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[0:00] Nella Vera: Good evening, everyone. Welcome to the fabulous Feinstein's/54 Below. Before we get started this evening, just a polite reminder, please take this moment to silence your cell phones and also there's no flash photography, please. Welcome to the Feinstein's/54 Below Podcast. I'm Nella Vera, the club's marketing director. And I'm super excited to welcome our guest today. She won the Miss America pageant in 2002 and has gone on to have an incredible career spanning opera, musical theater, and television. In 2007, she released Soul of Love, an album of classical music with pop stylings. On April 20th, she'll make her Feinstein's/54 Below debut with her show, Bring My Crown: Miss America Sings Broadway. Katie Harman, welcome to our podcast.

[0:51] Katie Harman: Thank you, Nella. I appreciate it. Great to be here.

[0:54] Nella Vera: We were so interested by your career because it's had a very interesting path from becoming Miss America to exploring all these other worlds. Can you talk about your career journey and how it evolved?

[1:06] Katie Harman: Oh my goodness, did it evolve? It very much evolved. So I've always been a musician of some sort. So I was pursuing biology and I had this love for the sciences that was also going to be quite expensive going into college. And I was searching for a way to pay for college because it was entirely on me to fund my college education, any advanced education that I was going to receive. And midway through my freshman year of college, as I am doing work-study programs in the biology lab, auto-claving flies that were part of various experiments. That's how glamorous it was. I was also still pursuing music. I was still doing voice lessons, I was still doing productions. And there was this kind of realization midway through that freshman year that maybe biology was something that wasn't my first love.

And I coincidentally ran into my former drama director from high school during holiday break in between that year, and I expressed to her some of my concerns. I also expressed to her that I was still needing to find a way to fund the $42,000 a year that I was paying for my higher education. And she said, "Have you ever thought about the Miss America organization?" And I had known this woman for so much of my life, and she knew me well. She herself had been a part of the program when she was pursuing her education, and she had followed the evolution of the pageant, and I thought, "Hmm, I had never thought that this would be an avenue for me to pursue. This is kind of an unusual way to go about getting scholarship money."

I was not a pageant girl in the sense that I had never competed in a pageant before, but I had done plenty of performing up to that point. I mean, I was a kid performer, so this was constantly part of my life, music was, but I was intrigued by this. I was intrigued that she thought that I could be a good fit for it. And lo and behold, I entered my first local competition, the Miss Multnomah County Scholarship Program. And I won a substantial amount of scholarship money, and I kept going in the system. A year and a half later, I find myself as Miss Oregon and on the stage at the Miss America pageant representing Oregon. And I am crowned Oregon's first and thus far only Miss America. But the unusual part of that journey is that I was crowned right in the wake of 9/11.

[4:05] Katie Harman: I remember.

[4:06] Nella Vera: Yes.

[4:06] Katie Harman: So it was like it wasn't 9/11 on Tuesday and then the pageant was Saturday. The next week.

[4:11] Nella Vera: The next week.

[4:13] Katie Harman: Yeah, the next week. And my first appearances were Ground Zero and the Pentagon and Dover Air Force Base in the Mortuary unit where the bodies of those who had been lost at the Pentagon were coming through. I mean, these were the kinds of... this is how that very unusual year and unusual experience started. And I'll tell you, Nella, you know, all those years of being in productions and then something as tremendous as performing on stage at the Miss America Pageant, I sang "O Mio Babino Caro" from Puccini's Gianni Schicchi, because I had trained in opera. But it was just nearing the second week of my beginning of my year as Miss America, I was asked to address the family members of those lost at a ceremony in Crystal City, Virginia, just outside of Arlington.

And during that time when I was asked to speak, I lost the word. I just... what do you say in that moment? I'm 21 years old, by the way. And as a performer, you know, you put on the face, you pretty much kind of know in most instances how to get the words out. But I was speechless, and the only way that I knew how to communicate at that time was to start singing. And so I started singing "God Bless America." And the craziest thing happened in that moment. I... Linda Carter, who was the original Wonder Woman, was also there.

[5:57] Nella Vera: Legend.

[5:58] Katie Harman: Legend. Especially now. I mean, Wonder Woman is now huge in culture, even more so than she was then. But Linda was also there on behalf of the USO, and she was sitting with family members who were also in the audience, and she had on these gorgeous big sunglasses, you know, very, very celebrity. And she took those sunglasses off and she stood up and she started to sing with me. And then the rest of the families stood and started to sing, and it was that moment that validated the role and the job of Miss America at that time. Because there's always the question, there was always the question in my mind, is this going to be something that the world needs right now in the midst of this tragedy?

And am I going to be able to do or say anything of relevance in the midst of all of this? And when she stood and when they sang, or when they stood with me and we all started singing together, not only did that solidify my approach for the rest of that year, but that solidified what I would turn to for the rest of my life as a performer. I will always point to that as a pivotal moment in my career because it wasn't about the lights, the sound, the stage, it was about connection, and it was about using that connection that we all felt through music to communicate the human experience. Tragedy, triumph, joy, heartbreak, all of that was encapsulated in that moment. And I've taken that with me now throughout my career.

So when Miss America, during Miss America, I was obviously able to get my foot in the door to do more performances, and from that point forward, I of course went back, finished my education. I have to use that $75,000. And I did every dime of it in undergrad and grad school. I received my graduate degree in vocal performance as well. But I've done opera and special recording projects and many symphony gigs, lots of musical theater, tons of musical theater, and do a smattering of jazz as a special guest with the band Pink Martini.

[8:16] Nella Vera: I love Pink Martini.

[8:19] Katie Harman: There's... I do too! They're like the epitome of a dip, you know, right-way. It's crazy just how hip they are, and you feel like you should be, you know, sipping a martini, literally.

[8:37] Nella Vera: That's the name of the proposal.

[8:38] Katie Harman: Yes, it's a party. So I feel like all of the variants of my career has just helped me to tap into just how much of a mirror we are as performers of the human experience, and I appreciated all of that variance.

[8:56] Nella Vera: Yeah, I love that because it is about bringing people together also. And I remember watching the pageant, which, you know, I would watch it sometimes with my parents, but right after 9/11, it just seemed like a very strangely patriotic thing to do because everybody was tuning in, nobody was leaving their houses yet. Like we were here in New York, and we were going to Broadway shows because we'd been told by the mayor, "Go to a Broadway show. Let's not let this take down the city." As soon as the city reopened, we were all going to see shows that we had already seen. But really, on a Saturday night, there wasn't anything to do. And so I felt like the whole country watched, and even just... even if you're not interested in pageants, it's called Miss America. So it was a strangely patriotic thing to be doing at the time.

[9:48] Katie Harman: And I heard that over and over again. My first trip to New York, Nella, very first trip to New York, I'm a girl from a small town in Oregon, was that next day after being crowned. And my first day of appearances was, you know, Good Morning America and the Today Show, and around with various news channels and Regis and Kelly at that time, and that night with David Letterman. And that was David's first show back on air after 9/11. And so it was Mayor Giuliani was the first guest, and then it was me. And that next day was when I was slated to go to Ground Zero with the USO. And I remember talking with Mayor Giuliani in the green room, and really getting an immense sense of the spirit of New York on that first day, but especially sitting in that green room with Mayor Giuliani and then being on stage with David.

And it was powerful because for someone who has never experienced the spirit of New York, for that to be my first experience in the midst of something that was a harrowing time, right? It shook the entire world, but it especially shook that city in a way that has been very difficult to recover from.

[11:27] Katie Harman: So that prepared me when I went to Ground Zero then the next day. I was there to provide support to respite facilities, respite boats. There were these respite boats that were in the harbor. I was with the USO to help serve coffee and sandwiches and talk with first responders and the rescue workers who were there in the midst of the rubble. And I was there for maybe about half an hour at first, and then I was taken to a table of three rescue workers, three gentlemen. They had worked for about 48 hours. They had been on a shift for about 48 hours. I brought them over some coffee, sat down, started to talk to them. One of them asked me to sign their helmet to autograph their... and that was a surreal moment because I thought I should be asking you.

This is very surreal. But as I'm sitting there talking, one of the gentlemen said exactly what you said, Nella. "I watched you on Saturday. My wife made me sit down and watch the pageant." And he was like, you know, in his thick New York accent, and he said, "I've never seen Miss America before." And then he said, "Thank you. Thank you that I got to see this. Thank you that we had the pageant, that there was something to watch that was ironically very, very patriotic." Years later, I attribute why people were tuning in and why it was so meaningful that year, because it wasn't the encapsulation of the American dream in a way. The American dream has morphed and changed and has different meaning from when the pageant first started in 1921.

And it started as a PR ploy by the businessmen of Atlantic City. And they thought, "Let's flash a little leg from some pretty girls and get people to stay in Atlantic City past Labor Day." That's how the pageant started. But it morphed and evolved, and as we saw these young women have the opportunity to change their lives, it became the encapsulation of the American dream. And so at that juncture in time, to see these young women continuing to pursue the American dream through something like the Miss America pageant was a balm. It was soothing, it was helpful. And when that gentleman said that, oh, I've never forgotten that. I have a picture that my traveling companion snapped at that moment that lives with me.

[14:13] Katie Harman: Yeah, it's also, you know, entertainment that you need that. You know, that's something the arts also provides to take your mind off that moment and bringing people together. I think I remember, you know, that's why they often credit Mamma Mia! with being such a big hit because it opened in October in New York and the New York Times reviewer was Ben Brantley, and you know, these reviewers don't like this type of show, these jukebox musicals, but he even mentioned in the review that he couldn't be too harsh on it and this was something that we needed. And you know, they kind of always credit the fact that it opened after 9/11 for its massive success because just we were so desperate to have fun and to have some joy and to come together with other people, and that's sort of the epitome of a show that you go in big crowds, you go with your girlfriends, you go as on your bachelorette party and dance to ABBA music.

[15:24] Nella Vera: I mean, what's better than that? Dancing Queen comes on, that's your cue, that's your jam. Yeah, yeah. I wanted to ask you a question about what you said about the pageant changing, and I think even in the last few years, you know, the last 20 years, it's also changed quite a bit. Can you talk about, you know, what's different now?

[15:45] Katie Harman: What I've noticed the most, I think, is that the young women really know how to use those opportunities that are presented to them. They're so smart and aware. Um, you know, not that you all weren't using those opportunities either, but I think because of mass media, there's more opportunities now for them to grab at that are more in synergy with something like the pageant. But I'd love to hear, like, you know, what you think is different now. And you know, well, it's certainly when you were crowned, yeah.

[16:15] Nella Vera: Yeah, I was crowned before social media, but it was right before the advent of social media because I remember in what was it? I was crowned in 2001, September of 2001, and 2005 is when I had my son. So I got married in 2003, just right off the heels of Miss America and had our son in 2005, and that is when I opened a Facebook account. So it was, I always kind of think about, wow, it really wasn't that far off of when I was Miss America when social media started to really explode.

[16:59] Katie Harman: The differences between being a Miss America now as opposed to when I was Miss America is that the media, the press attention was still very much the same. The industry, the mechanism with which we encourage celebrity and certainly the way in which the pageant had wanted to portray the advancement of women for at that time, you know, 80 years, now it's a hundred years, had not changed all that much. The major difference then when social media became a component of what the modern Miss America were using was that more people, more young people especially were able to see what all of the ways that Miss America was serving. Most people were seeing the pageant on that one night a year. And they would hear in the news or um in a magazine or read somewhere or watch a clip somewhere of what Miss America was doing, but certainly not every day.

Now you can go to Miss America's feed and you get to see exactly what she's doing at all times. And so that affords young women greater opportunity to connect with people on a much broader scale. So from, I would have loved that.

[18:20] Nella Vera: But it's a mixed blessing though.

[18:24] Katie Harman: Yes. I loved the fact that I was traveling 20,000 miles a month and I was meeting with people personally. So the interpersonal skills that I developed went hand in hand with my personality, which is very social. I love people. I love being around people. I mean, it's it isn't any wonder that I became a performer because I feed off of that in-person connection with people, which is why I love performing on stage. Television's a totally different medium, movies, totally different medium. There's nothing like having a live audience is really special. So for me, I really fed off of that, and it helped me to grow as a performer, but also just in with my communication skills. So, and I, it was a much different sort of societal pressure when it came to media on Miss America at that time.

[19:25] Nella Vera: So the mixed blessing of this is that the modern Miss America is their every step is finitely scrutinized and judged.

[19:37] Katie Harman: It was for me. I felt the judgment. I felt the pressure. I wholeheartedly dove into trying to be the most perfect person I could possibly be, which is extremely destructive. So if we think about what young people today are experiencing with filters and with social media and with constant barrage of having to be a brand and have a certain appearance, um, I was able to kind of turn that off when I went back to a hotel room. I didn't have to post.

[20:15] Nella Vera: And there were people with camera phones around you following your every move.

[20:20] Katie Harman: Yeah, that's exactly right. So it is, it's a mixed blessing. Um, that's something though, that in my show at 54 Below at Feinstein's, I will be addressing. I'm gonna be talking about the wonderful and the terrible of what it is to be Miss America and especially addressing the trajectory afterwards. Um, Miss America is one of the best things that happens in your life, and it's also the most disruptive because you are, as a young woman in today's society, we are already barraged with all of these images and all of these messages of how a woman is supposed to behave. And when you are Miss America, it is expected of you for all time. You know, I could become president of the United States, and the headline would read, former Miss America becomes president, right?

It follows me. But it is expected of me to constantly be someone who is engaging and intelligent and communicative and kind, and all of these things, all these messages that we feed to women that they have to be at all times. Heaven forbid, when you become a mother, that you have your child's shit on your shirt, and you're going to a grocery store, you still have to be Miss America, right?

[21:44] Nella Vera: Yeah.

[21:45] Katie Harman: You can't have a bad day.

[21:47] Nella Vera: You can't have a bad day.

[21:49] Katie Harman: But it's important for me at this juncture, 20 years out, having done all of this self-discovery, but also for the modern woman to know that we are many things at all times. Many things. We are never just one image. We never have to fall into the trap of being typecast. We have to take it upon ourselves to encourage other women that it's okay to have a bad day. It's okay to not fit into the image that has been perpetuated for years and years and years. I think now is a really good time post-pandemic to start to get these messages out. And that's gonna be really what this show that I'm doing is about is, yeah, we're gonna talk about Miss America. That's what Bring My Crown is, is like huddle around, kids. It's story time. You're gonna get all the good and the fun through music, which is authentically how I feel my stories and the stories of others is through music.

[22:55] Nella Vera: Well, and speaking of, so you have a fellow former Miss America who is, I guess, on your show, uh, and she's also obviously a Broadway veteran, Kate Shindle, also the president of Actors Equity. Um, how did you meet Kate?

[23:09] Katie Harman: She is a big deal. Well, obviously, as Miss America Sisters, we met pretty early on. But the great story of how I officially met Kate in person. I obviously knew of her, I studied her before competing. Um, she was Miss America 1998. She went straight to Broadway and, you know, shot out like a cannon. She is a shining star, Kate. Um, but she was doing a production of Gypsy in Portland in my hometown that weekend that I was crowned in America. And she said that she sat in her hotel room, obviously, you know, in the midst of shows, um, because she could not miss watching the Miss America pageant. And she turned it on, and of course, she's watching me, Miss Oregon, being crowned, her Miss America sister, while in Portland, Oregon.

She was still doing that run of Gypsy when I returned back to Portland for my homecoming. And one of my first engagements that I was privileged to do upon my homecoming was to attend one of her productions of Gypsy. And so that was the first time that we officially met. Now, all these 20 years later, we have had so many instances to get to know each other. I spent Thanksgiving that year as Miss America with Kate, her brother, and her mother and father, and they had, um, Gordon and Maggie, and Kate have become a very, very, very important part of my life and of my family's. The sisterhood, that phrase that we use to describe the Miss America, is really true. Anytime you have a shared experience that is both terrific and terrifying and traumatic, um, and it's difficult for anyone else to kind of understand the intricacy and all of the nuances of that, you bond pretty quickly and in a way that's very akin to someone that you share family with.

[25:30] Nella Vera: So it's just like a small club of people.

[25:34] Katie Harman: Yeah, I always love seeing those pictures of President Obama with President Clinton and the Bushes. Because, you know, and President Carter, like they're the only people that know what it's like to be the leader of the free world. And I feel like the Miss America, you know, there's such a, it's such a small group.

[25:53] Nella Vera: Yeah.

[25:54] Katie Harman: Yeah. But Kate is also of the mindset, like me, that it is important for us as performers and as women to help people see beyond the "there she is, our ideal image," to see the humanity behind a young woman doing a pageant to pursue her education and her career. That there's so much more to that. So our this portion of the show that she and I are doing, we're gonna be doing two duets, and we're gonna be hearkening to some pretty terrific Broadway ladies in this time. But we're also doing a really, really touching duet that speaks to the portion of being Miss America, the complexity of holding so tightly to this experience, but also wanting to move on, also wanting to experience the world around us. It's one year in our life, but it folds over to so much life to follow. So this is a really special duet. We're really excited to do that.

[27:04] Nella Vera: So, and who are your other guests? I mean, you have two other guests. Can you tell us about them?

[27:10] Katie Harman: Uh, Jimmy Harod is the latest star for America's Got Talent. He just, America's Got Talent. I met Jimmy through Pink Martini. He's also a guest with Pink Martini. Terrific singer. He's a Pacific Northwest friend. Um, and Jimmy was a complete smash golden buzzer star when he sang a rendition of Tomorrow from Annie on America's Got Talent and blew the world away. He is just about to wrap up his time in Vegas with their AGT live show. And so Jimmy's gonna join me for a medley of tunes. I'm very excited. And then Thomas Lauderdale, the fearless leader of Pink Martini, um, Thomas Lauderdale and China Forbes, who's the lead singer for Pink Martini, are some of the dearest people in my life. And Thomas has been a fan of the Miss America Pageant, someone who's followed it, but he also knows all of the intricacies of my experience post-America. And so he is going to be joining me on in some really, really touching moments of conveying some of the more difficult parts of that year. So I'm thrilled. And then I have one more special guest too.

[28:38] Nella Vera: Oh, you do?

[28:39] Katie Harman: Yes.

[28:41] Nella Vera: No, it's not.

[28:42] Katie Harman: I just announced her. So I, uh, one of my, one of the things that is happening now as my, in my second life, I turned 40 in 2020. Lord help us all, right? That was cool. That was no joke. But in, uh, when I went back to grad school, I met a terrific Canadian pianist, prodigy pianist. Uh, she and I hit it off. Christine Eggert is her name. Christine now lives in Copenhagen. And Christine, as fellow compatriots in academia, as totally self-proclaimed and very true, true academic nerds when it comes to music history.

[29:27] Katie Harman: We discovered that there were no resources within what we were being taught and what we were teaching as instructors about female composed music. There were no theory examples in our academic references or resources by women, and there was a lightning bolt moment through in the midst of grad school where the two of us looked at each other and said, "Why haven't we known about this composer and this composer and this composer and this composer?" We're doing all these classical concerts and we're doing the same five composers. And there's not a black composer among them. There's no one of Latinx heritage. What, where are these people? What has happened? Why are we continuing to perform the same music?

And so we took it upon ourselves basically to dive into this hidden corpus of music by hidden composers, by female composers and others. In 2020, we started the Virtuosa Society. And that's my next act is we have an opportunity to perform these pieces that we are uncovering and also reveal the stories of these women who have been hidden throughout history in composition.

[30:49] Katie Harman: So I'm gonna do a little tribute to Dorothy Fields. Dorothy Fields was one of the foremost lyricists on Broadway in Hollywood as well. She's written everything that we hold dear from the 1950s through the 60s and a little bit of the 70s. But we don't talk about her in the same way that we do other lyricists. So we're gonna do a very meaningful tribute to Dorothy Fields.

[31:19] Nella Vera: Oh, great.

[31:20] Katie Harman: And I'm so excited.

[31:21] Nella Vera: So she's flying over from Copenhagen to join what?

[31:24] Katie Harman: That's amazing. I know, very, very, you should hook up with the organization Maestra, which is run by Georgia Still, the composer, Jason Robert Brown's wife, and it is about a community of female composers, and they're great for the work that they're doing.

[31:47] Nella Vera: Yeah, and they perform at 54 Below a lot like members of the company, but you know we just love them because they're out there sort of supporting younger composers. Well, it doesn't have to be younger but female composers that have not come to the forefront necessarily.

[31:47] Katie Harman: That's right.

[31:47] Nella Vera: So yeah, great. It's a real precipice, right? This is a time in history where now there are there's more knowledge about these hidden composers, there's more knowledge about female composers in general and that is going to start the conversation among musical groups and societies and hopefully in programming greater programming for pop conductors for symphony orchestras for more to be done in our major performance houses as well. It's creating this awareness, a greater awareness and I'm this is so exciting to me and something that is very, very fulfilling work but so fantastic with this project. Your set list for the show is spanning like different genres I think, right? What's your favorite genre to perform and do you have any musical inspirations?

[31:47] Katie Harman: Oh gosh, it's so varied. It's as varied as my career there now. I because I started as an opera kid, I was very drawn to the world of operetta very early on. And operetta was really for me the gateway to musical theater to exploring my voice beyond opera. And I also feel like that golden age of operetta is so melodically interesting. However, it was not thematically interesting. And that's what breaks my heart is that women and most characters were very much typecast. They were portrayed in one way. So there's the one thing about operetta that just drives me crazy. But melodically, it was so beautiful. And then for me to the early leading from that, the early golden age of Broadway, the 1930s, 40s, 50s, that is my favorite genre.

That is my favorite era of musical theater. And throughout this show, my set list has morphed in really, really exciting ways. It's now including more pieces from this golden age, but arranged in such a way and within medleys that makes sense for a modern ear and a modern time. And that excites me. I'm really, really thrilled because I feel like that's really authentic to me. It's authentic to my voice. You know, when we talk about different voices in musical theater, mine would be considered legit soprano, meaning that there is this sense of slight classical portrayal, right? The classic portrayal, but of soprano anyway. And I there is a place for that. There's a place for all voices in musical theater, which is why I feel so drawn to doing musical theater. Because it's vast and wide. You can see yourself. I want everyone to be able to see themselves on stage. And there is an opportunity to do that.

[35:29] Nella Vera: Yeah, yeah, definitely. And certainly, you know, I think that's what's special about 54 Below is that we cater to the musical theater fans and aficionados and performers. And not only do they come and perform show tunes, but it could be somebody who is a famous soprano and they want to come and sing Beyoncé, and they can do that, you know. And it's like there's shows for everybody. We have, you know, everything from Tony Award-winning performers to, you know, independent singer songwriters writing their first musical, to, you know, members of different choruses on Broadway who step forward and show that they're also stars that just they just haven't broken through yet. And that's what's so exciting.

[36:16] Katie Harman: And even with performers like you who kind of straddle slightly different worlds, you know, we've had I think next month, I believe, or maybe it's in May, we have Mary Lou Henner, who she's come back, but you know, she also started as a Broadway, but people know her as a Broadway performer, people know her as this enormous TV and film star. And you know, but she sings and dances. And so that's what's so fun about working for me, about working at 54 Below and just it's a joy to have just the variety of work that we have on the stages, you know, and I love that.

[36:54] Nella Vera: And we do have some opera too.

[36:56] Katie Harman: Yes, indeed. And this, you know, I'll hark back to a little bit of opera during this because that's my foundation but the show will be total Broadway tunes. I mean that's and there is something for everyone people will walk away knowing these songs that I'm singing and I'm thrilled for that but I have to say that one of the performers that I'm so excited about in April just a couple weeks before I'm performing is Ari Shapiro and yes Ari is another Pink Martini friend and guest and Ari and I have been talking about this because this is his 54 Below debut as well but Ari that we cannot express the number of times that people say oh we hear Ari every day on All Things Considered, NPR is always playing but we had no idea that he was such a terrific performer. He has a show with Alan Cumming right now.

[37:55] Nella Vera: I know I saw that. It's so good.

[37:57] Katie Harman: It's so good. It's so funny when we booked him his name the sheet came you know into my inbox and I thought that's the same name as the All Things Considered guy and then it was the All Things Considered guy and I fell down a rabbit hole of like okay I what he sings because sometimes we get a few people and you think do they really sing or are they just celebrities you know and I fell down the rabbit hole of his videos and my jaw I had to pick it up. I watched all his Pink Martini clips, you know. I watched him with Alan. It was just like, what is happening? Like my worlds are colliding. It was very, very crazy.

[38:41] Nella Vera: But I love that.

[38:42] Katie Harman: I love that. You know, I think when I was much, much younger, I remember where people had to stay in their lanes. So beauty queens were beauty queens, and it was very hard for them to cross over and do other things, right? And then I remember even with actors, once you were on a TV show, that was it. You were never cast in a film. So there were film people and there were TV people, and never the two crossed over. And now you see these gigantic film stars doing prestige TV, they do because of the streaming services, and likewise, you know, to have somebody like Ari, who is a guest of Pink Martini, but also has a daytime, you know, a show on NPR, it's a little bit crazy, but I just love that because it means there's so much more opportunity for people that you know, yeah.

[39:36] Nella Vera: I think young performers coming up now, it's competitive and it's rough, but so many of them are making their own opportunities with all this media that's available, with podcasts, with web series, with just YouTube. They're young people making serious bank from their YouTube channel.

[39:54] Katie Harman: True, and I think that's really great and amazing for, you know, for just opening up a world of opportunity. Before I let you go, I have to ask you, are you still living in Oregon?

[40:04] Katie Harman: Yes, I live in southern Oregon.

[40:06] Nella Vera: So I married an F15 pilot that I met during my year.

[40:11] Katie Harman: That's so sexy. Come on.

[40:12] Nella Vera: Come on.

[40:17] Katie Harman: But you know, we're in our 40s now, too. We've been married 19 years. This is our 19th century.

[40:22] Nella Vera: Wow.

[40:22] Katie Harman: But we met at an appearance when I was Miss America.

[40:26] Nella Vera: Oh, how wonderful.

[40:28] Katie Harman: Never in my wildest dreams did I think that we were going to, you know, form this relationship and eventually get married and have two children.

[40:36] Nella Vera: Can I just tell you how much cred did he get for dating Miss America?

[40:43] Katie Harman: Well, I'll tell you looking back at this, I was like, you are ballsy. You just found my phone number afterwards through friends of friends. He got my phone number and asked, you know, would you like to go out on a date with me when you're next in Portland? Which was you know a month or whatever it was later. His call sign is Coma.

[41:06] Nella Vera: So every pilot has a call sign, you know.

[41:08] Katie Harman: We all know this from Top Gun. Who's tight man with his coma, which is a little less cool than Maverick and I said all that. But it's because he's pretty like you sometimes you gotta drive a stake in the ground next to him and see if he's moving. He's just real steady.

[41:24] Nella Vera: That's exactly right.

[41:30] Katie Harman: So when everyone when the guys basically learned that he was gonna ask Miss America on a date, it was a total like what? This is so odd. But opposites attract, and we how we ended up in southern Oregon is after we met and married and had our son. He was asked to be an instructor pilot for the Oregon Air National Guard, and there is a schoolhouse essentially for F15 pilots in Klamath Falls, Oregon, and that's how we ended up in small town southern Oregon, and we're still here 16 years later, and we love it.

[42:11] Nella Vera: It is really Top Gun up school for pilots.

[42:15] Katie Harman: Come on.

[42:18] Nella Vera: So different than the Navy that's portrayed in Top Gun, but still the same.

[42:22] Katie Harman: So that's the alternate life that I have as a military spouse, but living in this beautiful rural town.

[42:29] Nella Vera: And um well, I have to say I've spent a lot of time in Oregon because my boyfriend's family is there in Bend.

[42:36] Katie Harman: Oh, wow.

[42:37] Nella Vera: And so we've gone every year for years, and then during the pandemic, we spent a chunk of it on this beautiful house on top of a hill overlooking the mountains. I mean, could not be more beautiful place to live, and just yeah, just the quality of life there is incredible.

[42:54] Katie Harman: So yeah.

[42:55] Nella Vera: It's really true.

[42:56] Katie Harman: We feel very, very lucky. We love Oregon. Obviously, I'm a lifelong Oregonian, so I'm biased, but especially living in Southern Oregon.

[43:04] Nella Vera: Yeah, yeah.

[43:05] Katie Harman: Fantastic.

[43:06] Nella Vera: Well, Katie, thank you so much for joining us today.

[43:09] Katie Harman: I am so thrilled for your show. I can't wait to see it.

[43:13] Nella Vera: Thank you. You can catch Katie on April 20th at Feinstein's/54 Below with her show Bring My Crown, Miss America Sings Broadway. Her show will also be streaming live. So it's at 7 p.m. on that night on April 20th. Tickets are available at 54below.com.

[43:48] Nella Vera: You've been listening to the Feinstein's/54 Below podcast, part of the Broadway Podcast Network. Subscribe and rate us on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast app.