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[3:55] Mary Mitchell-Campbell: And I think I could remember a lot of your rep. You were so fantastic, and it was such a joy to play with you. I was in my 20s and I was new to New York City, and I was trying to meet people and create with people. And I was married at the time, and she probably did not know. And I was in a very different life than I am now. But I was on the brink of pursuing what I loved, which was telling stories through music. And I never anticipated being on Broadway per se, but I did deeply want to work in the industry in some form. Was piano your main instrument?

[4:39] Bobby Steggert: Yes.

[4:39] Mary Mitchell-Campbell: I asked for piano for Christmas when I was three years old.

[4:42] Bobby Steggert: Did you get it?

[4:43] Mary Mitchell-Campbell: No. Definitely no. We could not afford a piano. My parents thought I meant a toy piano. And then they did not give me that either, but they thought that's what I meant. And then when I was very disappointed because I really had been convinced in my own little internal world that Santa was going to show up with the piano somehow. And so I was deeply saddened by the fact that there was no piano. And then everyone realized I really meant like piano. And so I started to be a little more aware of the fact that's what I was wanting. But we didn't get one until I was, I think, six. My dad worked for a radio station and somebody owed him a lot of money for advertising that they could not pay. And they offered a piano instead. And my dad said, my kid's been asking for piano, so we'll take it. And that's how I got one. Lessons right from there.

[5:34] Bobby Steggert: Did you take to it very easily?

[5:36] Mary Mitchell-Campbell: I took to it really easily. I could play by ear. And then I started taking lessons.

[5:40] Mary Mitchell-Campbell: I would play at church on other people's pianos. And then I started taking lessons from the church pianist. And then when I was 10, I got a job playing piano in a restaurant.

[5:52] Bobby Steggert: Wait, you're 10 years old?

[5:54] Mary Mitchell-Campbell: I was 10, yeah. Playing like "New York, New York."

[5:57] Bobby Steggert: What were you playing?

[5:59] Mary Mitchell-Campbell: I was playing like I was playing stuff off the radio. I was playing like, uh, I was playing like anything I heard that I could play by ear, or anything that I had learned, but usually mostly just by ear. And I would go around, I was a hustler child, really. I went around to the tables in the restaurant and talked to them and asked them their favorite songs, and then I would put them together in medleys and somehow really make them feel like they had to tip me.

[6:26] Bobby Steggert: You gave them special service.

[6:28] Mary Mitchell-Campbell: I gave them special service, and I was in a dress, like being like, I will play your favorite songs. So they would give me money. Tell me this about musicianship: to be able to grab a melody out of the air and immediately translate it into your fingers. Is that a gift? Or were you just extremely skilled after a lot of practice?

[6:48] Mary Mitchell-Campbell: No, I think it can be learned, but I think for most of us, it's like something that you just have that you understand the way that you understand how to breathe. Like nobody tells you how to breathe. You think you understand, you just instinctively do it. And it is a bit of a language. What I think is so interesting about the art form that is musical theater is that I also really got into classical music when I started taking lessons and deeply studied technique and heavy classical work. And so what I think is great about this industry is it really marries those two worlds together in a way that all of your skill sets are much more usable than they are in certain other arenas. You know what I mean? So of course being able to play off the radio and being able to love pop and country and non-sort of classical music, but then really being able to play classical music has proven to be skills that really prepared me well for where I landed.

[7:49] Bobby Steggert: And I guess if you also learned by ear, it makes sense to me as to why you're able to play with singers so seamlessly, because you're really truly listening.

[7:59] Mary Mitchell-Campbell: Yeah, I think I do think that's true, but I also really think of myself as an acting partner. Like I really think of myself as an acting partner, and then when I'm like really thinking, oh, I'm playing against what they're doing, like I'm providing the tension, playing opposition to them, or times when I am really trying to be with them. I'm like leaning into their acting choices. And to me, that's the fun of it.

[8:22] Bobby Steggert: I always remember just trusting you so deeply, whether it was in those classes or on Broadway, that I could just completely be in my emotional experience. And that is a rare thing for a singer to feel, I think.

[8:34] Mary Mitchell-Campbell: Oh, thank you. That's a high compliment. I will say that I tend to find that the artists that I am most drawn to are the people who get to be in that experience in a sort of new way every time, and not necessarily have it fully mapped out. They have their specific, like they have it mapped out, but not every inch of the way, if that makes sense.

[8:57] Bobby Steggert: Sure.

[8:57] Mary Mitchell-Campbell: So there's still some things like that will vary from experience to experience, and I love that. So did you decide that you were going to pursue musical direction once you became a teenager and went to college? What was that part of the journey?

[8:57] Mary Mitchell-Campbell: When I was 16, I went to a summer program in North Carolina called the Governor's School, and I was a voice major for that.

[8:57] Bobby Steggert: You can fucking sing too!

[8:57] Mary Mitchell-Campbell: I was a voice major for that, and then, wait, no comment, debatable, but yes, I can sing too. Wow. So I did that, and then I was there. The North Carolina School of the Arts was across the street, and I walked across the street and said, I really want to come to school here for high school. And they said, we have auditions in two days if you want to audition. And so I did, and then they said you can come this fall. So it was like a very fast transition out of my public school in Eastern North Carolina to a conservatory high school.

[9:55] Mary Mitchell-Campbell: So I did two years of that, and then when I was there and I was 16, I saw a production of the musical "Baby" by Maltby and Shire. I don't know if you know that one.

[10:05] Bobby Steggert: There's a song about swimming sperm, right? There's like a song about—

[10:05] Mary Mitchell-Campbell: Yes, absolutely, that's what I remember. And Lauren Ward was starring in it, and I saw that production and was like, yeah, this is what I want to do. I don't want to be in a practice room by myself. I want to be with people. I want to do team sports and storytelling, and I thought, okay, what can I do in that? And then I found music direction as like the thing that sort of checked the most boxes of things that I was passionate about.

[10:34] Mary Mitchell-Campbell: So around high school was when I was like, I think I want to be a music director. Wasn't sure. Went to college, started my own theater company in college, got a lot of experience from doing that, and then had almost like a mental breakdown my senior year of college because everybody was so sure of what they wanted me to be, and I was not wanting to be any of those things.

[10:56] Bobby Steggert: What do they want you to be?

[10:58] Mary Mitchell-Campbell: I had great professors, and they were all very invested in me, which was lovely. But they also had like really big ideas of what my path should look like. One of them wanted me to be an opera director because I was directing a lot at school, and they thought that I had a gift for that. One of them wanted me to be a professional accompanist for like big choruses and opera singers, like a collaborative pianist, I think we call it now, more specifically. One of them wanted me to become a piano professor. None of them thought moving to New York and pursuing Broadway was a very good idea.

[11:35] Bobby Steggert: Was musical theater looked down upon by that class of people?

[11:39] Mary Mitchell-Campbell: Yes.

[11:40] Bobby Steggert: I would say yes.

[11:41] Mary Mitchell-Campbell: To some more than others, but I would say that it was considered a lower art form from the classical vantage point, which was pretty common. And it was a hard moment for me because I was having to listen to the voice that was screaming inside of me saying, those paths are not right for you. Though they look on paper like they would be. Nothing about what I wanted to do made sense to anyone else, logically. And I had one professor I was really close to who was really like a father figure, and he sat me down and he said, just I have to say this.

[12:11] Bobby Steggert: I'm really concerned about this choice for you that you're making. And I think I know how little financial support you have behind you, and I know how hard it is for people to make it in New York. And I have watched this happen over and over again with people who move to New York and they try to do this, and it does not go well, and I know that you're talented, but I just don't see this going well.

[12:34] Mary Mitchell-Campbell: Do you wonder if there back then was a little bit of misogyny in that worry?

[12:39] Bobby Steggert: Maybe a little bit, but I actually, in his case, doubt that. I really, not that I haven't experienced a lot of misogyny in the world. I think in his case, it was more of a true like fear, a true terror that I was setting myself up for massive failure, and that he wasn't sure I could recover because I didn't have a lot of resources. And all of those things were true. And the best part of that was it was such a clarifying conversation because I said to him, I believe every word of what you were saying to me right now, and I still want to go. I said, I cannot live my life wondering what would have happened. I would rather go and fail than not go at all. Like I would rather try and fail than not try in this kitchen.

[13:25] Bobby Steggert: See, you mentioned you were married. Did you come up here with a spouse?

[13:28] Mary Mitchell-Campbell: I did. Married, got married, and moved to New York right after.

[13:31] Bobby Steggert: Oh my gosh. Do you feel comfortable saying what that was like to move with someone you were married to New York?

[13:37] Mary Mitchell-Campbell: Sure. I'm comfortable saying whatever you like.

[13:40] Bobby Steggert: You're like, uh oh.

[13:41] Mary Mitchell-Campbell: Yeah, no, I was look, I was in the South. I was in a culture where people marry young. And he was really convinced that we should get married. And I was convinced that it was a good idea, and we did it, and then we moved. And it was I think really helpful to me at that time. I think it was a lot easier for me to go with a spouse and feel like I had some support in some capacity than it would have been to go alone. And he was really helpful in a lot of ways. The marriage was did not last. We stayed together much longer than we should have because of all of our upbringing that was like divorce is not an option. So stuck it out until it became impossible to stick it out. But I would say it was a real gift in a lot of ways. And I think I'm very grateful for that chapter, even though it did not play out.

[14:34] Bobby Steggert: Did he have a passion that he was pursuing in New York? Was this really to support your dream?

[14:39] Mary Mitchell-Campbell: No, he did have a passion. The unfortunate part was that his passion did not play out the way that he anticipated. In fact, I will say, and this is where I would say misogyny does come into play on both of our parts, was that gender programming-wise, we were both anticipating for him to be the breadwinner. He was pursuing finance, which just sounds so great. And people were like, oh yes, he's gonna be a very successful financial wizard, and you will play the piano and do the best you can. You like teach piano lessons to kids or something.

[15:11] Bobby Steggert: That's right.

[15:12] Mary Mitchell-Campbell: Yeah, basically. Um, and I was like, okay, and we made a deal, we would move to New York, give it five years and reevaluate. And so that was the plan. And then when I moved, things really took off for me really quickly in a way that neither of us anticipated. And ultimately, I do think was a large factor in our ultimate breakup, was just the challenge of him not being as successful as he was anticipating and me being wildly more successful than either of us were anticipating, really put a strain on our gender role programming, if you will.

[15:45] Bobby Steggert: Of course. That would be hard on any couple, but then your gender roles complicated.

[15:50] Mary Mitchell-Campbell: Definitely complicated it. So when we met and you were just playing these classes every Tuesday night, what else was happening in your development that made everything start to roll so quickly for you?

[16:00] Mary Mitchell-Campbell: When I first moved to the city, I was really, I'm gonna backtrack for a second and say that in college, I went from the conservatory high school to a liberal arts college. And the liberal arts college was something I just instinctively knew I needed because as much as I loved my training at North Carolina School of the Arts, which was, by the way, top notch, and I was a junior and senior in high school taking classes with the college students for all my music classes. So I was light years ahead of most people my age as far as like theory and ear training and all those things. And I could have stayed there and finished my degree in two years, but I really knew that I needed more of a broad education base.

I just could feel that wasn't going to be enough for me to just be so specialized. So I wanted a liberal arts degree. So I went to Furman University. And while I was there, I had a sociology requirement. And I took a class that was called Social Problems with a very radical professor. And that radical professor had us reading Cornell West and the cycles of the working poor and the ways income inequity are set up. And we took poverty tours, and we were required to pretend to be homeless for a day and not eat beforehand and be on the street for 12 hours and experience what that was like. And it was a very intense class that really deeply shifted my world perspective on service and compassion and grace and what it means to recognize where other people are coming from.

And I ended up volunteering a lot at homeless shelters and getting backstories on these people and realizing, oh my gosh, they've had all these other lives before they landed here that you don't really necessarily think about when you see people. You meet them where they are, and it's often hard to recognize that they may have had many incarnations prior. And so that was really powerful to me.

[17:57] Mary Mitchell-Campbell: So when I moved to New York, one of the first two things that I did was find a church community because I was also deeply in the church. And I showed up at Broadway Cares and said, I would like to volunteer for anything that comes up where you might need a piano player. Oh my God. Any benefit concert, that kind of thing. Anything I will happily volunteer. Um, and they had a concert coming up of the musical Sweet Charity, where they were featuring five different people playing Charity. It was Donna McKechnie, Bibi Newirth, Chita Rivera, Debbie Allen, and Gwen Verdon.

[18:34] Bobby Steggert: That's badass.

[18:35] Mary Mitchell-Campbell: And isn't that crazy? And they said, actually, we need somebody to sit in pre-pro and play for them whatever they need. So I did two weeks of pre-production with a crazy group of people. Jack Lee was the music director. And I ended up meeting Cy Coleman. And Cy Coleman ended up coming over to the piano and saying, Hey, Chita wants to sing this in a different key. Can you play it in F? Can you can you do this? Can you do that? Testing my skill set. And after that experience, he ended up asking me to do a bunch of other things with him. So he became my first mentor. Um, and around that same time, I had put an ad in Backstage. Do you remember Backstage?

[19:14] Bobby Steggert: Of course.

[19:15] Mary Mitchell-Campbell: Like in the printed Backstage. I put an ad in Backstage saying that I was a pianist looking for opportunities. And V Paul Boyle answered that ad. And he is the person who taught the class where we met.

[19:29] Bobby Steggert: Yeah.

[19:30] Mary Mitchell-Campbell: And he liked to ask me to do a benefit for free. And then that's how I ended up in your class. Is it for a musician just like it is for an actor where the way in is to just do a lot of free stuff? Is that the case for you as much as it was for me?

[19:41] Mary Mitchell-Campbell: It was definitely the case for me. I don't know for everyone. I think it depends, but I will say it was a great way to meet people. And I feel like I learned so much by doing so many benefits. And I also got to feel like I was adding value to the world at the same time. So to me, I really viewed it as grad school. I really looked at it as this is my opportunity to really learn on the job and to get these opportunities because I'm happy to do them for free. And I'm happy to contribute to this greater cause. And I was also genuinely happy to do it. I do think that there's like a I've talked to young artists along the way, and I talk about this, and I feel like there's a ability to tell if people are actually interested in it or if they're just trying to get a job somewhere else. And I think you have to actually be interested in it. I think if you're genuinely only using it as like an advancement of your career, then people can tell that.

[20:42] Bobby Steggert: Yeah, they can smell it.

[20:43] Mary Mitchell-Campbell: Yeah, I don't think it plays so well. I was really interested in all the things that I was volunteering for. And Cy Coleman actually introduced me to Paul Newman, who had developed these camps for children who had life-threatening illnesses, and I got to spend a lot of time with him. He was a huge mentor of mine. And I think the thing that I learned the most from him was his humbleness and his interest in leveraging all of his success to help other people. And he used to talk a lot about luck, and he used to say, I think what I'm doing now is I'm acknowledging my luck. And I'm trying to help people that didn't get as lucky as I did. Um, and he would help these families who were facing these life-threatening illnesses for their kids, and also spending time with those kids was life-changing because those kids are very special in the sense that they don't have they know that the clock is ticking, they don't feel time the same way, and they therefore aren't bogged down by some of the things that we all get bogged down by.

They just don't they don't have time for it, so they're not sad most of the time. They might be in pain, but they're really trying to milk every moment of what they can experience. And so they're just very present. And it taught me a lot about what really matters and being present with people and connection and facing fear in such a beautiful way. So I feel like I learned so much from them. I'm still involved with those camps and have been for years and years. But yeah, so Cy Coleman, Paul Newman, two huge mentors, and then later Stephen Sondheim, or kind of major mentor.

[22:21] Bobby Steggert: Ooh, well, let's get to that. My question about all of this generally is were you confident enough in your abilities to not be intimidated? Or was that era one where it was intimidating?

[22:34] Mary Mitchell-Campbell: I was very, very insecure.

[22:34] Bobby Steggert: Were we ever that confident? I can only imagine today as you conduct a show at Encores that you feel like, okay, I know the fuck I'm doing.

[22:46] Mary Mitchell-Campbell: Yes, and no. I would say yes, but also no. Like, I mean, Wonderful Town, I just did, and I will say that I had moments of like, this is Bernstein. It's classical, it's it's not. Do I like I really had to work on it and build myself up and be like, yes, this is you're doing what you're supposed to be doing. Because I think every artist I know goes through those ups and downs of security around that. But I will say during the time that I was meeting these icons, no, I definitely was not confident, but I also will say I was so naive that it went over my head a little bit.

[23:23] Bobby Steggert: I get that.

[23:24] Mary Mitchell-Campbell: I wasn't like aware exactly how special it was until later.

[23:37] Bobby Steggert: I get that. I performed in Sondheim's 80th birthday concert and had no idea how special that was. I just showed up to do it.

[23:43] Mary Mitchell-Campbell: You're like, I'm just supposed to be here.

[23:46] Bobby Steggert: What is your general Sondheim story? How did you work with him?

[23:49] Mary Mitchell-Campbell: I met him because John Doyle was doing these actor musician revivals. And that was actually my entree into Broadway. Because I was doing a lot of concert work, I was doing a lot of big benefits. I was doing a lot of new musicals at The O'Neill, and I was doing a lot of readings and workshops. I was in the reading workshop world. And I was also going through a period of time where people I think were trying to figure out what my musical niche was, and I was constantly confusing them.

[24:26] Mary Mitchell-Campbell: So Michael John LaChiusa and Adam Guettel, and you're that girl. And then after that, I ended up moving into some like pop rock things. And it was like, oh, you're a pop rock girl. And then it was like, oh, then I started doing sound time. And it was like, oh, you're a sound time girl. So it was like, it was just confusing. Everyone likes to put you in a box. I think for all of us as artists. I think people, and it's mostly because their brains are so full, they just want to know where to file you. I have learned to not take that personally at all. It's just they just want to be like, oh yeah, that's what you do. I was doing a lot of those things I was pretty sure I was never gonna do Broadway.

I ended up meeting John Doyle. He interviewed with me about working on Company with him. And the interview went horribly from my perspective because it happened spur of the moment. We had been trying to get together, we couldn't find a time. We ended up meeting, and I was in my gym clothes. My hair was in braids, so I like looked really young. And I that wasn't in my favor, I didn't think. And he asked me a lot of questions about like my orchestrating background, which was very slim. And I was like, Yeah, I'm definitely not getting this job. And he asked me, he explained what he was looking for, and then he said, What do you think? And I said, I'm not even a hundred percent sure I understand what you're talking about.

What you're talking about is so unlike anything I've experienced that I can't really say one way or the other, but yeah, maybe like it might be a good fit, but hard to say. And so I walked away being like, that'll never happen, but that was fine. I was just excited to meet him and had very low expectations on that meeting. And then he ended up offering me the job, and I this leads into sort of advocacy things. I had just come back from India, having spent four months working in orphanages, and I had just started my nonprofit, then called A Step, now called Arts Ignite, and so when he offered me this Broadway show, I was like, oh no, I don't know how I can say yes to this and be a person of integrity, because I just said that I was gonna help all these kids that need help, and that I was gonna make a difference in this world in this other way.

And so I don't see how I can do both. So I sat down with him and I was like, listen, I'm super interested, but here's the problem. It sounds great, but I just I don't see how I can make this work. And he was like, I don't see why you can't do both. And I said, Really? And he said, Yeah, I'm willing to work around some of that. Like, we can figure this out together. You'll have to give me like four months of really concentrated time. But other than that, we can certainly figure it out. And he ended up convincing me that he would work with me, and he did. And I look back on that as a real crossroads moment where like I suddenly realized the world could be bigger. I didn't have to play by everybody else's rule book.

[27:35] Mary Mitchell-Campbell: As artists, we always believe that we have to be all in or we will fail. And you've already expressed these college courses that awakened you to a lot of the social issues that you care about. And I can also tell in how you describe how you entered into the musical theater world that service was a big part of how you made a name for yourself, wanting to give of your talents. So, what led you to go to India and what led you to create ASTEP, which then was called Artists Striving to End Poverty? The choice to go to India actually probably came largely from the 2004 election, which was my first time really tuning into politics, really tuning into what was happening in the world. I had just gone through a divorce.

And a bit like I was a massive failure in my life. And I was deeply saddened about the outcomes of that election. And I think I was just depressed. And so I spent a lot of time being depressed. And then there was just a moment where I sort of was like, you can wallow in this for a long time, or you can get up and take action. And I thought, okay, I need to, it's time to get up and like I have wallowed, and now it is time to move out of the wallowing phase. Let's be with the action phase. And I thought, okay, I need to go get outside of my problems and go help other people to just remind myself that there's a bigger world out there and that everyone has problems, and my problems are not the only problems in existence.

And so this will sound a little insane, but I basically had a voice in my head be like, You should go to India. And I was like, I should go to India. I had always been interested in India. Never really had any friends that had been there, but I just Googled volunteering in India.

[29:31] Mary Mitchell-Campbell: Wow. Were a lot of things going on musically that you had to sacrifice, or was there a lull in your work that allowed you to do it? There were some things that I had to sacrifice. I had to pull out of a few things, but nothing that felt monumental until actually, I will say, I had this idea. I Googled, I signed up on some website to go volunteer. I was like, I don't care where you put me in India. I just want to work with kids. They said, We're sending you to Bangalore. I was like, where's Bangalore? I looked in on the map. And then a couple weeks later, my doorman and I got into a conversation in my building. I was living on 101st in Broadway. And I talked to my doorman who was Indian. And I said, Hey, I'm going to India.

And he was like, You're kidding, where? And I said, I'm going to someplace called Bangalore. And he froze and he was like, I'm from Bangalore. I said, Really? And he said, Yeah, when are you going? And I gave him the dates. And he said, I haven't told anybody, but I'm moving back to India. So I'm going to be in India when you arrive. Oh my God. And he said, Why don't I meet you at the airport and you can stay with my family? What the hell? So I was like, I guess this is all supposed to happen. And ironically, I know you and I are we're close to Gavin Creel. Gavin was a big part of this chapter with me. And I remember telling him, I was like, You're not gonna believe this. This happened and this happened.

And he was like, I can't wait to hear how this trip goes. Sounds really fascinating. So I was on a plane. My doorman from 101st Street met me at the Bangalore airport and I stayed with his family for a week. And then I went and started volunteering, mostly in Bangalore, and then I went up to Calcutta, traveled a bit in different places volunteering. And before I left, I got a call offering me a meeting about a Broadway show as music director. And the producer said, I'd like for you to come in and meet. It was like a show that Casey Nicholaw was gonna direct. And Casey was interested in meeting me because we had mutual friends. And I said, Oh, yeah, that sounds great. And then I called back because I was getting ready to leave for India and I said, Wait, when is this show happening?

Because I don't want to waste your time. I'm about to go away for four months. And so it was happening while I was gone. And I said, Oh, I'm I shouldn't come in for this meeting then because I'm gonna be out of the country. And they were like, Oh, where are you gonna be? And I said, I'm gonna be in India. Long pause. While they were like, What? And I said, Yeah. They were like, on a show. And I said, No, I'm doing humanitarian work. Long pause. And then it was like, okay. Anyway, I did end up turning down that opportunity, which I thought was actually really telling, clarifying.

[32:14] Mary Mitchell-Campbell: It told you you were doing the right thing. It told yeah, it told me, like, oh, this opportunity came up and I wasn't tempted by it. So, in terms of the volunteer work, what was your function? What was your role? What were you doing day in and day out? Gosh, I was teaching English, I was tutoring, I was working in a home for young women, like basically middle and high school age students who had special needs. They all had some sort of thing going on, whether it was living in a wheelchair or being blind or whatever, they had different challenges going on in their lives. And so they were all sequestered to this one home. At that point, and I would probably say still today, having a girl in that culture is really economically challenging if you're not upper class, because they don't do retirement plans.

It's a country that has like a huge wealth divide. And so if you're on the low side of that wealth divide, if you're poor, your only way of trying to ensure your survival as you age is to have kids who are gonna take care of you. And so your goal is to have children that can provide. Girls do not earn very well, so they're not ideal. And if you have a disabled girl, that's really not ideal. So most of these girls had been abandoned by their families and were therefore sent to live in this government home. So there are no social services for people with special needs in the way that there would be here. Definitely not in the way they are here now. At least there weren't then. I don't believe there are now.

I haven't seen a sign of that. So I was doing a lot of caretaking of them, tutoring them. They went to school, was nearby. I would walk with them in school in the morning. Usually I had a break while they were at school, and then in the afternoons, we would do tutoring. I would help them prepare dinner. I would help them get ready for bed. I think twice we had big lice outbreaks. And so I did a lot of getting lice out of their hair. And they were all sleeping in pretty tricky conditions, like mostly on the floor, sharing pillows. It was very quaint.

[34:29] Mary Mitchell-Campbell: How were you living in terms of your own? I was living on the twin bunk bed type situation with very little around. It was primitive. It was highly, but it wasn't as I wasn't sleeping on the floor. I have spent over the years a lot of time sleeping on the ground in India and doing a lot of highly interesting locations, which are a deep contrast. I remember once when I was there, because I've been to India 23 times now. And I remember one time when I was there, I was working with Chenoweth in Australia, and I was coming from India to Australia, and I was sleeping on the ground in a really poor area with a family. And the next night I was on a plane in business flying to Australia, and I was like, this is a wild juxtaposition.

[35:21] Mary Mitchell-Campbell: So one of the things this work has given you is just like crazy perspective. Crazy perspective, which really helps, I think, when you're doing high pressure shows because it's like I've always felt like having both of these sides of my life have been really helpful because I bring a lot of perspective. It's like no one's gonna die, hopefully, unless tech goes really badly. The likelihood of people dying in a theater production are low, and things can get really crazy, but they're not gonna be. I like to say there is no such thing as a musical theater emergency. And so that perspective has been really helpful. But I will also say being in theater and having that outlet and being able to imagine and play and create has been so helpful to stay fulfilled and joyous and able to face some of the intense pain that exists in some of the communities that I've been working with.

[36:18] Mary Mitchell-Campbell: When you've been working with those communities, is that the entire purpose? Meaning when you're there doing that kind of work, is there anything else? How do you mean? I imagine you describing your work at the orphanage, and I imagine that was just your reality 24 hours a day, and that the rest of the world almost didn't exist.

[36:35] Mary Mitchell-Campbell: Yes, that is true. It was is it like all encompassing? Yes. I would say it's actually very much like being in rehearsals for Robish in the sense that everything else falls away, and you just are like with the people that you're with.

[36:47] Mary Mitchell-Campbell: I think what's beautiful about that work is I think it made me a better artist. Like genuinely made me a better artist. Because I would bring music into everything, right? Like I would teach everything through music. What it gave me was an understanding of how transformative the power of the arts is for a community. And it taught me so much about myself because I was way outside of my comfort zone. And there were parts of myself, I think we all have ideas of who we are and ideas of who we would be in a situation. I think it's like how we get so judgy when we beg at other people and we're like, I would never do that. I can't believe that they said that. I can't believe that they did that, whatever it is that we do as humans. And what I think is really interesting is when you get put in those situations, you find that sometimes you behave exactly like those people that you were judging, and you didn't understand what that context really was.

[37:51] Mary Mitchell-Campbell: And I think what was really helpful about those experiences was it pushed me so far outside of my comfort zone that I had to come face to face with who I actually was and not who I wanted to be or wish to be. Some of it was positive in the sense that I found out, oh, I'm much more adaptable than I realized. I can be really chill about my environment. I don't have to be in a nice hotel. I can be on a pillow on the ground or without a pillow and be on the ground and be fine. But I am really tethered to, I was really tethered to email. I had a really hard time if I didn't have an ability to access connection to the outside world from some of the more remote places. I started to melt down that were disappointing. The fantasy was I could just let it all go. It would I would be fine without it. That was my beautiful utopian idea that was not true. I would have massive anxiety if I wasn't able to connect to the internet.

[38:56] Bobby Steggert: In those settings, do you have a personal life? Do you have a social life, or is it really all about the work?

[39:02] Mary Mitchell-Campbell: Yeah, you there's not a lot of personal life or social life in those. Those settings were also short term for a set amount of time, typically. The four months was the longest I did. And then after that, I would say I did one that was one month and then several that were like two weeks and you know, things like that. So shorter time frames.

[39:22] Bobby Steggert: How did this all then evolve into the nonprofit?

[39:26] Mary Mitchell-Campbell: So when I came back and I had this conversation with John Doyle, and he was like, you can do both, and then that sort of started me on a process of doing a lot of Broadway shows, which was a totally different facet. But I came back and felt like I had two big truths. There's that song in Piazza called Dividing Day, and I really felt that. I was like, yes, for me, and this isn't gonna be true for a lot of people, but for me, it was like, oh, there was before that four-month trip and after that four-month trip. I could never look at the world the same way after that four-month trip. I had seen too much that I could not unsee, and that it was gonna affect my life in a really specific way.

[40:04] Mary Mitchell-Campbell: So the two truths I came back with were I was responsible for what I knew, and I could not unknow it. And that it was not about being guilty for what I had, then I needed to celebrate all of my good fortune. Because I do think that we have a tendency to look away from other people's pain. Oh, yes. Um, because it's so hard to process and not feel guilty about.

[40:32] Bobby Steggert: That's right.

[40:33] Mary Mitchell-Campbell: And I think that guilt creates a barrier between communities that is really unhelpful. And realizing like it wasn't about being guilty, it wasn't about feeling badly. It was about acknowledgement and about celebration for my good fortune. And with that, an intentionalized awareness of what I waste.

[41:02] Bobby Steggert: Do you mean material things or do you mean time and energy?

[41:06] Mary Mitchell-Campbell: All the things. But also just when you first come back from a situation where you've been in a place that is lacking what you would consider to be basic resources, and you come back and you're like, every time you turn on the light switch for the next month, you're like, electricity. It's so consistent. Or water, like things that you had taken for granted, and then you don't take for granted. But unfortunately, as a human nature, after a few months that wears off, and then you're right back where you were. I expect there to be light when I turn it on. There are moments I still find myself on a plane, and I'm like, what do you mean the Wi-Fi's not working? How dare they?

[41:44] Bobby Steggert: Yeah, check yourself.

[41:45] Mary Mitchell-Campbell: It's that constant give and take of the human condition where we just we start to feel entitled. We just do. We get used to something and then we expect it to be there. I think for me it was a lot of adjusting to that. But the bigger picture of it was coming back and realizing, okay, it's time to put all of this in action, all of these learnings. And I decided to start a nonprofit, which was wild because I had a piano performance degree and a religion minor, and I really didn't know anything about business. And but I will say what I think is really great for everyone to be reminded of is you can learn anything off the internet. You really can.

[42:21] Mary Mitchell-Campbell: And I ended up looking into nonprofit management classes, and I found the top five schools that had nonprofit management degrees, and I went and looked at their curriculums, and then I looked at all of their reading lists, and then I just ordered all the books and was like, I'm just gonna read the books and figure out what I'm supposed to know. And then I found some really good mentors. Tom Viola was one of my first mentors at Broadway Cares, and I just relentlessly asked questions, figured out how to start a business.

[42:56] Bobby Steggert: And so what is the purpose of the nonprofit generally?

[42:59] Mary Mitchell-Campbell: Arts Ignite currently has it's gone through many phases, but it's always been about arts education and children. And it's really about developing agency for kids in the arts. We work in communities that don't have access to the arts typically, but also communities that are facing serious challenge. It's not just communities that are low income, for example, it's communities where the kids are experiencing homelessness, or they are recently resettled to America, or they have HIV and a developmental disability. It's a lot of different, more extreme situations a lot of the time. And we have been working now for close to 20 years. We're coming up on 20 years, which is wild that it is still alive. Most nonprofits die in the first five years. I remember reading that statistic when when I started it, and I was like, okay, let's see if we can make it past five years.

[43:55] Mary Mitchell-Campbell: So it's exciting that we're at 20 years, and it's gone through a lot of phases, and I learned early on in the nonprofit scene, there's something called founder syndrome. Have you ever heard of that?

[44:03] Bobby Steggert: Vaguely.

[44:04] Mary Mitchell-Campbell: It's super interesting. But I read about it early on and I was like, don't get founder syndrome. So founder syndrome is when the founder of an organization gets so attached to outcomes, basically just gets too controlling, and like starts to develop their own identity in a way that is so wrapped up in the nonprofit that they on some level accidentally kill it or accidentally create lots of drama. And I think what really helped me from not getting near that was because I had this other career at the same time. So my identity was way more in the arts scene as like a music director, and it really helped me stay a little bit more detached, I think, than I would have otherwise.

[44:46] Mary Mitchell-Campbell: And in the sense of letting the child, I always referenced it as organization is like having a child, and you have to let your child tell you who it is and not try to tell it what it is. So there's a lot that was revealed to me that I didn't anticipate, but I was like, that's where it's supposed to go then. It's like you can't tell a child you're gonna love ballet, and they're like, I want to play guitar. You're like, great, play guitar.

[45:09] Bobby Steggert: So anyway, so that's how I viewed the evolution of the organization over time.

[45:14] Bobby Steggert: So this is like a wrap-up question, and you're currently the musical director at Encores, which is I don't know, maybe the most stable musical director job you could have in New York. I imagine you could tell me differently, but it's so cool. I'm so proud of you, so excited for you. And when you look at these two purposes, how do you see them unfolding together from now into the future?

[45:38] Mary Mitchell-Campbell: What I love about City Center, there are many things I love about City Center, but I think they really value Arts Education, outreach program there, and they've been really collaborative. We've brought so many students from New York City to see performances. I've had the opportunity to bring Arts Ignite teachers in, and we've done collaborative workshops, and there's been a couple of shows where we've gotten to put groups of young artists in our shows. We did that in Oliver a few years back. And so that to me is super exciting, just the outreach component and the fact that they're so supportive of it.

[46:14] Mary Mitchell-Campbell: But I think in general, I see myself being able to really bring these two worlds together a lot of the time because when I'm working on a Broadway show or I'm working at Encores, I meet a lot of performers who are also deeply passionate teaching artists. And it's really exciting to be like, great, let's put you in with this group of kids and let you bring imagination to them because one of the biggest challenges for those communities is not being encouraged to imagine. And I really do believe in order to break some cycles, you have to imagine yourself getting out of them. There cannot be hopelessness as the force against you.

[46:54] Bobby Steggert: Right.

[46:54] Mary Mitchell-Campbell: Yeah, you have to believe. And for a lot of them, they're not being raised in families that have hope necessarily. If their parents have been beaten down enough, they're not really gonna try to encourage hope because they don't want their kids to be disappointed. So oftentimes it's a muscle that they've never flexed before. But there's that great, you have to see it to be it. There is an element of visualization and being able to dream big that I think creates that level of determination to put that hard work in to get you where you want to go. So it's been really fun to just watch those two things intertwine.

[47:30] Bobby Steggert: Wow, you're right where you need to be. I gotta just say it's like when someone succeeds like you have, and they succeed because the fuel pushing you is centered on the right values. It's just a really affirming thing.

[47:45] Mary Mitchell-Campbell: I feel very grateful, and I think I stay in a place of being continually curious to learn more. I feel like I have gotten more out of volunteering than I have given, honestly. And I learned so much about myself. I heal so much about myself when I'm doing that work. And I think it has, like I said, really forced me to look at myself in a more honest self-assessment than I would necessarily want to do, but that has been like very helpful for my own therapy as far as okay, well, let's work on these things where I want to be, so let's work on it. And I think that kind of stuff has been super helpful.