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And thank you for joining me again for Making Conversation, where every week I interview an artist in his or her 30s, who is doing work I find important, and has something illuminating to say about what it means to do what we do as we are now. 

 (click on the media player above left to listen to or download the full audio of this interview)

 A native of Southern Illinois, Erin holds a degree in Theatre from the University of Evansville with Associated Studies in Art & Music.  She currently resides in Nashville, TN where she has worked with various local theatre companies, and is a founding member and the Artistic Director of MAS Nashville (www.masnashville.com) – a production company focused on the development & realization of theatrical and musical ideas into performances.  Erin was the recipient of the 2011 Tennessee Arts Commission Individual Artist Fellowship Grant in Theatre.  Recently, Erin spent 2.5 years as a Resident Acting Company member at the historic Barter Theatre in Abingdon, VA.  In addition to her Barter and other regional theatre credits, she was in the cast of the 1st National Tour of Ring of Fire: The Music of Johnny Cash, and has also toured with CMA Award Winner & Grammy nominee Martina McBride.    Erin is currently playing the role of Emilia in The Nashville Shakespeare Festival’s production of Othello, starring Eddie George, and is rehearsing MAS Nashville’s latest offering: MAS AMOR POR FAVOR.

Erin was also my partner in the 2012 Country Roads Cookoff, and I’m proud to report that we won both the Audience Choice and Team Spirit awards.

CHELSEA:  How are you this morning?

ERIN: I’m good!  Rested.

CHELSEA:  You’re rested?  Awesome!

ERIN:  Great.  If you can make me not awkward, that would be awesome.  That’s been a dream of mine for a long time.  {laughs}

Erin Parker

CHELSEA:  {laughing}  I’ll do my very best.  So, we have known each other since the end of 2011, but just for the benefit of the folks at home, what labels do you use to describe yourself as an artist?

ERIN:  I’m an actor and a singer, also a writer and a storyteller.

CHELSEA:  Mover, shaker, heartbreaker?

ERIN:  Well, those too, of course.

CHELSEA:   Little bit of everything.

ERIN: Uh-huh!  {laughs}

CHELSEA:  So you’re in Nashville right now.  And you’ve lived in Nashville and made art there on and off for about a decade, with jaunts during that time to New York and Abingdon, which is where I live.  Not a lot of folks think about Nashville when they think theatre.  So let’s talk about why you’re living and making art where you are.

ERIN:  I first moved to Nashville in 2001.  And I didn’t know anyone, and I had never really spent much time here, other than one trip.  And I moved here because I knew there was music here, and I like music.  And a lot of people had told me that I would like it.  So that’s pretty much why I moved here.  And I was kind of at a place where I didn’t know what to do.  At that time I didn’t even know that I wanted to still do theatre.  I had majored in theatre in college, but I was kinda over it at the time, and I just thought, “Nashville sounds good.”  And I eventually found my way into the theatre world in Nashville.  Everybody knows Nashville as Music City, but there’s actually quite a bit of really great theatre going on.  I like it here.  It’s—it’s a small enough city that a country girl like myself can manage.  Cost of living is… doable.  I’m a person who kinda freaks out when my basic needs aren’t met.

CHELSEA:  Uh-huh.

ERIN:  And I get a lot of comfort from just knowing I can handle survival, um, which is something I know that… When I’ve lived in larger places, sometimes I can get a little overwhelmed with just, you know, feeding myself.

CHELSEA:  Right.

ERIN:  So when you can feed yourself AND make really great art, it’s kind of a win/win situation for me.

CHELSEA:  How does it compare to—besides just the cost of living—how does the scene compare to other places that you’ve lived and worked.

ERIN:  There’s not the same quantity of theatre professionals here as there are in a city like New York, or Chicago, or even LA, but, your ratio’s still probably about the same.  You’ve got Equity theatres, you’ve got non-Equity theatres.  A lot of the same stuff is here on a much smaller scale.  I don’t think that’s why a lot of people move here, but if you live here, there’s definitely a place to do that.

CHELSEA:  Is there some overlap between the two communities?  The music and the theatre communities?

Erin as Starlett O’Hara in I’ll Never Be Hungry Again (photo credit: Barter Theatre)

ERIN:  A lot—there’s a lot of overlap.  I know some actors who are also aspiring artists musically.  It’s funny—everybody sings here.  I overlap a lot with music and theatre.  I love music and I love theatre (I don’t love all musical theatre), but I like to find a way to marry the two.

CHELSEA:  You’ve toured with music-based shows before, like Ring of Fire.

ERIN:  Yeah, actually, when I moved to New York, the nice jobs that I immediately got were: Johnny Cash’s Ring of Fire, Patsy Cline, um, a John Denver show.  And I thought it was hilarious that I had to go to New York to get cast in Nashville-type shows.  I’m still navigating that and trying to find my view of that, and kind of where I fit into it. And.  Yeah.

CHELSEA:  You said this great thing when we were preparing for this interview, about how in your 20s you thought that there were rules that every artist lived by that you didn’t have a copy of, and you were so concerned with doing things right.  I think that’s a really common feeling.  These rules: tell me about them.

ERIN:  I was thinking about this.  I think that it stemmed, maybe, from growing up in a kind of rural community and not being connected to any sort of artistic or theatre world.  There wasn’t a lot going on there, artistically. So I kind of thought, like, artists were these other people.  And I wanted to be one of them, but I didn’t really know how, so I was always looking for somebody to tell me how.  Or show me how.  Or give me permission to be this person that I wanted to be and do these things.  And that continued, I think, through college because—I mean, I’ve always been kind of an over-achiever, perfectionist type.

CHELSEA:  We have that in common.

ERIN:  Yes.  {laughs}  So if I do something, I want to do it right and I want them to say, “Yes, that girl knows what she’s doing!  She’s doing it right.”  And that sort of carried over into my artistic life for quite a long time.  I think when you’re concerned with doing something right, you don’t take risks.  Because you’re waiting for someone to tell you how you are allowed to take risks.  I also kind of convinced myself that it was all about, like, what’s going on in your internal life, and I let that be all that was happening.  So not a lot was happening externally.  And a lot of that I know now, in hindsight, was because I was afraid of, “Well, what if I do something and it looks like I’m trying to do something.”

CHELSEA:  Uh-huh.

ERIN:  And I’ll be doing it wrong, and somebody’s gonna judge me, so I’ll just quietly do it right in my head and know that I know.  {laughs}

CHELSEA:  {laughing}  There’s a lot of layers of this.

ERIN:  And I think when I moved to Nashville, I was kinda done with theatre.  I worked in a bridal salon when I first moved here, which is hilarious if you know me.  I ended up just kind of auditioning for a show on a whim, and got the show, and just kind of got introduced into the Nashville theatre community.  And then through that I found some other jobs, and was performing more.  Gradually, I mean, this sort of happened gradually.  I just felt like people kept trusting me with larger and larger things.  Which allowed me to let myself grow.  You know, these people don’t know that in my head I was afraid to do things, so maybe I’ll just pretend I’m not.  And I think through that, I started just… not being as afraid.  I’m a much better artist now, in my thirties, than in my twenties.  And it’s not that I’m a different person or anything, it’s just that I’ve gotten a lot of… bullshit, for lack of a better term, out of my head.  I’ve also gained a lot of tools that help me actually do the work.  It’s not as nebulous a thing as it was for me in my twenties.

CHELSEA:  You and I have discussed privately the “to-grad-school or not to-grad-school” question, so let’s chat about that now.  What do you think the pros and cons of going back to grad school would be for you, as a person who has already had a professional career, and—if I may—in the words of Mary Lucy Bivins, is “on the dark side” of your thirties.

ERIN: {laughs} I am a person who loves learning.  I love the academic side of theatre, and I love analyzing texts, and I love talking, I mean, I love table work, I love talking about storytelling, I love… I just love every bit of it.  We took the time to do that in a lot of the stuff that I did at Barter, and there are a lot of really smart people there, who are really interested in making great art and talking about it.  And talking about what we can all do to make ourselves better artists.   I knew leaving that, that I would really miss it, and I thought, “Well, maybe grad school.”  But I also—one of the questions on a lot of grad school applications is: “Why do you want to go to school?  Now?  At this point in your career?  Why don’t you want to just work?”  And I think it’s a very different answer to that question when you’re fresh out of college and twenty-two or twenty-three, than when you’re on the dark side of thirty.  And the more I thought about it, the more I thought, “Oh, I don’t have a good enough answer.  For myself.”  And I am working right now, I work quite steadily, and the thought of taking two or three years out of where I am right now—when I come out, I might be a totally different type.  And I feel like the learning that I want to do is still going to be there, maybe in five or ten years, and if I still want to go back, at my age it’s not going to make much of a difference, either now or later.  {laughs}  So I think I chose to stay working while I’m working.  I mean, if I’m getting the same jobs as people with MFAs are getting in the marketplace right now, it’s not that that MFA is going to help me get a job, necessarily.  I mean, I’m sure I could learn a lot.

CHELSEA:  Recently, you had surgery on your vocal cords.  The day after Jon Hamm had the very same surgery with the very same doctor.  What was the point… what had change for you in the way you worked that you realized, like, something is not right here?

Note: Erin wants me to point out that she’s not completely sure that Jon Hamm had the exact same surgery she did, but the media reported it was the removal of a polyp on his vocal cord, which sounds the same to me.  Also, it was ABSOLUTELY the same doctor, and I think the fact that Erin and John Hamm did not meet is a missed opportunity for both parties.

Erin as Madame Thénardier in Les Mis (photo credit: Barter Theatre)

ERIN:  Well, I think that fortunately and unfortunately for me, I would often get hired—especially for county and pop musicals—because my voice doesn’t sound overly-trained, because it isn’t.  And it isn’t your average musical theatre sound.  And I think a lot of people get attention for their voices, including a lot of pop singers out there, because they have a particular sound.  And sometimes you don’t realize that that particular sound is something that might either be harming your vocal folds, or that this might be something that’s not sustainable on a musical theatre schedule, until it’s way late in the game.  I first started having vocal troubles that I was aware of when I was on the national tour of Ring of Fire in 2008.  I was belting my face off eight shows a week, not getting enough rest, and I didn’t realize that what I was doing wasn’t going to be sustainable for me.  And by the time I figured out I was having some trouble, I was knee-deep in the tour.  So I went on vocal rest, and would save my voice just for the show, you know, and pretend that I was Céline Dion. {laughs}.

CHELSEA:  {laughing}  Uh-huh!

ERIN:  And I’d write notes to my cast mates, and—I mean, that happens a lot, when people who don’t have vocal issues (like Céline Dion), rest their voice.  These are very tiny muscles, and when your career depends on them, you have to take extra special care of them.  So, I took extra special care of my voice during the rest of that tour, and when I finished I went to the doctor, and I found out that I had vocal nodules.

CHELSEA: {laughing} Whaaaa!

ERIN:  {laughing} Oh my god!  For anybody out there who doesn’t know, vocal nodules are basically bumps of scar tissue, or calluses, on the vocal cords where they beat against each other.  They beat themselves to death.  And I’ve been seeing voice specialists, and doctors, and speech pathologists on and off every since I started having that trouble.  And I found that, you know, just like with any medical issue, different doctors, different specialists have different opinions on how to treat it.  And I’ve pretty much tried everything that was out there.  Because I lot of people have them and work around them, and it doesn’t completely, you know, throw their careers off.

CHELSEA: Uh-huh.

ERIN:  But for me it kind of became a roller coaster.  I would work, and then I would rest, then I would work, then I would rest.  And I was able to kind of manage it like that for several years.  So when I was working at Barter Theatre… the workload there is unlike any place I’ve ever worked, and probably will ever work again.

CHELSEA:  Yeah.

ERIN:  It’s an eight-show-a-week job, plus as many rehearsals as Equity will allow.  And from an artist point of view, it’s glorious.  I mean, to have that much work, to have much opportunity to grow, to have that variety of characters, it’s really, really cool.  But it’s also really, really exhausting when you’re singing an alto part in one musical, and a soprano part in another musical, and rehearsing a play in which you yell a lot.  You’re shifting gears all the time.  And that’s a difficult job for people with cords of steel.  So, as a person that had vocal issues, I finally got to a point where the stress that I was feeling from that struggle was kinda more than I could handle.  So I went to the powers that be and explained what was going on, and they were like, “Go.  Fix it.  Stop wasting time, you’re dancing on broken legs.”  Which was true.  But at the time, you know, with the perfectionism, I was like, “No, I can do it.  I don’t want to admit that I’m broken, I don’t want to admit that I need help.  I want to continue to do this thing that I love.”  And nothing’s worth that.  Your health isn’t worth that, and your longevity isn’t worth it, and as much as it sucked to lose my job, it spurred me to make the decisions that I needed to make.  So I went to yet another doctor, after leaving my job at Barter, and he told me that considering where I was and what I’d already tried, and the fact that I had lost my job and my world had pretty much been turned upside down, that I was a great candidate for surgery.  And I really wanted to believe him, so I did.  And at that point I agreed, considering what I’d been navigating for the past five or six years, I didn’t think it was something that was going to just go away with a little more vocal rest, or with a little more therapy.  Because at that point, I had pushed so hard and so long, because I didn’t want to admit there was a problem.  Kids!  Don’t do this!  Get help right away!  {laughs}  Yeah, I was missing a good third of my range, and I knew that, until those nodules were gone, I wasn’t going to be able to do my job.  So for me it was a situation of… The risk factor in my head wasn’t as great because I didn’t have as much to lose.  I’d already lost a lot.  So it was an option that could possibly get everything back on track for me, and it really, really did.  I went ahead and had the surgery and that was in October of this past year, October 13, and I started rehearsals for the show that I’m in right now in December.  And I’m not singing.  I’m not gonna tackle a musical until the spring.  Definitely taking a lot more care with my re-approach.  I’m in vocal lessons, and I’m starting singing and speech therapy next week, and this is not going to happen again.  But… it’s really, it’s, it’s been a miraculous thing.  In my life.

CHELSEA:  Yay!

ERIN:  Yeah.  {affects a squeaky voice}  Do I sound different?  {laughs}

CHELSEA:  {laughing} Yes, you sound like a completely— you used to be a man!  I mean, so it’s—

ERIN:  {affecting a low voice} I used to sound like this.

CHELSEA: —shocking!

ERIN:  {affects a squeaky voice} Yeah, I know!  {laughs}

CHELSEA:  {laughing}  I heard a great deal in the last episode of this podcast about the reasons that an actress who wasn’t in a union in her twenties would want to join one in her thirties, and that was your experience as well.  So what made you want to join Actor’s Equity when you came into your thirties?

ERIN:  There’s a lot of non-Equity stuff going on here, so it wasn’t imperative that I be Equity to do work and have really great experiences.  And when I moved to New York when I was twenty-nine or thirty, and I started doing auditions there, it was like, “Oh my gosh.  {laughs} Non-Equity is rough.”  And trying to get Equity jobs, just trying to get auditions, trying to get people to take you seriously as an actor—I just noticed that it was different, a different ball game in New York.  And I remember that a friend of mine fell down on some mashed potatoes, and I tripped and fell on a piece of glass, and nobody even filed an injury report or an incident report.  And I thought, “If I’m a thirty-year-old woman, who wants to do this for a living, I need to set… I need to make some changes in the conditions under which I am willing to work.  And after the mashed potatoes/glass incident {laughs} I, uh, I got a job that gave me an Equity contract, and I was like, “Absolutely I’ll take that!”  And things have just truly looked up from there.

CHELSEA:  So is there anything that you find easier about making art now than five years ago, or anything you find more difficult about making art now, than five years ago?

Erin as Meg March in Little Women
(photo credit: Barter Theatre)

ERIN:  Well, suffering’s not as fun in your thirties as it was in your twenties, I think that’s a given.  And I also think that I’m bringing a lot more to the table, and I shouldn’t need to do that anymore.  I have gotten over a lot of that need to get things right, which has come from experience and maturity.  I’m a lot more willing to fail now than I ever have been, because, you know, I just don’t see failure as that big of a deal.  I mean, you have to try.  If there’s something I want to do, I’m gonna do it.  I’ll find a way to do it, I’ll try to do it.  I’m also not looking for somebody else to give me permission to do my work anymore.  I know there was a time when, even if I would get cast in a show, I would feel this pressure of like, “Oh, now I have to prove why I was cast.”  And I know, it’s something that you have to learn on your own, but for me I know that’s a total waste of time.  Any energy that you spend trying to prove yourself, is energy that you’re not spending really trying to serve the play and tell the story.  So, I think I’m a lot more interested in the work now.  And I think fear is exciting.  If I feel fear, then I know that I am probably on the right track, and I need to keep going toward that.  Because that’s what’s interesting to watch.

CHELSEA:  You, like me, are a person who believes in making work for yourself, in addition to hunting down work in the greater world.  So let’s talk about MAS Nashville and making projects.

ERIN: Oh, all right!  Well, MAS Nashville is a group of ladies in Nashville that I assembled in the interest of wanting to create something without, like, permission.  I had been talking for a really long time about, “Gosh, I need to put together a cabaret.”  And that used to be a habit of mine, to talk a lot about stuff that I wanted to do, but not actually do it.  And in the interest of making that change for myself, which I really have done, over the last few years—less talking, more doing.  Or, just the same amount of talking, but, just more doing. {laughs}  I have a ton of really interesting, talented, gifted, hardworking friends, and I reached out to these particular girls, I think, just because of timing, and fate, and the universe.  There are five of us.  We’re all really, really different, but we’re all musical and we’re all theatrical, and I thought—hey, let’s put together a cabaret of sorts, a concert-type-thing.  And without even realizing it, the people I picked all have talents that complement one another.  And it turned into this really cool thing.  You can visit MASNashville.com to read about who we are and what we do.  We put together a show called “Five” that spring, and we really thought, “If twenty of our friends come and see it and give us a little feedback, that would be amazing.  And we sold out—I mean, it was a small theatre, but we sold it out—and were shocked, pleasantly shocked at the response.  We were like, “Wow, maybe we should do this again.”

CHELSEA:  It’s incredibly entertaining and also very impressive.  And it’s a lovely show.  It’s great as an audience member, because you guys have a very natural rapport.  Even though you’re playing caricatures of yourselves, it’s sort of obvious how much chemistry there is within the group.  And then also, everyone is so extremely talented in such an easy way, that it’s sort of like, “Here are the things that I am good at.  Here’s the best impression I can do of myself on my best day.”  And it’s funny, and it’s poignant at moments, and it’s just a fantastic showcase for all five of you.

ERIN:  Yeah, the musical talents of these ladies are pretty impressive.

CHELSEA:  That’s true.  And you as well.  It’s not like you’re the weak link!  All five of you are really great.

ERIN:  {laughing}  We’re all completely different types; it’s not a competition, it’s  celebration.  And we called ourselves “MAS” because in Spanish that means “more,” and, you know,  there’s always room for more.  We hope to inspire other people to do their own thing and make their own projects.  It’s a Mutual Admiration Society.  It stands for that as well.  Hopefully, a few people have been inspired.

CHELSEA:  I’m inspired!  I mean I thought it was a fantastic show.  Now that you’re back in Nashville, you’ve got stuff on the front burner.

ERIN: Yeah!  We have a show February 16th and 17th that we are hoping to put the press release out for today.

Poster for MAS Nashville’s upcoming February show
(photo credit: ANTHONYMATULA)

CHELSEA:  Hooray!

ERIN:  Yay!

CHELSEA:  Well, I’ll definitely post the link to your website (click here) and the info about that (click here) in this blog so people in the area can check it out.  You said this great thing when we were preparing for this phone call: “I always have to have several personal projects going on that I am in charge of, that nobody can smooshe or take away from me.”

ERIN:  Did I say that?  “Smooshe?”  {laughs}

CHELSEA:  Yeah.  “Smooshe.”  That’s how I feel, too.  You wanna have something no one can smooshe or take away from you.  And I think that’s one of the reasons that you and I get along so well, is that we understand that we understand that about each other.

ERIN:  You know I feel like auditioning is a numbers game.  That’s something I learned in New York.  All I can do is go in and give the best audition I can give.  Show them the best version of myself.  And eventually somebody’s going to be looking for me.  Sometimes they’re not, but someday they will be.  And I think if I can keep that idea, you know, it’s a lot easier to not take things super personally.  And, in addition, if I’ve got other things going on, of my own, I am… happy.

CHELSEA:  In addition to the MAS Nashville stuff that’s coming up in February, you’re also doing a show right now with Nashville Shakespeare.  You’re in Othello, playing Emilia.  So, plug your show!  Tell me about it.  (click here for information)

ERIN:  Oh, okay!  This is my first show with the Nashville Shakespeare Festival.  I was really excited and surprised to get the part because I had just, you know, sort of moved back to town.  And I went and did my thing and thought, “Well, they either want me or they don’t.”  And they did.  And it’s been really great.  I’m working with a ton of new people.  So it’s been… it’s been really great. Nashville Shakespeare Festival does… it’s, it’s—I think one reason I really like it is because it’s kind of an academic setting.  They take the time to do the table work.  We do student matinées every Tuesday through Friday, with talkbacks, so I love that.  I find it fascinating.  The star of the show is Eddie George, who is a retired NFL player.  Which is pretty cool.

CHELSEA: Oooh!  Interesting!

ERIN:  To me the guts that it takes to do Shakespeare, as a former NFL star… I don’t know, it’s been really cool to watch him work.  He’s done… I think he’s done God’s Trombone, and he played Julius Caesar a couple of years ago, but that’s a much smaller role.  I mean, it’s called Julius Caesar, but, you know.

CHELSEA:  Right.  He dies.

ERIN:  {laughing}  Yeah.  This is a lot bigger role.

CHELSEA:  Yeah.

ERIN:  But he really wanted to do it, and he has really done a bang-up job.  He jumps in there.  He’s not waiting for anybody to give him permission.  Which, again, that’s something for me to learn from.  And he’s huge.  {laughs}  He’s  a very large man.

CHELSEA:  {laughing}  He could reasonably be physically intimidating in the part of Othello.

ERIN:  He can actually wrap his hands around Desdemona’s neck and they touch and…

CHELSEA: Whaaa!  So, wrapping up here, wrapping up our lovely conversation: What is your biggest artistic goal for the next year or the next decade?  Both exterior accomplishments, and also interior accomplishments. How do you want to feel?

ERIN:  Hmm… Um, I… Right now I don’t have an exterior goal.  I know that some people would say that that’s a terrible idea, that you should always know where you’re headed.

CHELSEA:  I don’t know about that.

ERIN:  But I don’t feel that way right now.  I know that I want to continue working.  And I know that I want to continue putting myself out there for opportunities.  But, I’m really learning that I don’t always have the best plan.  And when things go haywire—like, ie, my voice not working—sometimes the things that can come out of that are far better than what I could have imagined for myself.  What seems like a crappy thing in the moment actually turns out to be a really wonderful thing that spurs you on to be exactly where you need to be.  So I’m really working hard right now to let go of what I think I need.  You know, I don’t have that specific, like, “I am going to be in this show with this company by this day.”

CHELSEA:  Uh-huh.

Erin performing with MAS Nashville (photo credit: La Photographie Nashville)

ERIN:  I just, I don’t know.  I think… I just have this weird feeling about 2014.  That something really awesome is going to happen that I can’t even fathom right now.

CHELSEA:  I have that same feeling!

ERIN:  Isn’t that weird?  I’ve talked to a couple of people that do.  And some people I know are also terrified of 2014.  So, there is that out there as well.  I get it.  And who knows?  I have no idea what’s going to happen, but I feel like I’m in the right place, I feel like I’m doing the right things.  I go to work and I am excited about my job every day.  Which is a great place to be.

CHELSEA:  Yeah.  That’s where you wanna be.

ERIN:  Yeah, and I know that it’s going to end.  But there’s something else that’s going to happen, you know.  I have a job lined up for March/April, and… you know I would like to—I guess, external-goal-wise—I’d like to make enough money doing what I love that I don’t have to constantly be worrying about the money.  And that’s another thing that I’m kind of putting in the universe’s hands.  I don’t know how that’s going to happen, but I’m comfortable it’s going to happen.  It’s going to figure itself out.  But, yeah, I would like to not be stressed about money, that’s a goal.  Finding, creating, and keeping that balance through external projects and friendships and intaking art, as well as being an exporter of.  I think that’s going to keep me on that path.

CHELSEA:  Well thank you so much for chatting with me today.  As always, it’s wonderful to talk to you.

ERIN:  You too.

CHELSEA:  And thanks so much for making conversation.

ERIN:  You’re welcome, Chelsea.