Episode 0: Shana Pennington-Baird

Shana Hey, this is episode zero of go to your room and make stuff. I'm in one of my two rooms. I'm Shana Pennington Baird. I'm the host. I'm a voice actor. I've been a theater performer for most of my life. And when I had my kid, I built a booth downstairs and I started doing voice acting. And I do a combination of a lot of Microsoft. I did a power plant training orientation video yesterday. I occasionally get to play a magic mixie and do animation on television. I have done a couple of video games and I really, really love doing audiobook work. But for the most part, I do a lot of corporate. So I spent a lot of time talking to myself in a padded box downstairs. So that's one of my rooms that I go into. This is my new room and this is where I got the idea to do the podcast because finally when my kid moved into a bigger room, we took all the pink off the walls. And suddenly I had a space to put my music instruments back up. What you can't see is my 26 string Celtic harp over there, which I totally restrung it because it's out, right? Well, actually, I restrung four strings and then one string immediately broke. So I've bought all new strings so I can continue playing it and continue replacing strings like you do. I write and the biggest project that I finished was called Broken Wide Open. And it was a solo show that was written about when I went to Ireland by myself and I I'm an aortic dissection survivor. So my heart tried to leak slash explode. And it's very dangerous. Most people don't live. I did. And I was in Ireland. I was stuck there for four weeks. And while I was there, it really was a really great time. And so I had all these stories that I was telling in ERs when I came back. And someone said to me, promise me you're writing all this down. Shana (02:20.494) And I said, okay, you're right. You know what? I should write all those stories down. And I did. And it took me four years for that project to come, to become what it was. So it's a one person show with three outstanding musicians playing behind me on stage. So we did it. Well, first we were going to do a theater play and then the pandemic happened. And so we did it on Audible. So it's an audio drama that we did on Audible. And that was magic. I mean, even during the pandemic, having something to do like that was so amazing. And then we decided to take it to Edinburgh to the Fringe Festival where we got rave reviews. We performed, we did this one week of the whole festival. We also went to Ireland and toured it in Ireland and then went to Edinburgh and played medium -sized houses, but huge, great reviews. And so that was magic to get to go back over there and do it there. And then we came back to Seattle and we needed to do it here for the people that helped pay, like all the fundraising. to get the show over there. So we did the show at West of Lenin, which is a beautiful venue here in Seattle. We did that for four nights. And now I have taken the poster and I have hung it on the wall. I've got a shelf that has a CD on it and what I'm gonna play it on, I have no idea, I can play it in the car. I've got a CD from the audible version. I've got a postcard, I've got the poster. And now the question is like, well, now what? And I do lots of other things too. So the questions I tend to ask people on the show are gonna be things like, Before we dive into details, can we get to know you a little bit better? Can you share a fun or unique fact about yourself our listeners might not be aware of? And I just did. My heart tried to explode in Ireland. It doesn't get better than that. And here's one. My heart valve clicks at negative 57. Downstairs in my booth. But we found a super secret gate so no one can hear it. So, okay. Tell us about your art medium, theater. Just talked about it a lot and a voice acting. Where do I fall on the spectrum of full -time to hobby? I am a full -time artist. So I also teach. So I do a lot of coaching, a lot of teaching, but I am doing the art in all of my spare time. And it's really a combination of teaching and the art where I make my living. What does a day look like for me? Well, it's great. I get up, I take my daughter early, early to a ferry. She goes to the Vashon school district. So I put her on a ferry so she can go to school all day. Shana (04:45.39) And then I come back and I probably work out and then I, because I need to keep exercise for the heart. I go straight in my studio and I do eight to 10 or more auditions. I professionally audition. That's what I do. And then if I'm lucky, I'll get to come up here and work on some music for a while. Uh, I will be working on maybe some writing for a while. And then I go down and do coaching sessions. So I might be coaching or I might have a directed session for voiceover. I might do two or three hours of sessions for voiceover. If I'm doing an audio book. I might have eight plus hours of voice sessions downstairs. Then I go pick up the kid, then I make dinner, then I teach a class at night, typically voiceover or vocal health. And then I fall into bed at like nine, because I'm 50. I'm way, I mean, I'm beginning to look more my age, but I don't really sound my age. I tend to voice people who are like teenagers, but I go to bed wicked early. So that's a day. One of the questions I ask, two questions that I ask everybody. One is... Did anyone ever say exactly the right thing to you to get you where you are today? And the answer to that is, yeah, yeah. I was in ninth grade, 10th grade, 10th grade. And the Arizona Repertory Company, I was living in Scottsdale at the time, they were doing a version of Pippin, which is a show I adore. And they had high school kids could come and I... I think they were teaching us theater classes. It was just very odd. We never did Pippin. We never actually did a show. And I'd been in dance as a Colorado ballet, all this, but we went to these rehearsals. And I remember one day I was leaving with my boyfriend and one of the women in charge, the director, she goes, she's really good. And she whispered it like across the room. And I know we're not supposed to need permission to do this stuff, but, there's something about the way she said it and it. I've never ever forgotten, it's gotta be 36 or so years ago, but just that little bit of permission opened the doors to my getting musical theater scholarship and going off and doing college to theater. Yeah, I needed that. I needed that permission. And then I like to ask the question, did anyone ever say the wrong thing? And how did you cope? Definitely. I've had some people say the wrong things. Shana (07:05.966) And that's why I ask, that's why I'm asking everyone in the podcast, because I really wanted their coping strategies. Mine are mixed. I've been told it would be a terrible idea. No one will come. I have been told the title is too long. I have been told, just don't try it. And man, I just kind of have to put the blinders on and just do it anyway. And this is interesting because it always kind of comes from people who know me the best. And I just kind of have to blow through it sometimes and maybe not ask for opinions sometimes. I try to ask and get feedback from the right people, right? So Facebook is like not the place if you do audio books, everyone eventually gets a one -star review. Like how do you deal with that? Mostly I've had lots of really nice reviews. In theater, I had my mix of good and bad reviews. Rob and I talk about this in our episode. I tend to throw out the best reviews and I throw out the worst reviews and I kind of stick to the middle if I pay attention to reviews at all. I think I do the art for me. I do. I do it for myself. And so if the benefit is getting to show my work and get it out there, cool. But really I'm doing it for myself. And I always want to be getting better. I constantly want to be improving my craft. That's everything actually. I don't think I've ever gotten to a place where I didn't want to keep working on it. That's important. I don't care what medium it is, you know. So if someone says the wrong thing, you get a bad review, whatever, let it go. Bless it and release it. I ask people on a bad or discouraging day, what do you do? Do you have something that helps you turn it all around? Yeah, I like LUSH bubble baths with candles. I give myself permission to get out of what I'm working on. I will go for a walk. There's a beautiful sculpture in Lincoln Park right now in West Seattle. He's gotta be almost 30 feet tall. He's this troll and he's made of sticks and his hair is all made of sticks and he's holding this musical conch shell and his eyes are closed. I go hang with him. You know, the muse of artistic stuff and man, I feel so much better after I hang with him for a while. And I also like to have a lot of things happening at once. So I like the fact that I will, you know, Shana (09:31.15) I might play guitar for a while, I might write music for a little while, I might work on a book for a little while, I might work on auditions for a long while. I might be working on a lot of stuff on the same day. And I like the fact there's multiple projects. So this is a podcast all about creativity and frankly the reason I'm doing the podcast is for me. I want to ask all these amazing people these questions. I want to know and I'm really glad you want to know too. So let's listen back together and find out the secret. The secrets, the best ways to make art by ourselves. How do we stay sane? How do we love to do it? How do we keep on doing it? Thanks.