Host 0:03

Hello, welcome to Her Canuck Voice, where we are talking all things performing arts and the power of connection. My name is Lindsay -Anne Dow. I am the Her in Her Canuck Voice, and this season I'm taking you behind the scenes of my first ever professional production, Dear Evan Hansen. This is a multi-tony award-winning musical debuting for the first time in Kelowna, BC, Canada this spring. So, ladies and gentlemen, take your seats and enjoy the show.

Host 0:35

I want to call out a trigger warning off the top since the season of the podcast centers around the musical Dear Evan Hansen, in which the subject of teen mental health and suicide is at the forefront. Please honor where you're at. And if these subjects are too much right now, it's okay, move along. Let's remember everyone has a story and to lead with love and kindness and acceptance. We're all in this together.

Host 1:00

Hello, good afternoon, afternoon. It is afternoon where I am today. Welcome to episode two of the inaugural season of Her Canuck Voice, the podcast. Last time I attempted to provide a bit of foundation for this podcast and a brief introduction to Dear Evan Hansen, the focus of this particular series, which will chronicle my experience as a new (or old) performer. I'm on a mission to get you out to see the show. Not just this show, although I do believe everyone needs to see Dear Evan Hansen, especially anyone with young people in their lives. But I really want you to see any show. I believe humans are increasingly closed off. It starts emotionally, and then we retreat. We disconnect physically, all the while losing ourselves. I believe vulnerability is a dying medium. And what began as a protection instinct to keep us safe kind of misfired along the way. We've lost our ability to connect because we've lost our ability to be vulnerable with one another. But that art is our key to opening up again. And in particular, performing arts.

Host 2:28

Okay, I don't intend for there to be many or any more solo episodes on this podcast. When the point is connection, I imagine a plethora of voices being featured, the least of which being my talented castmates, those seven individuals I am just totally honored to share a stage with in oh, a few weeks. But to lay a bit more of the foundation for this series and to provide some context, I will now pull back the curtain on my own story and how we got here. Why I'm preaching about live music and theater from the rooftops as a means to save the human race.

Host 3:12

Okay, currently I am recording this from my bedroom in Kelowna, BC, Canada. My kids are at school, my husband's at work, and the dog. Well, he's a bernadoodle, so not really interested in much more than sleep at this time of day. So this time is my time. And what has become my creative time. Maybe it's this phase of life, maybe it's the age of my kids. Regardless, I get to carve out this time for myself, knowing now that it's incredibly important for me. This creativity and need to express myself in a creative way, it's always been there from the time I was a little girl. I grew up, I'm an older sister to one sibling, a brother, two parents, a dog, and a single family home in Victoria, BC. A quiet and safe upbringing.

Host 4:12

Now, industry folk call it the bug or the itch, referring to the moment after you stand on a stage and you realize, you know with every fiber of your being that you really, really liked it, and you need to do it again. The lights, they're bright, yeah, but they feel like sun in the spring. You don't turn away. You gaze out and you let those lights fall between your lashes. Your eyes shine. No, they sparkle. Through the glare of those lights, you can kind of see the faces of the audience, but you know that ultimately you are standing in the light. You are the most powerful person in the room. You are being listened to. It's your moment. And what you give them in turn makes them shine too. It's the very transfer of your glow to them. You move them. That is the magic of it all. That is the gift. You stand tall, you are not afraid, you are exactly where you need to be.

Host 6:01

Okay, so what followed? Singing lessons, music theory, fancy audition-only choir, it was called chorale. My voice, thank goodness, developed. I competed in music festivals, I placed, I won. I secured my grade six, I believe, voice designation, a classical soprano. Yes, classical. It's just the way things went, and I was good at it. I owe most of my musical snobbery to my classical training. But my passion, what I really wanted to sing, has always been more contemporary. Pop, rock, blues, jazz, and hallelujah, I found it. At you guessed it, church of all places. Well, Bible Camp, more accurately. Now, I'm not associated with the church anymore. That's probably another podcast, but their music, in my case, the contemporary Christian genre, tweaked something in me. I'd been singing classical up to this point. Um, so when I heard the words and the way the music was phrased, religious music is stunningly moving. Religious services by design are meant to move, in some ways, to break down their congregation, to humble them as equals before their God. I discovered a side of my voice that wasn't ever heard as a classical soprano. It was this softness, maybe you can hear it now, a breathiness, um, both deep and thoughtful, but also ethereal and angelic in a way, and not masculine, as men were traditionally singing the lead. My voice blended its softness, made people listen. And with a congregation of voices singing along, it didn't overpower. It provided that perfect accompaniment, I think. That power that I spoke about at the beginning, that moment where your voice is carrying people through an experience, in this case, a religious experience, and you can see it happening in front of you. You as the vessel, the conductor of the magic. That is what this experience was for me. I had found my musical again at church.

Host 8:22

There was a time in my church days which occupied basically all of my teen years where I wouldn't listen to anything other than ballads. I couldn't hear music any other way. It had to move me. Bon Jovi, Mariah Carey, Celine Dion, Whitney, all the big voices with their big anthems. I really wanted to sing like them too. It's never been my voice, unfortunately, but I tried really hard. It just wasn't worth my time if it didn't make my hair stand on end. So I started singing with the worship band at Summer Camp and Youth Group. Then I joined the family and young adult services at church. Of all the performing I was doing at that time, with choir or band or school musicals, being part of a worship team was everything to me. It was the pinnacle. You could say I was worship band royalty in Victoria in the 90s. But timing-wise, high school was coming to an end, and with that, important decisions had to be made about what was happening next. Possibly the one thing I could go back and do differently would be this next part. Maybe I can blame the system a little bit, as I was only 17, still totally a kid, and yet expected to choose the trajectory of my life. I was a young 17, and I was not ready to be bold, so I chose something safe. I did not research music schools abroad, or even a musical theater college I knew existed in my own town. I did not wait and make these decisions when I felt more comfortable to do so. I pushed forward because that is what everyone wanted of me, and that was how it was done. I did, however, choose a creative field, which served me well and actually still does. I was accepted into the applied communication program at Camosan College in Victoria. No travel, I could live in the safety of my hometown, and it was a very creative program. I learned about broadcasting, journalism, photography, graphic design, being on the radio, and I ultimately dropped out early because I got a good job at a brand new TV station who prioritized hiring young and female for their operations department. I was 19 years old operating a news camera. So where was music during this time? Well, thankfully, my job with its lights and live broadcasts and show times scratched the itch well enough. As my worship team colleagues went off to post-secondary adventures of their own, my favorite bandmates, many of them went on to have successful careers in music, they're that good, weren't available as often, and I kind of began to lose interest. It's been a theme in my life that five years is roughly my bandwidth for a passion before I inevitably switch gears. So, true to form, I'd been singing in the church for about five years when I decided to pull back. Enter Popstars.

Host 11:44

Have you heard of Popstars? Not everyone has. It's a reality show, like American Idol, but older. Me and 44 finalists from across the country converged on Toronto for our "bootcamp" week. It was clear quite early on that I lacked the confidence required to make it on this show. Some of the other kids there, wow - they didn't walk, they strutted. The way they moved and carried their bodies, their dancing, their speaking, they had a lot more confidence than I did. It became quite evident that I lacked the star power, I guess, needed at that age to survive in this world of cutthroatiness and pressure and fame. For years I blamed my naivety. Like if I'd been exposed to more when I was younger and played it less safe, I would have fit in more, but at 20 years old, I was just young. And singing in church had definitely skewed me more innocent. I frequently heard the term angelic to describe my voice and my vibe. My eyes were big and open wide. I was a fresh little baby in a very large pond. And I just wasn't ready. So I left Pop Stars and over the course of the next couple years grew up. You could say I had my adolescence in my twenties. That would not be a lie. I met my future husband, a brand new lawyer who was moving to Kelowna. But being my now bold, sure-of-myself woman with a touch of experience with boys under her belt, I did not join him in Kelowna (yet). We flew back and forth for a year before I gave in and joined him. I was working in advertising sales at that time for a local newspaper. Not my favorite job. Actually, I wasn't very good at it either. And it was time to go.

Host 14:29

Kelowna is a much smaller town than Victoria, and in 2007, when I moved here, whew, it was sleepy. But that's okay. We worked, I had no problem getting a job with a boutique, a marketing firm, and between Aaron and I became rooted in the business community. I met more people in this small town than I think I knew in total in Victoria. And I felt connected to an underground system. Like these were the people who were going to grow the city up. There was an underbelly of culture, and that was the word that I would use to describe what was missing in Kelowna versus Victoria. There was this culture that wasn't noticeable from the outside, but deep down, there were some passionate people who were going to put the city on the map. And I knew them.

Host 15:22

It's interesting, I've never said those words before and never thought about this part of my history that way, but yeah, it felt like a secret. There were these little events and a little art scene that felt very accessible to me when I was ready. Something I could actually be a part of. Like Kelowna was its own speakeasy. On the outside, it looked like nothing but dig a little, and there was the scene that was pushing up. Those who knew, knew. Even at the time, this was around 2010, I felt a stirring in my belly. I'd been out of the performing scene for about 10 years. And although my job continued to serve my creative outlet in many ways, the idea of a return to the stage excited me greatly. And I had this new confidence. Opportunity was present, and this time, unlike me at 17, it felt achievable. I think I always feared rejection. Taking the leap, giving it my all felt incredibly risky when I was young. And everything always felt too big, too mature for me. Too big for this angelic church girl. But time passed, and my new location played a part in my mindset this time. Older, wiser, and in a new city I felt a part of from the inside.

Host 16:45

Okay, I'm going to pause here. I didn't want to do this over two episodes, but it's a bit of a midpoint. And the next point is, well, let's just say this all sounds like a wonderful build-up to something great coming. And it is, it is. But it's a bit like the calm before the storm. Look, I took a bit longer than some to grow up, and nowhere here have we discussed mental well-being. Because quite honestly, it wasn't on my radar until the birth of my first child. What happened next is why Dear Evan Hansen, its focus on mental health and connection, the struggle we face as teens and parents, and the absolute necessity of vulnerability leading to human connection, why it rings so true for me, and I'm guessing every literal person. I'm not kidding when I say everyone should see this show, guys. But for me, getting to play a mother who is struggling with shining a light on how complex being a parent is, especially in this technology era, it's just so incredibly nuanced. And so rarely is our story included. Bringing this mother, Cynthia Murphy, to life feels in many ways like my life's calling. Like a chance to heal. From my own struggles, the darkest time in my life, to maybe expose motherhood. Not always as beautiful, natural, curated on Instagram. This is the realness we need to know and feel and talk about. Okay, next time we'll tackle part two of my story. It's a doozy. And hey, thanks for listening. This is me getting vulnerable here. Practice what you preach, right? Okay, and so if you get the chance, go see the show. Not just Dear Evan Hansen. Any show. Do it. Until next time.