been a great orchestra prior to that. But it's really elevated the quality of the orchestra. And, you know, I think that was a real get for you guys and everything.
Absolutely. She's phenomenal. Speaking of which, maybe you can give us a little bit of a hint or a preview on what's coming up for next season. Absolutely. I'd love to. So we're going to open the season in November with a Dia de los Muertos concert on November 2nd. And we're going to feature a Spanish guitarist on Rodrigo's guitar concerto. So we're really excited about that. And we're going to feature compositions by lots of composers from Latin America.
So that's on the docket for November. And for March, we have a very exciting xylophone concerto, a world premiere, that our education manager and percussionist in the symphony, Jared Collar, is going to perform. So we're really excited about that one, too. One of my favorite instruments, actually, the xylophone. Really? Yeah, completely. Well, you'll have to come hear him play. Childhood. Oh, that's great. That's great. Through Lyman. And when do tickets go on sale in our last few moments here? So subscriptions will be available beginning of May.
So we'll be doing our subscription brochure mailings and online subscription sales. And then single tickets will go on sale September 1st. Sounds great. Well, we appreciate you coming on Art of the Year Spotlight. Beatlemania, April 20th at 7 o'clock, LaPorte County Civic Auditorium. Emily Yannis, Executive Director, thank you for coming on Art of the Year Spotlight. Thanks so much for having me. Yeah, thanks, Emily. And a spotlight extra. The 2024 Northwest Indiana Listen to Your Mother, a series of live readings by local writers about motherhood, will be presented on Sunday, April 28th at 3 p.m.
at the Hobart Arts Theater. VIP and general admission tickets are available online at ltymnwi.ticketleap.com. Art of the Year Spotlight and the complete one-hour program on Lakeshore Public Media is brought to you by Macaulay Real Estate in Valparaiso, Ola Patrician Senior Broker. And as a reminder, if you'd like to have your event on Art of the Year Spotlight or have a longer feature interview, email us at aotaatbrech.com. That's aotaatbrech, B-R-E-C-H, .com. This is Clay Jenkinson for Listening to America, and you are listening to Art on the Air on Lakeshore Public Media 89.1 FM and WVLP 103.1 FM.
We would like to welcome Emily Nelson to Art on the Air. Emily is the new executive director at the Toll Theater in Hammond, Indiana. She is an experienced actor, director, and teaching artist. Emily studied acting at Columbia College in Chicago and spent years training at the Goodman Theater, where she began her career as a teaching artist. She spent the bulk of her career working for the Beverly Arts Center as associate artistic director, where she streamlined a successful youth theater program.
Thank you for joining us on Art on the Air. Aloha and welcome, Emily. It's very nice to meet you, and congratulations on this new posting. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Well, Emily, our audience always wants to know all about our guests. Their origin stories, we like to say. So I always like to say how you got from where you were to where you are now. So tell us all about Emily. All about Emily. Emily, myself, grew up on the south side of Chicago in Brighton Park.
Very wonderful neighborhood. I moved to the south suburbs in my high school career because my mom got remarried. And that's where I started to go to high school, at Queen of Peace, a Catholic school. I discovered that high school through theater. The school actually came to talk about the school, and they announced auditions for Annie. And they were like, hey, we need orphan choruses. None of my friends wanted to do it. I was like, I'm doing this.
I was so excited, but terrified as well. My stepdad was the one who drove me to the audition. And you're in this room with all these high schoolers, and you're like, oh, I'm only in sixth grade. What am I doing here? Needless to say, I was a part of the show. I was just in the orphan chorus, only in that song, Hard Knock Life, took my broom, did my choreography with my broom, and I was done.
However, that started my decision of where I went to high school. That was in my high school that I graduated from, because I love the theater community, and then also paved the way to, like, oh, this is what I want to do with my life. I want to do theater. I consider that as my marking point of when I want to do theater. My mom may disagree with me in saying me knowing all the words to The Wizard of Oz or Steel Magnolias at age four was the starting point.
Four, yes. Where we'd have to, like, mute the movie, and we were the characters, and we'd do, like, the dialogue line from line. So those were the paths that definitely got me to the theater world after high school. I attended the Goodman program. It was a youth training program where students audition, and only 50 kids are selected per session. It is, like, an a.m. session and a p.m. session. Another point in my life where I was completely terrified.
I didn't go with people I knew, you know what I mean? I'm putting myself out there, and I'm seeing if I can do this. I got called back. I spent my summer at the Goodman, two years to be exact, and I loved every moment of it. That place shaped me into who I am and gave me a voice. It was a really beautiful program. After that, a year passed, and I was like, I still want to do this thing.
I really am still into it. I ended up becoming a teaching artist for the Goodman. So I taught the program that I was in, which was, like, a full circle moment that I truly love, and I was like, this is what I've lived for, and this is how I know I'm doing something right, and I feel very fulfilled. Aside from the Goodman, I made way to the Beverly Arts Center, started working as a teaching artist at their summer camp.
They really enjoyed me. I then became a front desk associate, then became a box office manager, then became chief of staff, and then became associate artistic director. That's very well-rounded. It is. Like I said, it's a full circle all around, and I love that I still get to keep art in my life and still make a decent living, because some people aren't as fortunate as that, and I really value that I get to do that. I'm very happy that I get to do that.
So, Emily, do you see yourself still acting, even? Will you have time to do that? Currently, at this moment, I'm on a creative hiatus, just a little break, just to learn the operations and logistics of other things that are going on around me. But, yeah, I mean, after high school and college, I still audition for, like, community shows. Theater is still a big piece of me. I still go see shows. At the Art Center, I definitely fell in love with directing youth and helping them go after what they want and after their dreams.
So it's different paths that are leading me elsewhere. But, man, if I find the time, I literally have been looking. I've auditioned for Steel Magnolias, my favorite show, one of my favorite shows, about three times. I just didn't get it, because they were all in the same area, and I'm like, you know what? The toll's going to do that, and I don't know if I'm going to direct it or be in it, but it's going to happen, or elsewhere.
But, yeah, no, if there's time, I'd love to do it or find that acting gift again, yeah, just to bring that stuff to it. Oh, yeah, there's a lot of actors direct yourself in the play. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. It's tough, though, to direct yourself in a play. In a motion picture, in a motion picture, it's a little easier, because, you know, you then can step out and look at what you've done. But watching, you know, directing yourself on stage is a whole...
You have to have a really strong associate director who will actually give you real feedback about, you know, the live performance, because you really can't envision that. So that looks like... Well, I'm curious about what brought you to the Toll Theater from the Beverly Arts Center. I mean, what connection did you have with Kevin and Jeff, or how that worked, or what was that story? Yeah, so there was really no connection. I've seen maybe two shows here in the past.
Loved the space. Never thought I would end up working here. Truly did not. One day, I was just, like, on their Facebook, seeing what their season looked like, and it was like, hey, we're searching for an executive director. And my friend also texted me, and he was like, you should apply for this. I was like, should I? Like, I don't know. Like, why would I, you know? And I think it was the timing. I was like, well, let's see what happens.
I sent it in. I wasn't really like, oh, I'm going to get it. I wasn't very optimistic. I was actually job searching a little bit from then, you know what I mean? Like, looking at other opportunities. They then called, and were like, hey, we want to interview you. I was like, this is great. I showed up. Jeff and Kevin are the most amazing people I've ever met. I ask them daily, like, why are you leaving me? Or leaving this, because it's so great.
After that interview, I met with the board as my second interview, and the board got talking, and we had great conversations. And then a day, maybe two days after, Jeff called and said, hey, do you have time for a phone call? We'd love to offer you the position. And now I'm here, and I absolutely love it. I feel that I am doing something fulfilling for the community and myself. Excellent. Well, I've known Jeff and Kevin since the 1980s, so excellent.
But, you know, there is a point in maybe doing theater that you kind of want to step away from it. After 41 years for me, I know it was partially because it was kind of nice to move on, and I haven't closed the door completely on it, but right now I'm doing this and everything like that. So, in directing, you talked about Steel Magnolias as an acting thing, but what shows have you directed I directed Next to Normal at the Beverly Arts Center, and this was in 20, we started the run in 2020, and it got canceled because of COVID.
They then decided to bring it back in like 2022, where I had to recast half the characters, but three originals from that 2020 production came back to do it. And that kicked off the Art Center's professional series of professional theater. So it definitely was one of the shows that made its mark there, but also people I don't think were ready for theater in that area just yet, I've directed Next to Normal, that was the first professional series with adults.
Then youth theater, I've done shows such as Little Mermaid, Annie, Charlotte's Web, tons of stuff like that. Do you have a preference between musical theater and straight plays? I love both. It's hard to pick. It really is. I'm very dramatic, and I love my dramas, but I also personally, like myself, I love to break out into song and dance, and I think that's why it draws me towards musical theater. Yeah, I'm guilty of that. Like Larry.
I break into song. Larry has a song for everything. Yeah, you give me a prompt and it happens. It's like, of course, that's it. So you're moving into what I would say a much more administrative post out of the artistic area, and so how were you prepared for that background with what you've done like Beverly Arts Center and prior to that? Because it's a different set of tools. You're moving into like administrative things, which I know Jeff and Kevin want to move away from that so they can do more artistic things, at least this season.
So tell us about that for you. Yeah, so I've done a lot of admin work, too, at the Arts Center. My skills vary in all aspects of that. It definitely is a different path because I also like to think of it as not me giving my creative outlet like a break completely. It's just me learning the administrative work of how to run an operational theater and still be successful. Right. It's really interesting to see how much more work is put into it.
I knew it took a lot running a place and the administrative background. I knew the details of it, but now that I'm fully diving into it, it's like, oh crap, this is a lot. It takes me time. I know this is my fifth week now, so I'm still learning. And yeah, it is different, but it's also, you have to learn the admin stuff so you can be successful, I feel like. You need to have those skills to even produce and just grow.
Now, are you going to be living in northwest Indiana? Are you staying in Chicago? I'm still in Illinois. I'm in Worth, a suburb. So yeah, I'm still in Chicago, at home. Short distance away and everything like that. Well, let's talk a little bit about the upcoming season. We'll get back to some of your background. You have some interesting shows coming up this season, so let's kind of go through them and show dates and everything and tell us a little about each one.
Yeah, so our next show that's coming up in May is called The Spider or the Fly. And this is like a psychological thriller, so something very different. It's not where you're going to break down to song and dance. It's more you see two stories unfold simultaneously in the same place but at different times. It's really, really cool. And the dates for that show are May 3rd, 10th, 11th, 17th, and 18th at 8 p.m. And then we have matinees on May 4th, 5th, and 19th at 2 p.m.
It's a really different show. You guys are going to love it. The next show that happens in July is a musical. So for those of you that are like, oh, I'm not into mysteries, we have something for everyone here. Pippin. Pippin is the story of one young man's journey to be extraordinary. Music by Stephen Schwartz. He wrote Wicked. So if you're like, Wicked, yes, come see Pippin. That's fantastic. That's running July 12th through the 14th, the 19th through the 21st, and the 26th through the 28th.
Auditions also just, you know, because those are... Oh, yes. Talk about, we only move on to the shows but talk about the audition process for those two shows. So for Spider and the Flies, it didn't happen yet. It did already happen. The cast is cast already. If you're interested in seeing who's in the show, you can visit us at thetolltheater.org to see, you can even cast Pippin. Auditions are creeping up. I think they're going to be in April.
I don't know exactly. But the way that the Toll does auditions is really cool. They have a Chicago-based audition. So people can't make that commute the day to, like, audition here. You go into Chicago where they're more comfortable at or get a Chicago talent and then callbacks are placed at the Toll. So actually then, those people at Audition Chicago can come and see the distance between us. Right. And auditions are all non-equity right now. Right. So, you know, it's like, you know, it's non-equity right now.
Correct? Yes. Correct. Yes. Right. Having made that jump to an equity house, which also brings a whole set of other complications with it. Right. Oh, yes. Yes. And maybe you can, each, they told us something very special, which is Educator Appreciation Night. So maybe you could mention that as well. Yeah. Education Appreciation Night. The dates are on our website. I can pull those up, too. Or Educator. Educator Appreciation. Yes. So, they essentially, it's a buy one, get one ticket, I believe.
Is it? Yes. Buy one, get one free. For Spider and the Fly, if any educators are wanting to see theater, those dates are May 3rd, 10th, and 17th. So you just buy a ticket and you get one free. And as long as you show us your ID to show us that you're a wonderful educator who deserves so much more money, you can see the show for $24. So, yeah. We have those Educator Nights, too, for the other shows as well.
And of course, Pippin is one of my personal favorite shows. I think I've directed it several times. Of course, several times I've directed it with a female leading player. And I always think that changes the dynamic of the triangle between Pippin, Catherine, and her. And so, it's sort of a different way to do it. So, it's kind of cool. Well, when I directed Pippin, I always like to put an intermission in. One place it really fits is when Fostrata does Spread a Little Sunshine, and it's right before then when you come back in Act 2, it's right to the Chapel of Arles.
It makes a great break in the show. So, that's my secret there if you do it that way. And then we have Slow Food. Slow Food, yeah. That's when we'll get our little comedies back in in case they're like, oh, a musical and a thriller. What's next? Yeah, Slow Food. It's actually from the same playwright from the women who wrote Women in Jeopardy, the one show they did here. And in this one, a vacationing couple celebrates their anniversary at a Greek restaurant in Palm Springs.
But the question is, will the marriage survive the service? So it's like, ooh, what's happening? Yeah, so it's really, really good. And dates for that are September 6th through the 8th, the 13th through the 15th, and the 20th through the 22nd. All our shows this season run for three weekends, which we're back to. And yeah. And then there's the long show that's been the toll for many, many, many, many years. And there's almost a holiday tradition.
Tell us about that. So a fabulous 50th Christmas. That was my, actually, the first show that I saw here. And I was like, this show is so stinking cute. It's not your Christmas Carol. It's not like your Christmas schooner. This is just something that's fun and kitschy and just makes you appreciate the holidays from the music through the set design that Kevin does. It's all wonderful. Dates are officially set for that too. We just made the dates official for that.
And those are November 30th. So we're starting a little early to get everyone ready. December 6th, 7th, 13th at 8 p.m. And the rest of them, December 1st, 8th, 14th, and 15th are at 2 p.m. Excellent. Well, that's a heck of a good season there. And we made some spotlights as we got closer with some of the people involved and everything. Well, they kind of threw you into the deep end here though, but it's kind of nice to come in at the beginning of a season and have Jeff and Kevin at your side there because they can make a smooth transition for the administrative things.
So what are your goals for 2025? I mean, you're probably looking ahead to do some things there, but tell us about when the handoff is complete and you are really flying solo. Yeah. That makes me nervous saying that I'm solo. I'm in really, really good hands now and I'm learning so much from Jeff and Kevin. My goals for 2025 though, and I keep getting asked about this, but my goal is to make sure that I'm in a good position to be able to have a youth theater program.
They used to have one a while back and then it stopped and it never picked up. So these past show weekends, people I don't even know, people I don't even have kids have been asking me, so what do you plan on doing? So what do you plan on doing with that youth program? So what's your goal? And I'm like, it's week four. It's okay, guys. I will handle it. But that's one of the rules for 2025.
I really want to see a youth program here be developed and succeed and follow through literally. So my goal is to make sure that I'm in a good position to be able to succeed and follow through. Like how we have four seasons, I would like to at least have two to three kids shows in the space where youth, whether they're ages, I want to say like eight to 18, they come here, they learn professional work from professional teaching artists and then they're here for six weeks, then they perform.
They have two show dates. Just also to give kids that outlet. A lot of kids don't have that outlet of creativity or somewhere to go and I want to provide that for this community. Very good. That's what it's about. Very good. That's what it becomes. It becomes its own separate community as well. So are you connecting with any of the other, Northwest Indiana is a very theater rich environment and I don't know if you've seen some of the work community theater.
Some of it's very good and some of it's very, well, whatever. But I mean, there are a lot of producing groups in Northwest Indiana and are you going to kind of start connecting to them and for whatever reason? Yeah. So my goal for March is to connect to either those community theaters that do performances or even local high schools, middle schools and even colleges. Calumet College at St. Joseph is the college that's sponsoring Spider of the Fly so we're developing a partnership with them to try to get them involved.
Any connections to get youth in here is what I want to do. That's my goal for March to connect with different age groups to get in here. Well, that's good. That's a great goal to involve that. And of course, I did 18 years in the school system at Munster. And of course, we did a crazy schedule of two musicals, two straight plays a year and then my wife directed two more middle school shows so we did six productions a year besides the 60 to 70 events in the theater which I did.
And of course, what's nice about the position you're in is you get to kind of enjoy maybe doing some things artistically but also learning the managerial part of that which everything's great. So any other goals you have besides youth theater coming up? I mean, again, we've just been in the deep end right now but it's kind of nice to hear what ideas you might be bringing to the table. Yeah, another goal. I'm working with Jeff and Kevin on playing the next season.
So it's going to be really exciting to see what we all come up with and decide to put in our season. I've been doing a lot of reading and now my next goal is I read all the shows that I'm interested in. If I'm interested in it, I got to pass it off to my other two guys and be like, all right, what do you guys think? So the goal is to hopefully get a season set I want to say probably by like April, May-ish so then we can start announcing and giving you guys little clues of what's to come.
That's great. Now, do you have opportunities for if someone's interested in directing a show, is there a process for them to maybe even bring a show to you as opposed to you're setting a thing of shows but someone's saying, you know, I have this show whether they wrote it as a playwright or as a director? Yeah, I mean, I haven't gotten any questions or feedback on that. Are you not in four weeks? Not a single one? Not four weeks.
Not yet. Not yet. Not yet. Hopefully not soon. But I feel like that's something I'd like to see here as well because that will also bring new work to the stage where people won't be able to get that new work somewhere else. It just all depends if it flows with like the schedule or with what we want to be known for and I feel like the Toll is really known for doing new work and doing it really well.
So I'd love to have new artists or new playwrights be like, hey, read this, you know? I can't say yes to everyone but you know, if there's something good where I'm like, I believe in this, let's get you going. The director thing as well, I am, I don't know where it comes into but like, I will need directors for the next shows so please, anyone who's interested in directing, shoot out my email, enelson at tolltheater.org. Please shoot me an email, I will try to book you.
Well, you sound like you have a lot of enthusiasm for what's going on there and so people can reach out for a directing and but are there other positions that are available like technical positions, things like that, lighting design, set design and other things like that that you need? There probably will be because right now it's just Jeff and Kevin doing everything and it's, I, they are so talented where I'm like, I'm mind blown every time I'm like, it's just the two of you doing this, like holy cow, like I need like a team, like I need like, I need someone up here, someone down here and it's just these two men doing great work but we will definitely need whether it might be like a stage manager or a light board operator, those roles for sure so if anyone interested in theater, like, even for volunteer opportunities or internship opportunities would be great, great source to like, talk to me, I will find something for you, that's my goal too.
Yeah, as a semi-pro theater, do you pay your actors anything, any kind of compensation? They just, yes, they are paying the actors, yes, and this was fairly known when they started paying the actors but currently now we do pay our musicians, our actors and like the people that operate our sound flashlights, so. Okay, yeah, very good. Yeah. Well, we're coming up to almost our last minute here, we're going to give you a chance to recap everything that's going on, anything like that.
Yeah, so, if anyone is interested in getting tickets, please call the box office at 219-937-8780 or visit our website, tooltheater.org, aside from that, tickets are $24 for all our shows and yeah, I hope to see tons of people here and I want to see new faces, so please, I hope everyone's listening, come and see a show here, it's great. Well, Emily, I don't think we can quell your enthusiasm, it's Emily Nelson, the new show is called Toll Theater and it's theater spelled the American way, Toll Theater, T-H-E-A-T-E-R, not the British way, .org and you can find that information, tickets are $24 for each show.
Make sure you call well in advance because they sell out of many shows. Emily, thank you so much for coming on Art in the Air. Thank you so much for having me, it was nice to meet you both. Yeah, thank you, Emily, congratulations and best of everything. Art in the Air listeners, do you have a suggestion for a possible guest on our show? Whether it's an artist, musician, author, gallery, theater, concert or some other artistic endeavor that you are aware of or a topic of interest to our listeners, email us at a-o-t-a at breck.com, that's a-o-t-a at breck, b-r-e-c-h dot com.
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This is Raina Torres, host of World Cafe and you're listening to Art on the Air on Lakeshore Public Media 89.1 FM and on WVLP 103.1 FM. We are pleased to welcome Jessica Renslow to Art on the Air. Jessie is an award-winning filmmaker, author of screenplays, articles, short stories and a community advocate. She's also the founder of Almost Fairy Tales, a production, post-production company in Northwest Indiana. With over 20 years of production experience, she has over 700 credits.
Jessie was a 2002 David Letterman Award winner for her feature-length screenplay Stained Glass Graffiti. She has also received several recent Indiana Arts Commission grants, the Individual Advancement Grant and the Lifelong Arts Grant plus the Unearthed Film Project Grant from Indiana Humanities. When she isn't writing, she can be found coding online courses and translating cartoons from Japanese to English for her clients. This barely touches on all she has accomplished. Thank you for joining us on Art on the Air.
Aloha and welcome, Jessie. You know, wow, it's just amazing what you've accomplished. Oh, well, thank you guys for having me and for this opportunity to talk with you. Yeah, I've got an eclectic background as you can tell from my resume. Oh, gosh, it's so exciting, actually. Well, we appreciate you coming on our show and talking about your projects, but we first of all want to know more about you and your origin story, like I always say, how you got from where you were to where you are now.
So tell us all about it, Jessie. Sure. I grew up in Gary, Indiana. I'm the rare fifth generation Garyite. And then my folks, both from the region, my dad's from Gary, my mom's from Hammond, and they ended up getting divorced, so we went with my mom for high school, so I went to Gavit in Hammond. And Gavit had a really good theater program at the time, and so I always knew I wanted to do writing and directing from the time I was a little kid, really, but we didn't have like multimedia classes then, so I got heavily involved in theater, and when I was going to go to college, you know, I wanted to go to like the School of Arts or UCLA, but being a working class kid, that definitely was not in the budget, so I went to Ball State and I ended up having a really, really good experience there.
Ball State's got a great program, and it's kind of like one of the unknown places to go in the Midwest, so I majored in, originally I was going to major in TECOM, telecommunications production, but again, working class kid, so I had to have a full-time job or a couple jobs actually while I was putting myself through school, and I kept on not being able to get into my pre-reqs, and at that time, you had to have at least two years of a foreign language if you were getting a BA at Ball State, and I had taken Spanish in high school, which is fine, but I wanted to try something new, and I was a freshman in the fall of 1999 to 2000, and at that time, the Japanese owned a third of the market, they owned NBC Universal, so I thought, well, probably not as many people are learning Japanese, it might be good to know the language of the people who own like a third of the market, so I went ahead and tried that out, and I kept on not being able to get my pre-reqs for scheduling reasons, and my academic advisor, who had actually been a very successful filmmaker and TV producer, he started out doing like Monday Night Football, and then he and his partner had written Tron and stuff, so he said, well, why don't you major in Japanese? That's going to make you unique.
Everyone else is going to major in film and TV. You can minor in film and TV, and if you travel, it'll make you a better filmmaker, and I said, man, that sounds like an idea, so I went ahead and did that, and it actually worked out pretty well because after doing the college thing, I actually got paid to travel and teach abroad for a couple years, and then when I came back stateside, I did a short stint as a page at CBS, and then I went into working in the animation field mostly for my day jobs, and video games, so that's kind of how my career zigzagged around.
It sounds wonderful. Early before high school, was there ever an interest in performing? I mean, when you were in high school, were you interested in performing or directing or behind the scenes and everything because much of what you're doing as a filmmaker takes those tools to work on? Yeah, I know I kind of did a little bit of everything. I always ended up playing character roles. You can probably tell I have kind of a deep voice.
I've had that since I was a little girl, so I played a lot of the older character roles for like children's theater, and then I... We had really good teachers at Gavit. We learned how to do scenery, and I mean, they had done professional shows, so we really got a college education in high school, so I did learn a lot of stuff that I kind of learned what I liked and what I didn't want to do, and it was really an unusual experience, I think, for high school at the time.
I'm interested in the community advocacy because sometimes the roots of that begin in childhood. Was your family active? Yeah, in the way that I think most public school teachers are, and then we were active at church and things like that as kids, but also just being from... If you're from places where, you know, Gary has a lot going for him, but we also have a lot of big needs, so it's not unusual for everyone to volunteer on something, whether it's the garden club or the playground committee because if you don't have those volunteer groups, then a lot of times those services are not provided in the community, so it kind of just was...
It wasn't even something I thought about. It was part of life, and, you know, when you grow up with that as your template and then you move to a big city and it's not a requirement anymore, you realize after a while, oh, I missed that, like your community connection, so I went and worked corporate for a long time and then I kind of came full circle. What brought me back to the region was a project called the Neighborhood Spotlight Project, and it was specifically for two neighborhoods in North Savannah.
There was Northwest Hobart and Miller and Gary, and so I got hired to work in Miller, and it kind of took all of my event planning and production skills along with my volunteer skills of organizing groups and kind of married them together, and that's the contract that brought me back home, which I was wanting to come home anyway and be closer to my parents and my siblings, and you know, L.A. was an interesting city. I was there almost a decade.
I just never thought I'd stay as long as I would, and I was missing home. I was missing the seasons and the time I'd already started to be able to work remotely, which used to be a very hard thing to explain to people, but now more people understand remote life, and I just didn't see the point of spending, you know, what would be more than a mortgage in rent in L.A. and then come home for using all my vacation time to come home.
It seemed more logical to live in a city that was near, you know, a giant city like Chicago and be able to fly anywhere in the world if I needed to and be able to buy a home and have a family, and so that's what made me move home. Great reasons. Oh, yeah. Great reasons. So tell us about some of the projects that you have already done in your thing, and before we move on to some of your current work here, the story about bringing you back locally is great, and yeah, some of your projects like your screenplay writing, too, because I'm so interested in what Stained Glass Graffiti was about.
Well, so Stained Glass Graffiti, so at Ball State, there is this award called Letterman Award, and people always think, oh, it's for C students because that's like the joke about it, but the thing was was David Letterman went there, he's given a ton of money to the school. It's one of the reasons that the school's like so great for telecommunications production. His thing was he wanted to have a scholarship available for the kids who were creative and had nothing to do with grades.
You had to submit a creative project. So, you had to either be a TECOM major or minor, and you could submit any kind of project. It could be, you know, an animated video game, it could be a script, it could be a record you produced, it could be anything, and then it was put up to a group of industry professionals, your name was taken off of it, they didn't know who did what, and then they would grade them on different rankings, and there were three levels to the award, and the year I won I got second place, which was great because it put me through my senior year of school, so it was definitely, definitely something that was a godsend at the time.
And the script itself was honestly about growing up in the region, and so it was kind of a dark comedy, very late 90s, early 2000s vibe, and so they helped me go through school with that, and then I ended up working for the Japanese Ministry of Education for three years after that before I went to LA, which ended up really influencing me as far as jobs with the language skills, because honestly a lot of my production jobs came from my language skills, and I did a lot of scripts, adapting, translating, doctoring, everything, one of them won the International Filmmaker Award for Sundance in 2013, yeah, that one was called Spectacle Tiger, it's a, that one was a full-length one, but I did a lot of, a lot of anime, are you guys familiar with anime? Oh yeah, completely.
Yeah, that used to be like a very like sub-genre, and I had never grown up really even being that interested in anime, because it used to be you had to like, you know, write into magazines and people would send to you, nowadays it's like a whole thing, it's streamed everywhere, most of the series I work on, I've worked on, you can get on like Netflix and Disney now, so it's so much like at your fingertips, which used to not be the case, so I don't know if you, Naruto was a pretty big series I worked on, Bleach, Blue Dragon, Afro Samurai, there's a lot of them, we're talking hundreds of episodes, so, I've watched a lot of cartoons and stuff, I've watched a lot of cartoons in my life, like I never thought I would do, but you know, it's funny how life works out.
Well, it sure is. So, moving forward, you had first of all an Indian Arts Commission individual advancement grant, so tell us about what that did for you, and of course now we're in grant season for Indian Arts Commission, but tell us about first of all how you applied for it and then what did you use that to produce? So, yeah, in 2020, I got the individual advancement grant, and that was specifically for literature, I was working on a middle grade manuscript, and, you know, best laid plans, it was 2020, though, I was supposed to go to a lovely writer's retreat in Cape Cod that was held by one of the most prestigious literary agencies devoted to children's books, and I was all set to do that, and then we had our international pandemic, and so luckily IAC was able to work with me, and what I did was I did a remote retreat, a DIY retreat, where I took an online course, and then I went ahead and sequestered myself at a lovely hotel in French Lick, Indiana, which was part of the manuscript, and I got the rough draft and I got it all edited up, and I was able to submit it to some agents, which was my goal from the beginning, and gotten close, haven't quite got an agent offer yet, but I think I've got at least ten full requests on that manuscript, and the whole, like, looking for an agent, working with the rough draft, turning it into a manuscript, and it's always a work in progress.
That's very exciting, though. Yeah, it is. You're listening to Art on the Air on Lakeshore Public Media, 89.1 FM on WVLP 103.1 FM. 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