This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

[0:06] Bret Shuford: Hey, I'm Bret.

[0:07] Stephen Hanna: And I'm Stephen.

[0:08] Bret Shuford: And we are the Broadway Husbands.

[0:10] Stephen Hanna: We're just your all-American married couple making their living in the arts and pursuing a growing family.

[0:15] Bret Shuford: On the Broadway Husbands podcast, we offer advice from our ordinary lives under extraordinary circumstances.

[0:20] Stephen Hanna: We are living proof that you can love who you love and love what you do.

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[0:45] Bret Shuford: To become part of our Patreon family, go to Patreon.com forward slash Broadway Husbands.

[0:51] Stephen Hanna: Well, we would we have a pretty it's a different episode this week than what we normally do because we have a couple, but they're not actually married, a romantic couple or romantic, but they are business partners and they are, you know, striving to make the world a better place and help artists um just become better.

[1:12] Bret Shuford: And they have a business called Artists Becoming Together. Please welcome to the podcast, our guests Jessica Cohen and Shelby Elsbree.

[1:20] Jessica Cohen: Yay!

[1:22] Shelby Elsbree: Hi guys, good morning.

[1:23] Jessica Cohen: Welcome to the show.

[1:25] Shelby Elsbree: Thank you for having us.

[1:26] Jessica Cohen: We're thrilled to be here.

[1:27] Shelby Elsbree: So excited.

[1:28] Bret Shuford: Yeah, so before we kind of dive into what you're doing, tell us a little bit about what you do. Um, as because that you were both you are both dancers or were or are. Explain.

[1:41] Stephen Hanna: Let's start with Jessica.

[1:43] Jessica Cohen: Yeah, sorry, Jessica. Tell us introduce yourself.

[1:46] Jessica Cohen: Well, tell us who you are.

[1:48] Jessica Cohen: I'm Jessica Cohen. But the first thing I wanted to say was that I'm never counting romance off the table with Shelby because this is the best relationship, healthiest relationship I've ever been in. And you know, I think marriage would look pretty cute on us. So you never know.

[2:05] Shelby Elsbree: So you never know.

[2:11] Jessica Cohen: Um, but I um yeah, I'm Jessica Cohen. I've found it hard to introduce myself these days because I don't even do something fun. Sometimes we have our guests introduce each other. So what if we start with Shelby? Why don't you tell us who Jessica is? And then Jessica, you tell us who Shelby is.

[2:29] Shelby Elsbree: Love that. Okay. Such an honor to introduce Jessica Cohen. Um, she is a morning songbird and she is a star talent. Um, her career lifted off after she trained at the San Francisco Ballet School. She joined the Northern Ballet in London. Um, and then she um jumped back home over the ocean blue and joined Sarasota Ballet, where she danced um with the company and until American in Paris launched their tour, and then she jumped ship to Broadway and she was in the ensemble of American in Paris, toured the country. Um, and then she booked syllabub like a boss, starred in the revival of Cats, like casual audition, just booking leads, and um, you know, embodied her spotlit moment on Broadway, and then was recruited to star as Veruca Salt in the national tour, the first national tour of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

Um, it was at that point that she closed off a very successful year-long run of that show to move back to New York City for auditions, and I convinced her to move in with me and thus began our romance.

[3:36] Jessica Cohen: Excellent job, Shelby. That was amazing.

[3:39] Shelby Elsbree: That was wow.

[3:41] Jessica Cohen: That was really good, Jessica. All right, here we go. I just want to be the woman that Shelby sees me to be. That's, you know. I'm like, wow. Um Shelby is a star as well. Shelby grew up in Sarasota, Florida, which is we have a lot of intertwining kind of um threads, which is I think so common in the arts industry in general, is how all our paths kind of intertwine, and I love that. So Shelby is from Sarasota, Florida. She went to study at the School of American Ballet in New York City, went all the way up through the school there, and then joined the Royal Danish Ballet. Um danced there for many seasons, traveled internationally with them performing across Europe, and she then jumped over to Boston Ballet, and all the while she also had started a blog, Two Twos and T. Um, because Shelby is a total wordsmith wizard of words.

Um that's actually how I found her. I kind of started following along the escapades and the photography and the writing of this also just glittering ballerina. And then she retired from Boston Ballet when she was still kicking those legs higher than the sky, and she went on to study at Columbia University. She studied psychology, and I think she graduated Magna cum laude or something fancy like that. And now, yeah, she's yeah, so now Shelby and I at that point ended up moving in together and kind of merging in New York City, and that's where we both were navigating kind of this transition from stage to beyond and what that might mean. And then we kind of gave birth to a creative project together.

[5:32] Stephen Hanna: All right. That's amazing. So what happened first? Um, Shelby, did you ask her to move in with you? Or then and then create um Artists Becoming, or how did that happen?

[5:45] Shelby Elsbree: So what what what came first? You're like, do you want to move in with me? And then you guys were just like bouncing ideas off each other, or yeah.

[5:52] Jessica Cohen: Well, the moving conversation is always tricky to navigate, you know. It's like it's usually it comes at the breaking point, like, we're either gonna move in or we're breaking up. So um, so Jess to full disclosure, slid into my DMs and asked me for a coffee because we knew a lot of the same people, and I was here for that slide, and we got a coffee, love at first latte, and it was um it was at that point that she had booked Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, like not soon after, actually. And she was dating someone um at the time, and I was just like, Listen, this is an aggressive ask. But when you get back from tour, I will be looking for a roommate, and it's available to you.

[6:34] Shelby Elsbree: And I was like, Yeah, I hope your relationship is thriving, but also I have really cute furniture, and it's gonna be on the Upper West Side.

[6:34] Jessica Cohen: The Upper West Side. This is so funny because yeah, I was living with that ex and she kind of knew it was getting shaky rocky, and then I went on tour, and as you guys probably know, a lot of tour is usually a breaking point for a lot of relationships, and um Shelby was just like saw me navigating that and was like, it was a year out, and she's like, I'm gonna be a year from now, needing a roommate, and yeah, what to answer your question, what's interesting is that when we were living together on the Upper West Side, I was still I was in the Broadway audition hustle and Shelby was entering the tech world and we were navigating these new career transitions but we were both struggling a little bit on our paths in our own ways and we would come up with all these we A had the best time together B were each other's kind of emotional counsel and C we would come up with these ideas and almost you know twice a week we'd be like wait what why aren't we doing this?

Why aren't we creating something and then we just kind of let it go keep up keep keep our like hustles going. So it actually wasn't until I moved out to California and Shelby, you know, COVID hit and all these kind of pieces fell apart that we kind of gave birth to this idea and just yesterday we were laughing about it like this is crazy the the winding roads that led us to this point.

[8:17] Stephen Hanna: Yeah. So talk about what the idea is.

[8:18] Shelby Elsbree: Yeah, hit it Shelby um so I'm gonna call it Q1 pandemic. Um I was restless and really feeling for all of my artist friends and was just like something needs to be done and I'm I haven't hit that um that financial benchmark of getting to pour money back into the arts and so I um I cold emailed John Stafford and asked if I could guide yoga for New York City Ballet as like a like a weekly offering as a gift.

[8:48] Shelby Elsbree: And he was like, absolutely, and can the orchestra come and can administration come? And I was like, Yeah, more the merrier. This is great. And it gave me some really beautiful visibility um into the hardships that these people, this beautiful community and population that I care for were navigating. Um at the same time, Jessica and I were working together in um for a mindfulness type company, and we kind of just had an idea to create a workshop.

[9:14] Jessica Cohen: And um, just because of the background noise on my end, Jess, do you mind taking over from there?

[9:18] Jessica Cohen: Yeah, yeah, sure. So Shelby and I were both very kind of feet soul, whole body into the wellness space on our own journeys. And we were thinking of our artist friends, we were mourning a sort of loss of our dance careers and trying to basically this it kind of came like a flashing ping through both of our bodies, where we were we were trying to figure out how do we give back, how do we use our history to build something really unique and nurturing and healing for a community that we so deeply love?

[9:58] Jessica Cohen: And we came up with the idea for Artists Becoming, which is now our mission is to elevate the standards of well-being across the performing arts industry, and we're doing that through yoga, meditation, uh practices designed specifically for artists, um, specifically for the unique path of artists, helping dancers to metabolize their injuries, digest their setbacks, um, plant seeds for their future, just kind of like a full service emotional support um supplement for an industry where we know systematically it's been so toxic, and we've endured that and sometimes pleasured that, I think, and how we're trying to rewrite that narrative across the industry and.

[10:44] Jessica Cohen: And it started with that being for individuals, and now we're sort of seeing the the call to action for it for institutions and we're we're running towards that call. And um what I will say is that what's super cool about working with Shelby is that Shelby has always wanted to, she's always kept herself with one arm reaching towards the ballet world or reaching towards that artist side of herself.

[11:15] Jessica Cohen: And I kind of I was ready to shut that door when I left the ballet. I didn't I I saw the toxicity and I kind of went, ooh, someone else could fix that. I'm I'm out. So this has been this wild full circle moment where I'm re-entering and reorienting myself to an industry that I really thought I would never be any part of again and coming at it from a totally different angle.

[11:44] Stephen Hanna: That's awesome. So I I have so many things I want to ask. I you know, uh I guess individually, what personally, what's one um obstacle that you kind of consistently had personally um that you feel like you've kind of grown and found the solution that has really helped you that you kind of share with the people that you work with today.

[12:09] Stephen Hanna: So I'm I'm I so I guess my question is what what was maybe the consistent theme of the issue that was causing you maybe pain or struggle in the industry and you felt was people needed help with. People needed help with, and what what's the solution that you've really because I think we can both speak to our experiences and say we you know, it is a toxic place.

[12:30] Jessica Cohen: Uh it can be at least, um, depending because that's it's kind of a free-for-all in the industry. Like you never know what you're gonna get. But then also, I mean, I can speak personal, I can speak personally and say that I've been in toxic environments and I've not been toxic, and so it's been fine and okay because I've known how to take care of myself.

[12:50] Stephen Hanna: So, but there's people who don't have that kind of strength or those tools.

[12:54] Jessica Cohen: So, yeah, talk about like what the motivating factor and and what you know, kind of like what was your breaking point to make a change for yourself.

[13:03] Jessica Cohen: Okay, so for me, I was taking classes at Northeastern University at the same time I was in Boston Ballet, and I was taking a bunch of classes in organizational and leadership management, and I just was not seeing reflected in my leadership what I was learning about baseline expectations of being a respectable leader.

[13:21] Jessica Cohen: And it really was an epiphany moment for me to kind of question, you know, who I was trusting to hold my career in their hands. Um, it was an education, a perspective, a language that I was not privy to because I was laser focused on my dance career. And then, you know, things shift as soon as you get injured or feel indispensable or feel underappreciated, which is most artists unfortunately in the performing arts world, um, then you're you start to question your value, you start to question your worth.

[13:49] Jessica Cohen: And there's only so much you can do with that. Like you can sit in the sick of not being where you want to be, um, or you can act on it. And acting on it doesn't necessarily mean leave the industry, but it means educate yourself around ways of navigating through those seasons in a proactive way.

[14:03] Shelby Elsbree: And um, my education really opened my eyes to that, and it was actually a major impetus um to kind of stop while I was ahead. Um, I definitely stopped dancing when I could have continued to, which is a privilege that most dancers don't know. They'll stop because they're pregnant or injured or age out, or you know, they're not the flavor of the director anymore. And it's a bit of a double-edged sword to stop when you know you still got something in you. Um it still kind of is uh feels a velvet handcuff a bit for me now. Um, but at the same time, it allows me to reflect on that career in a really healthy way. And that's where Jessica and I have different relationships with our career. I left it at a time when I intentionally did not want to resent something that gave me so much.

I did not want to be that burnt-out, bitter, cynical dancer that I was surrounded by. I wanted to maintain this precious experience for what it was, which was a dream realized. Um, you know, I wasn't the principal dancer of New York City ballet, but um, that's for another podcast. Um, but it was it was an eye-opening, humbling decision to take a stand for myself, use my voice in a way that um nonverbal skill sets don't necessarily inspire. So definitely a jump.

[15:15] Stephen Hanna: Yeah.

[15:16] Shelby Elsbree: Wow, beautifully said, Shelby.

[15:18] Stephen Hanna: And I mean, she is a wordsmith.

[15:20] Shelby Elsbree: Wow.

[15:20] Stephen Hanna: She is a wordsmith. Not only are you a wordsmith, you are an unbelievable or were, and I'm sure you still are an unbelievable dancer and just beautiful person.

[15:30] Shelby Elsbree: Thank you.

[15:30] Stephen Hanna: Yeah. Jessica, what about you? What was kind of like that moment of just like, I need to do something different, and how can I help?

[15:39] Jessica Cohen: Yeah, I think for me, it really drips down to low self-worth. So I think any topic I could throw out, you know, there were different hurdles across my career. The first one probably body image, just constantly just dysmorphia. And you know, very, very uncomfortable in my skin and my body and my sensuality and my femininity, like so many challenges there that um became a very I developed a really low self-worth. Um, and I felt that that was perpetuated by the industry I was in, and that manifested in across so many levels, like not being able to set boundaries for myself, not standing, you know, not knowing how to hold a conversation and stand up for myself or not even stand up, but just have a real adult conversation and communicate properly.

Um accepting very little money, you know, doing things for low to free, and it all just drips down to self-worth. And I witnessed that in so many women around me and men around me. And yeah, I think I just reached this point where I was like, this is not normal to have such low self-worth. And I I wanted to empower those around me. When you start to see that others around you are struggling, it helps you to look at the mirror. You're really just seeing a mirror. And so I um that's really what it was for me. And that just showed up in a million different ways. And um, a lot of the work we're doing, we notice when people join our community at Artists Becoming it, it really drips down to self-worth. It, you know.

[17:23] Jessica Cohen: I I just want to sort of echo a lot of what I've heard you both of you say, and that is that you know I think there's just a systemic problem within the industry of people not being you you hold on to this dream so hard that you don't allow your adult self to emerge, you know, and I I know that's it's been a struggle for me during the pandemic because I the last Broadway show I was in, I joined and I only did it for four months before the shutdown. I was miserable for those four months. I mean, it was such a toxic workplace. Um the people in charge were bullies, and everyone working there was complicit because they just were happy to have a job. And there was no um, you know, people I would say I'm being bullied.

I was losing sleep, I was having panic attacks, and people would just go, oh yeah, that person does that, it'll stop eventually. You know, like everyone was just complicit about it. And you I even had a meeting with our union reps about it, and they were like, Yeah, we have a lot of complaints about it, but no one wants to come forward because they're so grateful to have a job. And so how, you know, the the self-worth is so low that they can't people can't even um stand up for others and the you know, and and help someone who's in pain because they're just so afraid of there's such a scarcity mindset, and you know, and it's adopted through our I think our society and culturally, it's like you know, you talk to anybody who's never been an artist, and they say to you, Oh, it's such a struggle, it's so hard, and you're taught that before you even pursue it. So it's just an interesting thing to hear you say all of this.

[19:22] Stephen Hanna: How do we how do we shift that? I mean, you know, you you hear the whole Scott Rudin story too, you know, when the whole Scott Rudin article came out, and no one in the industry said anything because no one was surprised, because everyone knew and no one had anything to say about it because they were like, Yeah, this is the way it's been. So, how do you change a system that has operated and and financially gained for so because it all comes down to money, right? And financially gained for so long. Um, when how do you change a system when it's worked for for for the people who have the power?

[20:04] Shelby Elsbree: Yeah, that's a great wow, Brett, that is a huge great question. How do you because you got me lit up, y'all? Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's amazing. I am loving that because that's the root of it. Like, we can sit here and write a bunch of inspiring captions that resonate with our community, but like, what are we actually doing to affect change is the question. Um, and Jess and I, through Artists Becoming have been having a lot of conversations with leaders in arts institutions, major arts institutions. And the problem is that there's this kind of gap, this major gap between what's being taught in terms of resources um being poured into students and what's being modeled by their superiors. At the end of the day, you can throw a bunch of clinical psychologists and nutritionists at young artists, but they're not trying to impress those people.

They're trying to impress their ballet teacher, their musical theater teacher, they're trying to get in the room, they're trying to audition and they're trying to sell their soul to get their Agma part, you know, like this is just what people are here for, and it's what we have endorsed by putting putting up with it.

[21:04] Shelby Elsbree: And so it's Jess and I talk about this idea of playing a game with the universe. And what this all comes down to are relationships. Like, how do you want to show up in a relationship? Whether it's your loved one, whether it's your boss, your the person managing your career, like that's a human, that's a human person. It's not a superior. There is no hierarchy. We're humans out here. And it is a generous act to want to help someone realize their artistic vision. To audition for a show is a selfless and generous giving of your talent and presentation of your vulnerability. It is not, please let me literally shed my skin for you so that you'll consider me as a swing in your ensemble. That is not the conversation. Unfortunately, that's how it's been presented. That's how it's being digested and perpetuated. That's how it's treated.

[21:56] Shelby Elsbree: You know. But what if that was the energy that people started to show up with, right? And as leaders, as the turnover happens in leadership where dancers and performers are being educated kind of for the first time on top of their careers, there's an actual education behind managerial leadership and how to hold people's hearts responsibly and how to manage talent with care and not just as a shoe in like I was a principal star, dancer, performer, and you know, this artistic role is now open to me. It's um my um our prayer is that there's gonna be a really beautiful shift in turnover for the next generation of leadership. But between now and then, all we can do is hold ourselves accountable to integrating the pain of our lessons. That's it.

[22:44] Jessica Cohen: Showing up the funny. What I what I want to add to to you, Shelby, and like to answer your question is really how, like, literally how A B C D E F G, how do we do it? Is that we had started by creating a workshop that was for individuals where they were going to receive it basically a four-week program where through all the practices, through mentorship and conversations with inspiring artists, um, through mentorship with us, they would develop their self-worth. They would rewrite and look at their blocks and the subconscious beliefs that they're holding on to and release them, like very therapeutic process. But our original hopeful vision was like if the artists show up and for themselves, like everything changes, it topples down, it doesn't work that way, you know.

It doesn't. I really believe that. I was like, we don't need to go for the top. We can just work on ourselves. And what we found through listening and through the hard conversations with leaders, not even hard, but actually inspiring conversations with leaders of institutions, is that they actually know that there is a problem. I actually think that what we're hearing is these leaders, they do know there is a problem. They are not equipped themselves to heal it. That's not what they've spent their lives committed to, but they do want to outsource to people like Shelby and I who are really committed to providing services, not just for their uh artists, their dancers, their actors, but for their leaders, for their staff.

[24:23] Shelby Elsbree: And so that's the angle at which we are coming at it, like kind of top down is what we're realizing. You know, it's a it's gotta be all hands on deck a little bit, and it's not gonna be comfy.

[24:36] Stephen Hanna: So so basically you're providing um like an infiltration of positivity and change in large um artistic institutions, um, hopefully from the top down, right? And that's kind of like your hope and dream is to teach and change.

[24:51] Jessica Cohen: I mean, I kind of see this. So I wrote when everything happened last year, I wrote this article on my blog. Because you know, I'm a I I am coach, yeah, and I work with artists, and this is a lot of the work you're doing, I try to do individually with artists as well. And I wrote this article about leadership and the in the theater community and how there's no training, right? It's like you work for Disney or Apple or um or any major company, Google, you have in order to become a leader within that that corporation, you have to be trained. There's a there's certifications and levels and um, and they're and you're being held accountable to those things. That doesn't exist within our community, right? You become a you become a stage manager, manager, company manager, um, a producer, all you it's just somebody just has to say here. Yeah, here's your contract, right? There's no qualifications or anything to hold people accountable.

[25:46] Shelby Elsbree: So I wrote this article and a major Broadway producer called me after reading it, and I and I said, You need to train your leaders. Like you we need to hold people to account. And you just said, Oh, you mean DEI training? You mean like you know, you need unconscious bias training. I'm like, yes, and you know, like all of it.

[26:11] Jessica Cohen: Yeah. And they don't get it because they're not like you said, they're not equipped. And so I think that that's the also the challenge. Like he doesn't see the financial benefits of that, right? As a producer, he he's only gonna invest in things that he can see a return. How did and I and I was just trying to explain to him if you have a happy cast, they're not gonna call out as much. So you're not gonna get to build new costumes, you're not gonna have to put get more swings because people are actually gonna want to show up to work. When and the conversation's not gonna be like, well, I mean it's a job, I gotta stay. It's gonna be like, no, I like this job. I want like if you have a healthy company mentally, emotionally, not just physically, then people actually you actually save money because they will actually show up.

[26:55] Shelby Elsbree: Yes, you know.

[26:57] Jessica Cohen: Um, because God, I mean, I've been in shows where just people are out all the time and they're like, oh, they're injured. Like, no, we're we're all injured, yeah. You know, we are all injured. Collectively, wounded.

[27:13] Shelby Elsbree: Oh my goodness.

[27:14] Jessica Cohen: Yeah, it's true. And happy people don't kill their husbands, so it's science.

[27:24] Stephen Hanna: Or they're roommates or their roommates.

[27:28] Jessica Cohen: Well, I mean, it it so relates to relationships in that like you if you're having a romantic relationship and there's an issue and you go to therapy, it's like, oh, this is the mother wound, or like, oh, daddy issues. Well, that's what we have in the arts industry in terms of leadership, the people that become the leaders when you realize the issue, it's like, oh, you've got daddy issues, but with that teacher that yeah, that passed it down to you, and now you pass it down to the next, and at some point we gotta yeah, it is a cycle, and I also think, you know, uh as much as maybe it's not all about the artists being totally changing and then infiltrating the system like from the bottom up.

[28:10] Jessica Cohen: I do think that that is um that is helpful because I mean I just know personally, like I've felt you know completely at the bottom of my barrel before and then changed the way I've looked at things. And um, and I think that I've you know helped people um unknowingly and also knowingly because they've actually told me. Um, you know, and I think that that's really helpful. And I think, you know, now as a teacher, I've been teaching so much the past year and a half. It's interesting. I I find myself, I'm I'm very positive just by nature, I think. Um so when I teach, that's kind of what's happening. And sometimes I think that I that I'm too nice. I think that sometimes I think I'm too nice. And I think that's the other issue, right?

It's like I'm kind of overcompensating for all of the jerks abuses, all of the abusiveness before me that I've you know, that I've had. So now I find myself in this um position of just trying to um to just tell the truth, you know what I mean? Just tell the truth and um be honest and not be too nice about it. I but not mean, but just honest, you know, just be available to them, you know. Yeah, so it's interesting. How do people go ahead?

[29:27] Stephen Hanna: I was just gonna say, like, it doesn't take much to make a difference. And I was just speaking with uh Megan Fairchild about this, and she's teaching at the school right now, and it's just like asking the students like, how are you doing? Was that was that a norm, like in your training, Jessica?

[29:42] Jessica Cohen: No, it was not. But you know what's really funny too is um just even for some reason this uh a ballet mistress um is said to me, and for some reason this like really kind of sums it all up I I had gone and I kind of you know said I I wanted to do more and I wasn't happy with you know I was being very kind of ballsy in my statement. I was like, well, why am I doing this part? I should be doing this, you know. I was young. And um, and she said, You've really got to show us that you want it. And um, and that kind of like perpetuated what I did and how I performed. And even when I didn't feel good and didn't feel um, you know, like a normal human, healthy being human being, I would just show up and just push and do whatever, push through pain, push through whatever, just because I gotta show them at all times that I'm unstoppable and this kind of like robotic, perfect, perfect dancer human person, you know. So that kind of that mentality has perpetuated me for so long and it's so hard to shed, you know. So how do people just I I'm just worried about time.

[30:59] Jessica Cohen: Oh, yeah, I want to make sure. Um, how do people work with you? How do we uh how do we get this what you're doing into more places?

[31:08] Shelby Elsbree: Yeah, well, so it's offered, we offer the workshop individually to anyone who wants to join on Instagram and our ID is um artists becoming that's the public facing one. Um, or you can check out our website that kind of lays out more details, which is artistbecoming.com. Um, we have private cohorts that turn over monthly, and all of the content, mentorship conversations, integrative work is all fed through that private feed. Um, right. It's it's all on demand, so you can access it when it works with your schedule. Um and then separately, um, on a hopefully bigger scale level, if you are at or associated with a larger arts education institution, um, and it's something that you feel would help to supplement the technical curriculum and training, um, if you know that the leaders there are looking to affect intentional change and keep their curriculums relevant and responsive versus um reaction reactive, um, then we are here to have that conversation too where you offer faculty wellness workshops, institutional consulting and resiliency education.

[32:12] Stephen Hanna: Wow, I'm here for all of it.

[32:14] Bret Shuford: Yeah, I love it. You guys are amazing. This is awesome. I I mean I want to cry honestly because I sorry it's okay. It's just been so hard, you know, and it's it's uh all of this stuff coming out has just been like opening up a lot of wounds. And um and it's really hard to let go and shed a dream you know uh and what you said Jessica about I'm just gonna step away and let other people fix this problem is is exactly how I have felt and feel it's like well you know what F this I don't need this other people can fix this problem um because you know it's just so deeply embedded and you feel betrayed when you've been subjected to abuses and other people are complicit or you've been or you've witnessed other people you find out your union is doing nothing to help the problem.

Or, you know, all of those things you you get resentful and and and I think um and it and it's painful. And so I think to to know that there's people out there who are doing the work personally and are offering solutions for people within our our because I care so much about our community. Clearly, we have a podcast, you know. It's like this is something we care about. I would love to see this community shift and change, and I'm just I'm just super excited to see you at the forefront of it.

[33:45] Shelby Elsbree: Yeah. Thank you.

[33:47] Jessica Cohen: Yeah, and I'll say that you know, wanting to reject it, and it's like pushing away that toxic relationship and saying, I'm never going back, like this, and feeling like I never would coming at it from this angle that Shelby and I both we wake up every day. I I mean, every day our bodies are humming and buzzing to do this. Like I've I've maybe never felt so creatively lit up by something, and it's not on the stage. It's like kind of behind it. And for the first time, I want to dance, like I want to sing, I want to, and I didn't think I would want to do those things anymore, honestly. So I'm just yeah, really grateful to have connected back to this community in this way, and to be like every day just lit up by the process of the healing. And I think that as we do that, we're gonna see more artists feel that call to action and and just feel their creative spirit again, like the freedom of their creativity again without the oppression.

[34:55] Bret Shuford: Yeah, and I think that there's so many people who hopefully are listening to this who maybe left the industry out of frustration and bitterness, rejection. Um that that can be healed too, even if you're not in the industry anymore, like that that can be healed through this work, you don't have to resent exactly what happened and if we actually can move through a lot of that resentment we might actually as an audience start to shift the way the industry operates as well.

[35:28] Jessica Cohen: I love that and I would just want to thank you for your vulnerability so beautiful. And you know this conversation really brings it back to the name artist becoming you know I had a full-on identity crisis when I retired which was again my healthy decision for myself and what I'm finding through this project with Jess is that sometimes when you think it's all over when you're out when you didn't get the gig or you're injured or what what a pandemic hits and you've completely disassociated with your identity because that's your passion that really it's really only just beginning because we're constantly becoming as humans we're constantly becoming as artists. And you think about it our longest relationship is one that we have with ourselves and one of the best pieces of relationship advice I've ever received is leave people better than you found them.

And because ultimately when you end up with your person or one of your people they're who they are because people left them better. And it's our relationship with ourselves we we have a response ability to to do that for ourselves but also the industry. It gave us everyone that we love it gave us everything that we love. It gave us platforms of expressing like our inner brightest light and it has casted some of the darkest shadows you know, for us to metabolize, and we're all walking around with like a shit ton of scar tissue, metabolizing the trauma that comes with loving something a little too hard. And so, how can we leave something better than we found it? Come back to it through a different door and realize we're really only at just a new beginning.

[37:03] Stephen Hanna: Wow. Well said, and you've definitely left us already today better than you found us this morning. So thank you. But we would like to move on to a segment we call Spotlight Out. We usually have someone write in, of course, for romantic or relationship advice, but somebody randomly actually asked this question, and we thought it was perfectly appropriate for today's um episode. And they asked, What advice do you have for someone trying to transition out of dance?

[37:40] Bret Shuford: That was a real question.

[37:41] Jessica Cohen: That's a real that was that was real.

[37:46] Shelby Elsbree: Yeah, I wrote that.

[37:46] Jessica Cohen: I wrote it. It was from my finsta. Um, uh, what advice do we have? I mean, it it depends on, you know, I think the main advice that we have is especially when you're moving away from being a dancer, and you're we've talked a lot about it over the course of this conversation, the identity that's tied to that, how in tightly wound we are to the dancer identity. The hardest part is leaving that behind. But like we've spoken about rather than pushing it away and rejecting it, it's like picking up the values and the seeds that are like that weave the fabric of that dancer identity in you, like whatever those qualities are, and writing them out and sitting with them and looking at your discipline, your attention to detail, your perfectionism, your creativity, your connection to your body, and looking at your curiosities outside of dance and how you can kind of bring those values as a dancer into something you're curious about, and just getting curious, because sometimes it's hard to go from the dancer thing all in to another career, but it's the like little breadcrumbs of curiosity that I think we we encourage people to pursue.

[39:09] Shelby Elsbree: Nail that guess. And I might just add, I might just add that um a lot of it is just giving yourself permission. And as humans, just inherently, we constantly feel two opposing emotions at the same time, and we don't often know what to do with that. And it doesn't feel right, it feels very incongruous, but it is completely normal to be reconciling grief in one hand and joy in the other at the same time, and permit yourself to navigate that space and to feel your feelings. It's just hard and it's a beautiful privilege and brutal privilege of the human experience.

[39:46] Bret Shuford: Wow. Wow, you guys, you you guys are nailing it. And I like God, I'm the only thing I can really need your help for sure. We're going through a huge, I mean, we've been in a I feel like we've been in a permanent transition for over two years now, and the grief of it all is just been, you know, and when you're in transition, you're just like going going plowing forward, just trying to keep one day, one foot in front of the other. And um, and I think some some some tools are missing it. So your course sounds like something that would really be helpful. And also, I think just like the key word of the question is like it's a transition, right? So nothing's black and white. I think that's it. You know, it just curiosity.

You know the curiosity and sitting in the uncomfortability and you know, just kind of basically what you said is just knowing that like there isn't an end goal right it's a transition and and life is always moving forward and may it may not feel like it is but it is.

[40:44] Jessica Cohen: Have you I just want to just for a moment just ask have you have you talked to the actors fund or career transitions and okay great.

[40:53] Shelby Elsbree: Yeah yeah we're in touch hopefully you'll you'll get in bed with them because that needs to happen.

[41:00] Bret Shuford: Yeah. Um good well this has been an amazing podcast so much for being on it was great we need to have these conversations so this is awesome.

[41:11] Jessica Cohen: Yeah thank you thank you for having us what an honor thank you so much.

[41:11] Bret Shuford: Thanks for listening to the Broadway husbands podcast don't forget to subscribe and while you're at it leave a review on whatever podcast platform you listen to us on. Don't forget to check out Broadway life apparel and our new designs that are released every month thanks to our Patreon patrons don't forget to join our family by going to patreon.com forward slash Broadway husband and a big shout out to the Broadway podcast network go to bpn dot fm forward slash husbands to check out the the wide array of Broadway themed podcasts for your listening pleasure and on this podcast we encourage you to love who you love and love what you do.