400. Megan Ann Rasmussen, "Blazes The Artistic Trail With Vision And Passion" Theater Never Had It So Good!

For 20+ years, Megan Ann Rasmussen has served as an Award-Winning Producer, Director, and Educator, impacting multigenerational audiences.  As President of MAR Productions, she is committed to creating theatre that uplifts and strengthens each of us, building engaged communities. As a Producer she brought FREE PLAY: Open Source Scripts Towards an Antiracist Tomorrow to The TheaterMakers Studio’s Reading Series. Additionally, Megan Ann is developing Heaven Come Home by award-winning TheaterMakers Studio Member Justin Payne, features the moving “One More Day,” a musical number where families and their deceased loved ones yearn for one more day to be together.  Composer and lyricist Justin Payne says of Megan Ann’s contributions to the production, “To have Megan Ann produce this show has been monumental!” Megan Ann is Co-Producer of Joy: The Musical, a new Broadway show with Tony award-winning producer, Ken Davenport. She is also involved with A Beautiful Noise; The Neil Diamond Musical, The Griswold’s Broadway Vacation, Kinky Boots (Off Broadway), and is Lead Producer for Spells of the Sea (Regional.) Her passion for producing began at an early age as she sat glued to the television watching Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music. She was enthralled with the singing, choreography and the magic of what music and theater could be. As the bossy oldest child of 8, she took charge and produced elaborate set designs with cardboard boxes and index cards, and costumes she could find in the cast-off dress-ups. The seeds of a panache for producing were planted. Colleagues consider her “... in a class of her own,” and “a true find.” They’ve also said that “...whatever she does, she does it with heart and moxy,” as she “...blazes the artistic trail.” Quote #1 James I really believe that theater is best enjoyed with a young person on one side and a grandparent on the other Yeah, this intergenerational experience is something that as families, we don't get enough of it, when you talk about the show before we go to the show, the anticipation of what it's going to be like, and then sometimes I'm talking in the show, like, did you see that? Quote #2 We've had some great strategic partners. Um, I have a great co producer and Dr. Megan Alritz from the University of Texas at Austin. She helped orchestrate, there's no one path James, for how to get a show to Broadway, right? But, each path I think is interesting and pertinent or key to this project. So we did a development workshop called at Pegasus Play Lab, the University of Central Florida. Cool, right? UCF. Great people there. Julia, and we got it on its feet. And then, like, maybe like song writing, I don't know. I'd love to hear your experience. But after we got it on its feet, we did, we went back to do the rewrites. Quote #3 I love the people. I love the work, but I think we all owe it to our psyche and our creativity. To make sure we have time to refill that. Yeah. I actually just did a podcast on this about.......I call it the critical in between, which is this time between big developmental steps. The time where you have to check in and say, how's the show? How are my fellow humans? But also how am I, and you can't pull from a well that's not full. So there's a couple of things that I do. I. Um, I like to read, I'm a big, um, personal improvement junkie, um, I, there's a lots of folks that I like to listen to that fill my head, right? Let's, maybe if we went through the chakras, right, like it fills my head, right?   Please subscribe James Youtube channel here! https://tinylink.net/XSGqL Featured song for this episode is "Ride On", check it out on Spotify here https://open.spotify.com/track/5VQzjlHv7qZzyZIOSGkhjU?si=eb0d5a683f2e43d8   For a custom-branded song you can reach James at [email protected]   If you wish to have an appointment with James about coaching, use this link. www.calendly.com/dharmic Apple podcast review link Please leave us a 5 Star review, its easy to do, and really helps us out to grow the show! https://digitalhealthtoday.com/support/how-to-review-itunes/ Thank you for doing this my friends!