There's lots of room to be your own worse critic. It's just you, so I think that's inherit, that voice that's always that's there monitoring everything you do. It's definitely worse; the critic is harder when it's just you. If you're doing a show, then the critic can blame the other actors your with.
Jason GraaeI come in as an actor, having read through the script a few times, made a couple of character-choices, thinking I'm going to be working on it during rehearsals. It's very different. It takes a while we're always like dogs sniffing each other's asses.
Jason GraaeI know when I like to go see a show, I like to see people show as many different facets of themselves as they can, because I think that's the fun of it.
Jason GraaeMy whole family is in the arts some way or the other. My father was a cellist in a symphony outside Chicago that was a side-job, he was a scientist. My mother was a dancer in New York. She was next-door neighbors with Dorothy Loudon and they moved to New York together. Mom was a dancer in New York for several years before she got married. My sister was a classical pianist. And my brother was a partier. So it all just seemed to work.
Jason GraaeThe operas that I do are more in the operetta world, but I've gotten to do them in all of these major opera companies so it's been really wild. And I feel comfortable in that world because I went Cincinnati Conservatory and I hung out with all those kinds of people, I love hanging out with them and I understand them and their "diva-osity."
Jason GraaeI'm trying to make it a little bit more personal this time. All my shows are hodge-podges, and this one is no exception but this one delves a little more deeper into my life and my world. Hopefully it's funny. I did a version of this at Birdland last January and it's similar-ish to what I've done before. But I've been working on it all year; I did it out here in Los Angeles in a theatre and kept developing it. Hopefully it'll be better.
Jason Graae