JD's Journal
Having roamed this planet for six decades, and after 47 years of full-time employment in a smorgasbord of roles and locations, I'm sharing the gems I've gathered plus the wisdom of other remarkable leaders and innovators who I've encountered along the way. I don't have a clear destination yet, but based on my historical experience, it's certain to be a dynamic and unpredictable adventure. Welcome aboard!
JD's Journal
Jye Bryant: Composing Musical Theatre, Advocacy and Social Justice
Picture a world where every note in a musical score is a stepping stone towards greater empathy and social justice. That's the vision Jye Bryant brings to life through his Sydney-based theater and educational work. Our latest episode is a symphony of stories from this composer, educator, and advocate, illuminating the profound impact the arts can have on society. Jye's own narrative, from the personal triumphs of coming out to the community connections forged in theater, is an intimate score that resonates with the universal human experience.
Have you ever considered the delicate dance between crafting a minimalist show and making an outsized emotional impact? Jye takes us behind the curtain of "The Things I Could Never Tell Stephen," his acclaimed musical that thrives on the power of unspoken words and the character who never takes the stage. We also get a peek into his creative process, where inspiration strikes from the everyday to the extraordinary, and the camaraderie of fellow creatives is the ultimate encore. Plus, tips from his book "Lyric Writing in Five Easy Steps" reveal the melody of crafting compelling lyrics, no matter where you are in your artistic journey.
Transitioning from the spotlight to the heartwarming tales of community service, Jye shares his evolution from music teacher to youth worker. He underscores the significance of accessible education in community service fields and the life-changing power of creativity in guiding young minds. And for those navigating the thorny path of an artistic career, Jye's candid insights into overcoming industry hurdles offer hope. Whether you're a fellow artist balancing day jobs or an enthusiast longing to contribute to the arts, this episode offers a chorus of wisdom that sings to the soul of every listener.
Hi, folk, and welcome to the JDs Journal podcast where, every couple of weeks, my guests and I share some of our life's journey our successes, our failures, the valuable lessons that we've learned on the way and the resources that we've gathered that have allowed us to survive, prosper and thrive. The opinions and perspectives shared on JD's Journal should be taken and applied with your own good judgment. Episodes of the podcast are largely unscripted and unedited. I'll do my best to keep things on topic, but you can expect some occasional glitches and a little meandering along the way. I hope, if nothing else, you find that entertaining. Now let's get this episode started. Hi, folk, and welcome back to JD's Journal. So glad to have you here again.
JD:I've got a very special guest here Bryant today. Jye Bryant is a Sydney-based Australian musical theatre composer, lyricist, producer and author with a huge passion for theatre, education and social justice. His works are performed regularly in cabaret circuits all over the world, where he's gained some great popularity as a composer of choice for many of the high-profile international artists and theatre companies. His most well-known musical, the Things I Could Never Tell Stephen, has had 11 international seasons, including Parramatta and Chicago and Louisiana and Belfast and so forth A significant success. I've had the good pleasure of Jye for about seven years, I think. I've Jye because of the experience I have in the theatre world, and I Jye is an incredibly creative and passionate person when it comes to these productions. But I also know him as an incredibly remarkably nice person to be with, and so it's so good to have you here today, Jye did I introduce you well? Have I missed anything significant there?
Jye:That sounded wonderful. Thank you for having me on Fantastic.
JD:All right, so we have of what a sense you do. We'll learn more about what you do specifically as we work through the podcast. But I always like to start with the big question, right? So what is Jye Bryant's greater purpose? Why do you exist on this planet and what's the legacy that you expect to leave behind?
Jye:Yeah, I guess that that's one of the things, isn't it? What do I do and why do I do it? That has been a big question for a long time and I think, really, when I boil it right down to its bones, it really is probably education. That's probably my main passion in life is to sort of share information, to challenge people, to get people to think, and I guess, being also from a music background, so as a musician, as a composer, using music to do that, and then theatre, by taking it a step further, is, I think, when people are having fun, you can really explore some stuff intellectually. And I think that's where the key is, and that, for me, is something I'm quite interested in is finding that balance. How can I entertain someone but also maybe get some sort of message or challenge some beliefs that underpin a lot of who they are, all that sort of stuff.
JD:So it's interesting you say it that way and I'm kind of playing it in my head. My interpretation of what you just said is you think there's some important learning that needs to happen. You think that there's important information, knowledge and perspectives that you need to pass on to the world, and I totally get and respect that.
JD:But further to that to the world and I totally get and respect that. But further to that, my, my understanding of the premise is that when you entertain, you create that kind of opportunity, you open up people's curiosity and you open up that, that door that maybe they would have been resistant to a normal conversation. But now I'm receptive because of the way it's being delivered to me and I I think it's interesting that I get my news sources mostly from comedians and I think it's somewhat similar in terms of that. Am I understanding that correctly?
Jye:That's right. When people are relaxed, when people are having fun, they're more susceptible and, I think, they're more open to messages and ideas. They're not well, I would hope that they're not on edge and they're not threatened, but they're entertaining. That's not to say that I have huge amounts of knowledge to be sharing, but what I think we can do through education and through what I often refer to as edutainment, is that we can throw ideas around and that exploration of ideas I don't know if you know I've got my ideas, whether they're right or wrong, it's really not the thing. It's about exploring ideas, let's you know, and through that exploration, that that's where we learn things about ourselves, about the world, about other people's lives, other people's experiences, build some empathy, all of that sort of stuff.
JD:I think you just wrote the byline for my podcast, like, right there, you kind of just uncovered my internal purpose as well. There's so much parody there. Frankly, Jye, between the way I think about these things and the way that you do, I think that's amazing. So if there was like the key messages, like what are they, what's the change you're trying to invoke, or what's the experience you're trying to invoke through this medium?
Jye:Well, I guess a lot of it is empathy. I'm a big believer in empathy and I think empathy is really our only way forward as a civilization, and so Theatre iFund is a great place to do that, because we get to step into other people's lives and choose, we get to try on things without necessarily doing it ourselves, we get to go on journeys with people we probably wouldn't otherwise associate with out in our everyday life, so that, I think, can build empathy and that, I think, is the way forward for us as a society.
JD:I love that and I concur again, because my experience in theatre is it's the one place where I can be that character that I would never be in the real world, right, that ability to kind of step into the shoes of a persona that I couldn't imagine myself doing in my corporate environment. And I can do that freely in the in the theatre environment and it's welcomed. Um. So again, I'm so relatable. I really appreciate that. So social injustice comes up in your bio and it certainly has come up when you and I have talked about your greater purpose. What does that mean for you and how has social injustice influenced the work that you do beyond what we've talked about?
Jye:Yeah, well, that's right. I think I come from a family of social justice warriors. For one, you know, I come from a family of social workers mostly. So I think that part has, from a very young age, been instilled in me and my family is a sense of justice. I think also, going from a working class background as well gives you a bit of a perspective that maybe there are barriers that might be in your way purely just because of you know the class you were born into.
Jye:Also, being same-sex attracted or lgbt as well, I think adds another perspective, recognizing that then these things that you maybe didn't choose impact on the way that you live your life, the way other people see you and all of that sort of stuff. I think that's been a big driver, uh. And so I guess when I came out when I was 18, my family very supportive, very accepting, so from there I sort of felt, well, this is an opportunity for me, being that I had such a supportive base, I could go on and educate people and share my story in order to just give, I guess, some insight into what that might be like growing up maybe not straight or not, you know, typically mainstream type thing.
JD:Was there a time that you remember when that epiphany struck you, was there an event, or was it coming out, or was it something else, where you had that kind of realisation that this was the purpose, this was the thing that you needed to embrace and kind of make your motivation.
Jye:Not really, but I think what's underneath that was a sense of injustice, that the world that I was living in was not ideal, and I wanted to see future generations of me and people like me have an easier time.
JD:Yeah love that. I totally respect that and certainly again, lots of synergy in terms of the work that I've done in the corporate environments along the same lines, working with the Glamazon Affinity Group within Amazon. It's a very important mission, no question about it. I will say it's a very important mission here up in Asia, where I live these days as well, because things are significantly more difficult and complicated in this part of the world. So I totally understand and respect that. So you've given us some clues, some insights into your journey, but I wonder if you could take a step back and kind of walk us a little bit more through how did you get here? Like what was the journey to get to where you are today? And and and the major steps I guess you've gone through.
Jye:Yeah, well, I guess I started out in community theatre, as probably a lot of us do, and I joined community theatre which is sort of a little strange because I can't sing or dance or act and I ended up in community theatre. But but I loved community theatre so much and so as a teenager probably about the age of 14, I think I ended up in the Pirates of Penzance as a very young pirate in the band of pirates, and that was a life-changing experience because I realised that there was a connection with these other people who were also there just because they loved it not necessarily because they were amazing at it, but this was a real hobby for them. It was a real community of people that they could see every week and they would build these connections with and their social ties that were so important. And so I then sort of grew up in that space where I'd do every show that was going, anything. That would be the next show.
Jye:Yep, I was in it, but being a piano player, it meant that sometimes the piano player wouldn't turn up to rehearsals and so some of the cast members, knowing that I was playing piano, I wasn't particularly good, but they said, oh, let Jai play he can play, since the piano player's not coming. And so of course I then massacred so many beautiful scores, and but that was a really great place to really sort of learn how well, what does, what do musical theater scores look like? What are the piano parts like? How do they fit within the broadest space of a musical? How do they fit with the voices? How do they fit with the voices? How do they fit with the script and the drama? So it gave me a real insight. And then, of course, there was a lot of the mentorship of some of the older people in the community theatre that then saw my interest and then shared a lot of their knowledge as well. So that was such an exciting and in hindsight, probably quite rare experience for young people to have, particularly, I guess, as writers, as composers. We don't really get that opportunity. That's not something that happens much.
Jye:So it led eventually for for me to be the, I guess, the composer and lyricist for a pantomime, and that was the first I'd written musicals, none of them particularly good, but I sort of spent a lot of time trying to figure out what is this thing, how does a musical work? What sort of songs do you write, building on my composition skills, and so eventually we'd written, I wrote the music and lyrics. There was an older guy that wrote the script and the society put it on. They staged the show. It was a family show.
Jye:There was a cast of maybe about 30 people, the tickets were really cheap, so they brought in lots of families in and I put together a little rock band about a five piece band and it was a fun, really, really exciting experience. And so from there I realized that this is something that I really want to get good at and, as you can imagine, the first time it's not really that good A lot of holes, a lot of things you'll learn along the way. But that opportunity for a theater company to say, hey, here, 17 year old, have a go at this, we'll stage it really is an unheard of situation. So the fact that I was able to do that for four years in a row so each time the shows got a little better, the songs got a little bit better, some got worse, some got better, and it was a real journey there about figuring out well, what do you do?
Jye:How do you write a show, what are the steps and then, how do you then get it from an idea to then something that people can sing and dance and act on stage in front of a live audience. And that is quite a journey because we're no doubt going to chat about today so episode two of the podcast.
JD:I talked about mindset and you know Carol Dweck's book on mindset, but also the broader picture of and I do talk about some uh famous individuals and their tenacity to to kind of strive through the, the challenges and climb the mountains and do whatever they had to do to be successful. And I think you've just beautifully presented a phenomenal growth mindset story. Right, so don't, can't sing, can't dance, you know can't, can't act, blah, blah. But I love musical theater and they're going to do this thing and then just to throw yourself in at it. And what you described with these shows is exactly the mindset of I can't do that well yet, but I'm going to keep going at it. I'm going to keep chipping away at that until I get good at that and then succeed. So a beautiful mindset story to share and I want to see those shows now. I'm just so curious about what you came up with. They sound fantastic. I became an absolute panto nut when I lived in Europe, of course, because they do their panto every year.
JD:They're always great fun for the family and the adults and so forth. So now I'm really super curious about that.
JD:Thank you for sharing that journey. That's fantastic. I love that. The other thing that's in your story that I find is very common when I talk to people about their journeys, particularly when they're in a journey where there's challenge and the learning path there always seems to be someone in that story who came in as a mentor or an example or created opportunity and so forth. And I think you shared the same thing there with somebody there more senior, who kind of took you under their wing and took you Did I read that right?
Jye:That's right, yeah. Well, it was a few people even it was just older people that had experience decades more experience quite often who would then just just read through my, my lyrics or read through or sing, listen through my my terrible piano playing and bad vocals and listen for the gems and say that's really great, there, let's. Do you need to do more of that? Or, yeah, maybe you need to do a little less of that. One, uh, and all of that really constructive and positive and supportive and almost just, I guess, knowing intuitively how to give feedback in a way that doesn't derail someone's interest or passion but invigorates them in some way.
JD:We could do a whole podcast on that topic, in fact we might, that's right.
JD:Because I think it's such a great topic, but I think it's certainly a takeaway for the listeners is like the universe sends you these people at certain times in your life. They come along. Goodness me, open the door, relish that feedback, take the critical feedback and embrace it, which sounds like exactly what you did there, jai, so I think that's brilliant, and I can tell my own stories at times about the same thing. It's those opportunities you've got to relish them. That tell my own stories at times about the same thing. It's those opportunities. You've got to relish them. I'm missing it. In the production of show called the things I can never tell steven as being your most notable composition and uh, and the success that it's had internationally in uh, in cabaret. I wanted to share a little bit of the inspiration behind the show. What's it all about and why were you inspired to write it and why do you think it's been so well received?
Jye:Yeah, well, it's one of those things that is quite. It was a huge risk. The show came to me as a title and I thought that's just intriguing. And I started then thinking there's a lot of things we probably don't share to people in our lives, that we withhold stuff for a whole heap of reasons. I thought I wonder if I could write a show about all the things that we don't tell people, which is sort of a bit tricky because you're sort of thinking, well, what don't we tell people? I asked a lot of people saying what sort of things don't we tell people? And I compiled massive lists of things that we don't share people, and for different reasons as well. What are the reasons we don't share things? So I had this idea of a title. I ran it past a friend and I said I've got this idea for a show Things I Could Never Tell Stephen. He said, oh, that sounds really intriguing. And so from there the show started to then build itself.
Jye:Um, once I started to identify different things people don't tell people and so, bit by bit, I'd write a song and and as time went on, it started to um, evolve into something. But I also had another idea that maybe what if? What if the lead character never comes on stage? What? What happens if we never meet? The lead character never comes on stage? What happens if we never meet the lead character? Would it even work? Would the audience? Would they be frustrated? And so that was really the whole thing. It was just a risk, it was an experiment.
Jye:I ran it past a lot of different people. I workshopped it a whole bunch of times. I submitted it to a few new musical writing competitions. No one was interested in it and I thought no, there's something in this story that's intriguing to me, so I stuck at it and then eventually I staged it in 2015. I produced it myself because no one was interested in taking that risk, understandably, because I didn't know if it was going to work anyway. That was sort of half the fun. We staged it 2015. It then went on again in 2017. And that time we got to film it. So we then had something to show and then from there it just sort of took off.
Jye:I think the next production was in Ireland, then Belfast. There was a production in Brisbane, chicago took it up the National Theatre of Parramatta. Just one by one, all these different theatre companies ran with it, and I think the success relates to a few things. I think one of them is that it's only four cast members, so it's so easy to produce.
Jye:It's really cheap to stage and that is a factor that is really really important when you're producing theatre, particularly new theatre that people have never heard of. People don't want to be spending money on something they don't know if it's going to sell. So if you've only got four cast members and a piano, as that show does, it's a very cheap show to stage. So if if people don't come to see it, you haven't really lost much money, um, and so I sort of think that may be a part of that. On top of that, um, it's covid, friendly as well, because the four characters don't interact. They sing together three times in the show but there's no real interaction between them, so they can have their own separate state areas of the stage and they're not going to sort of come into contact. So on top of that, I think it's fairly accessible, because I think we all withhold stuff, so I think people get that.
JD:I think that's universal in lots of ways were you surprised by any of the responses you get about what people hide, or was it all expected?
Jye:I think I expected a lot of it. I yeah it's interesting that a few people after they saw the premiere production, I had a couple of friends quietly in my ear say I think I'm Stephen, and so that I thought was a really interesting moment for them to just reflect on. Hey, maybe I'm not being as authentic as I'd like to be in my life. Maybe I'm withholding parts of me that I would actually like to share and that is important and that, for me, is a win as a writer, because that's what I wanted people to have. That's the sort of experience I wanted people. For me, authenticity is such an important value that I hold so a show about lies and deceit and not sharing very much is in line with my hope that people can be authentic in their lives.
JD:I think what I love about shows like this you know minimalistic shows, ie the production is minimalistic, the casting is minimalistic is that the show has to be successful based on the merits of the story. You've got nowhere to hide, frankly.
JD:You can't hide behind the jazz and the lights and so forth. What you present is what is presented. So, to have the success that you've had with this show, I think you've got to feel good about the fact that you've come up with something that people can relate to personally, and you've described how to do that. But hopefully they're leaving with thinking about this thing, that they're processing this thing after the fact as well. So I think that that's fascinating and I think that that does come through in a number of the ways that you think about your shows. Right, I think there's a there's a common, somewhat common style there in terms of how your mind works, in terms of it's the story that leads, it's the story that primes, not the production itself. Is that a fair thing to say?
Jye:that's right, exactly. For me it really comes down to the text. In lots of ways the lyrics are really that's where everything is. For me it's always in the lyrics. All the all of my magic I squeeze into those verses because that's the stuff that when people are singing, we. It's not unlike straight theater and straight theater where there isn't singing.
Jye:You have the with a musical you've got the opportunity to to almost go into people's character. I feel in some ways deeper that you can really using the style of music, using a whole heap of different things range or instruments or whatever the tone of songs, you can really build in extra layers to sort of a monologue in lots of ways, and I love that part of theatre that we can do, that we can go internally into characters in ways that I don't know that other art forms maybe can do quite as well where can we see the show today?
JD:Is it still playing or is it?
Jye:At the moment there's no plan for a next production. Once I got to 10, I sort of thought well from there, I'm happy to put my time and energy into publicizing other things.
JD:That's awesome. That makes perfect sense. Well, thanks for sharing that Mother May's is your latest release, just recently, I think. Can you share with our listeners what it's all about and inspired it?
Jye:So Mother Maze. So I guess, to give some context, my partner had said a while back when I go to the theatre I've been at work all week the last thing I want to do is have to think too hard, and, of course, in some of my shows, I demand that an audience thinks a little bit right. So in Mother Maze, I thought well, I'm going to take your advice and I'm going to try a different sort of approach this time. This time I'm going to put together a show that is just a whole lot of fun. Where it is raunchy and it is naughty and it is, it's, there is just a lot of laughter, and so there's that element. The reality is, though, I can't help myself, it needs more depth than just that of, of course. So for me, really, although Mother Maze is set in sort of a burlesque bordello, I guess probably around about the 1920s, it's fairly ambiguous as to when it's set or where it's set. It could be set really anywhere, but you've got basically a cast of six women who are working in this bordello and they're entertaining the male patrons with, I guess, the idea that after the show, that there might be a little something else they might offer. If you get my drift.
Jye:So it's all very burlesque and we've got two parts of the show.
Jye:The first part is we're watching the audience.
Jye:We're sitting there as an audience and these women are performing to us as as though we're the clients or the patrons in their club. So we've got that part. But then we have these other moments backstage, where we see the lives of these women and the complexities, and we see that, although the women may have been quite two dimensional out in front of the stage, in front of us as the punters, um backstage we see that there's a lot more to them than that, and so that, for me, is is the most important part about mother maze. It's the reminder that we have these two parts. We have our front self, that we go out into the world with our facade. We do what people think, what we think they want from us. We often perform out in the business world, out on the street, whatever it is, but then at home, in our safe place, our backstage maybe, is where we're, or our authentic self, and it's where we have these intricacies, and our lives are much more complicated than the two-dimensional person that we might present to the world.
JD:So that's, that's my um idea for mother maze so your partner goes to act one then goes to the pub when you stay for act two sorry, I love the metaphor there, right? So we always talk about the fact that you know, be be compassionate with people, because we've all got our stuff, we've all got our our crap going on, and I think there is a temptation, when you go and see a band or a live show or whatever, to have this imagining of what they are and what their lives are like and how good their lives are compared to yours, and I think this, this really peels that back and and sheds a light on that. I'm also getting a little bit of a noise, a noises off kind of thing. It's kind of front of stage, back of stage kind of thing, which I kind of like that a lot.
JD:Um, I think that's tremendous. Um and uh, how you come up with these concepts just kills me. So I'm always so envious of people who can just sit down and create a vision for a show from scratch, or even create the concept behind a song, uh, and I'm really, I'm really curious, given you've done so much over the years in terms of of developing these shows and writing songs and so forth what is your?
JD:creative process. How do you go about this, john?
Jye:yeah. So usually, um, if it's uh, usually ideas just come along. Usually it could be in a conversation with someone, uh, or someone might sort of say, oh, that'd make a funny song. I remember, uh, a girl I worked with quite a few years back, um, she had, she was telling me and a few other colleagues that she was having sex with her ex. I said, oh, that would make an amazing title for a song. And so, of course, a couple of days later I walk into the office and say you know, I wrote this song the other day called Sex with an Ex. What do you think it is? So it's often those sort of things where people will say something.
Jye:I think that could be a really interesting idea for a song, whether it's a title. Titles tend to be where I will start, um, or sometimes it just might be a particular theme, like the most recent song I wrote was a poem I stumbled across of a mother who wrote sort of a letter to she had this toddler child and she was reflecting on when he grew up and and that he's going to leave her and she won't really be that special anymore, and so I thought that's such a beautiful concept. So I then turned that into a song ultimately. So I stumbled across these ideas and I think that would make a really interesting thing to sing about, something I can explore with lyrics.
JD:So be very careful what conversations you have with Jai, because you could end up being a show you never know. I love that. That's fantastic. Do you ever get writer's block?
Jye:Oh, yeah, all the time. How do?
JD:you break through it.
Jye:Well, I have a whole heap of different strategies. My main strategy is just to whinge about it. That works. You know, the reality is creativity just comes and goes. Inspiration comes and goes, and you just sort of have to expect that. That's just the reality of being a creative person, and not all the time are you going to be creative or productive, so sometimes you've just got to accept.
Jye:I tend to have a few creative valves, so if I can't write a song, then I might work on script, or I might write a poem, or I might write a lyric or whatever. I'll just do something else. I might write a chapter in a book or something. I'll do something that doesn't maybe require playing piano or whatever it is. That just doesn't seem to be working for the moment. So, um, and then I'm surrounded by a lot of other musical theater writers as well, who have the exact same problem. So I send them a Facebook message and I say I am at that terrible stage between projects, and the response you know from them is I hear you. I know that feeling. I was there last week. So that is really, really important to have community, to remind you that you're not broken as a creator. It's just a part of the process. It'll come and go and there will be other times where, for weeks, you will just be churning out song after song after song.
JD:Isn't it magical when you're in flow, I have to say. I mean, I don't write songs, and I'll talk about that in a second, but I write a lot of documents from a work context and I've also been writing a novel now for about a year now about 10 years now I've been working on a leadership book sorry, not a novel and it is interesting when you're in flow. It's just incredible how many pages you can churn out in a day. But when you're stuck, gosh, you're so stuck and I know when I started writing the book, one of the things that I've read about authors who are disciplined is that they sit at the keyboard. They can't write a word, they just sit and sit and they're not allowed to leave the keyboard until they write something yeah, I think my strategy is has moved to just write something.
JD:It might be crap, but just type stuff randomly and then go back and read it and see if it does anything for you, but it's interesting.
Jye:That's right, I guess I've. Over the years I've gone through stages where my old composition lecturer used to say you have to be your instrument. If you're wanting to write like you've, you've got to be there, you've just got to wait for it, and and that eventually, if you're at it long enough, something will come. And so I ran with that philosophy for a long time. But these days my philosophy is a little different. It's mostly to just not be so hard on myself and just expect that I'll write again.
JD:It's okay if it's not the end, I haven't lost it entirely, it will come back yep that makes sense now listen if you want to be a songwriter, like I do, and and if you struggle as much as I do, which is terribly. I've been a musician most of my, but I've written like two songs in my entire life. Jai has a book called Lyric Writing in Five Easy Steps, which I bought some time back. I love it. It's a book that I recommend to anybody who's interested in it. I think it's got some great structure, some great concepts and ideas to it. I wouldn't say it's made me a great songwriter, but I've got about half a dozen concepts in process right now, so at least I'm doing something.
JD:But I thought when I was reading this I'm like you are a songwriter, John, this is your gig and you're giving away the secret sauce, the trade secrets You're worried about sharing your knowledge.
Jye:No, because, as an educator, I believe that knowledge is something to be shared. It should free, it should be accessible, everyone should have it, and I sort of feel that we need to build community more than anything. And I think we do better when we connect with other people instead of competing all the time. Connecting, because I think that's where the that's, that's where the magic happens is when we connect with people. That's when we're inspired to write um, there's no good me holding on to the things that work for me. I'd rather connect with other writers, share my secrets and they share theirs, and and we both are elevated together wonderful, I'm going to be booking you for a weekly consultation.
JD:Help me get through this, so I need all the help I can get so I mean, I listed some of the shows at the beginning of the of the podcast and you know you've got amazing shows in your portfolio, like captain moonlight and sepulchra and the oldest profession, rainbow tears, latin goes to africa, and so on. What's your favorite and why? What's your favorite?
Jye:show. I guess that's a little bit like asking a parent which child is their favorite. I can tell you, but not on air it's uh, each has their own merits, is really, I guess, what it comes down to every one of my shows. Uh, I guess for me as a writer, one thing that's quite important is if I'm writing a show, the music needs to set the tone of the world I'm trying to create. So because I've written shows of all different types of worlds, they sound quite different. So, although the things I could never tell, stephen is quite modern musical theatre. That's quite different to then Mother Maze, which is all prohibition jazz, because that's sort of set in 1920s, sort of burlesque-y type stuff, while Captain Moonlight is an Australian bushranger who's Irish, and so it's filled with Irish folk music. So each of them has and it sort of depends what day it is really, some days I like some shows more than others.
JD:Yep, that makes perfect sense. I can totally relate to that. It turns what I listen to as well. Beyond your own creations, Jai, what, when it comes to musical theatre, do you have a favourite that you would go to or you recommend the listeners to go to?
Jye:Oh, that's so tricky, isn't it? Generally, I want to go to things that make me think Yep, usually, sondheim musicals are my go-to, because I know that they're going to be able to to on a cognitive and intellectual level, I'm even if I don't love the music, I'm going to go away thinking about things differently, and so that's um one thing that sometime is always a good go-to for me absolutely american psycho did it, for I thought that show was so fascinating in terms of what the hell was going on and the way it was presented.
JD:Phenomenal production the Haze that I saw some time ago, just brilliant. So let's move off the theatre piece for a bit. I know that you've also been teaching community service at Mount Druitt TAFE for the last 12 years. I mean 12 years there teaching community service. That's a big slice of your life. What's it all about when you're teaching community service? What's the purpose of that and why are you so motivated to keep doing that?
Jye:Yeah, well, that's right. For a long time I've balanced writing and my jobs in community services. I started as a high school music teacher and realised very quickly I was not going to be very fulfilled teaching crotchets and quavers to disinterested adolescents, and so I ditched that gig after a couple of years and got a full-time job as a youth worker, and so from there, I spent a lot of time using the skills I acquired as a high school teacher, but using them in a context where my focus was really on young people's social and emotional wellbeing. That was really my focus, and the way in which I would do that is through theatre and creative stuff. So whether it was African drumming or whether it was writing short pieces of theatre or whatever it was, it was always something that was creative. So it sort of has meant and I've stayed on being a youth worker for I think it's close to 18 years or something where, for me, really, that has been enduringly fulfilling, because it's one of those things that is, it's never ending, ultimately, that it's the same stuff.
Jye:Young people, every generation of young people, has the same sort of obstacles and the way we meet those obstacles is a similar way, and we know that, through creativity, building community and all of those things, we know that they are great things to build young people into sturdy adults. So that, for me, has always been something that is ongoing. It's just an ongoing passion, and with that, there's also elements of education that have been a part of that. Hence, why, then, I've been at TAFE for so long, teaching youth work and mental health and alcohol and other drugs is because, for me, it's also, then, about creating people that will go out and work to fix some of our social issues and to make sure that those people are the highest quality people that we can create, because that, for me, is the vision that I have, for the world that I want to live in is one that has huge amounts of safety nets and huge amounts of qualified people that you can turn to when life doesn't go to plan. So that's always been my passion, unwaveringly.
JD:So what sort of people decide to go and learn community service at TAFE, and what do they come away with? What do they?
Jye:learn. Yeah well, I think it's probably one of my favourite things, actually, and often when we're talking about mental health, for instance, so students might come along to our orientation, they want to study certificate four in mental health. Ultimately, they've generally had a lot of lived experience Not always, but most of the time they've had some sort of lived experience, whether it's their own or family members or friends or whatever and for them, in their journey of recovery, they're wanting to often give back because they've found that there weren't really great workers or sometimes maybe some really poor workers, and they want to, now that their life is starting to get a little bit more stable maybe, or a little easier, that they want to now start to contribute and give back to the same industry that may have supported them. Similar sort of thing in terms of alcohol and other drugs A lot of people with lived experience may have supported them. Similar sort of thing in terms of alcohol and other drugs a lot of people with lived experience.
Jye:So maybe they've recently come out of custody or maybe they've come out of rehab and for them it's that same thing that they want to change the society they live in. They want to be able to, based on their lived experience, change some things or be that person for someone else. That's often one thing I hear a lot of. And then for youth workers quite a lot of those students come straight out of school. They're really keen to become youth workers, quite often because they've just recently had their own youth workers that they want to sort of recreate that experience for others. But that's not always the case. There will always be some people that just want a career change and they'll look for something else and they'll stumble across community services and think, well, what's this about? And then they'll look into it and they'll think you know, this might be worthwhile. This is something that maybe taps into my values and that's always something that is so important.
JD:I have to say working in Western Sydney, which is where I was working when I was based in Sydney and working with youth myself. From an employment pipeline perspective, I've been very pleasantly blown away by the number of people who are the type that you described people who've had a lived experience, have had a personal experience and then have a yearning to give back, to take that experience and help other people either navigate the experience or, even better, prevent that experience. So I love that we've got folks out there doing community service who are not just purely academics in that space but have got very personal scenarios of experience. So how incredibly empowering. What does it take to get in to do the community service training at Mount Druitt TAFE? Is there an entrance requirement that's significant, or is it pretty easy to get through?
Jye:It's fairly easy to get through. So for Certificate IV, usually anyone can sign up. Ultimately you need to. I think you've probably got to be over 18 generally, just because that's some of the workplace requirements and things like that. But usually there's not a huge amount of requirements, so you can just sort of sign up and that would usually go for a year. A Certificate IV and that gives people an opportunity to then get some work placement as well and some experience and then go on and get jobs in the industry. I think I could just scrape through the age requirements.
JD:I mean, I think I could fake my way through that.
Jye:Yes, I'm definitely hitting on that, All right look.
JD:So, jai, you've shared quite a lot of your life's journey as we've gone through this, and the tenacity, as I said, it comes through with you in terms of you know, was it an easy path that you chose in terms of your own skill sets and your experiences, but you are very focused on getting to the end game. I'm sure, along the way, that there's been some mountains to climb, some significant challenges along the way. What's the biggest hurdle that you've faced, or the one that you can share, and how'd you get through it?
Jye:Yeah, well, I think there's a few things. One of those, which is definitely the most obvious one, is that's the finding the balance between how do I earn money and how do I be creative, because those two things don't always line up, and if they do, not, always very well, and so you sort of have to be quite creative how you sort of navigate that. And so for a long time, I often had sort of permanent to be quite creative how you sort of navigate that. And so for a long time, I often had sort of permanent part-time positions where I'd be working sort of three or four days a week and then the rest of my week would be creative. And so it's really about trying to create that balance where possible, to be able to be creative but also be able to pay the bills. So there's that part, and then the other part is then how do I get my work out into the world and how do I get my work known?
Jye:That is often the biggest thing of all, because it's difficult, isn't it? It's difficult when someone doesn't know you, they don't know your material, and it's gonna be easier to go along to a show that you've heard of, so it's gonna be easy to go along to. We will rock you because you know queen music. Or it'll be easy to go along to lame is because you know it's been running for years and it's been on everywhere. You've had plenty of opportunities, so that's really easy to see those shows. But it's a little little difficult if you're trying to push a show that no one's heard of before. They've not heard of you. They're thinking why on earth am I going to spend money on you when I could probably actually go to the movies cheaper? So that's a real barrier. And it's also, I think, having the industry to support new writing as well, and there's not as many opportunities to develop new writing. So that's a real obstacle. My response, though, to those obstacles has been to just do it anyway, because I sort of think well, I'm still going to write musicals.
Jye:Whether or not they go on stage or not is a different story, but I'm still going to do it because I find it fun and I enjoy the process. I enjoy the puzzle that is lyric writing. I enjoy showing some of my friends my latest song. I enjoy having friends over reading through my latest script. That sort of stuff is fun and it's enjoyable, and and I guess, at least from what I hear from other people, that's also enjoyable to be involved in my processes.
Jye:So for me, whether the show is successful or not, it doesn't really matter. It's really about the process and about getting the show written. If it can go on and it can be staged all over the place, as the things I can never tell Stephen has, that's a bonus. That's just something else that you know. If I get a little bit of money along the way, well, that's good too, but that's not really the reason why I do it. So it's, I think, changing your mindset a little bit about well, what is success and what does success look like? Does it mean that every person knows my musical? Well, no, that's not necessarily success to me. If someone says who are you and I go oh yeah, I wrote that show. I never heard of it, what. That's often the case, isn't it? So that's that doesn't have to be what success is. Success is really what you're making, and that's probably my um, my, advice to anyone I think there's some magic in what you just said.
JD:Uh, and of course we the old adage it's not about the destination, it's about the journey, and I think all that's true.
JD:But I think's a you convey a real satisfaction that comes out of the experience, each of the steps in the experience. I'm not sure everybody has that. I think that's magic. I really do. I think that's such a strong takeaway to think about. Even failure is an experience, is an opportunity to be curious and interested. And again in the mindset episode I talk about this. I'm like embracing that failure as an opportunity to be inquisitive, be curious and just enjoy the learning process is so powerful. So thank you for sharing that.
JD:I was kind of laughing to myself a little bit too, because my daughter, Jackie, who's also in the musical theatre, a professional performer in that space when she was young and she used to talk about the fact that she either wanted to be a musical theatre performer or a waitress, and we always used to joke with her honey, if you're going to be a musical theatre performer, you will be a waitress. In terms of that need to sustain food on the table and a roof over your head while you're working in the arts, I think it's also very true in all of the arts. I think it's challenging to balance that need for an income and the art itself, and I think it's such a common thing, I see, whether it's music or painting or any form of art whatsoever. There seems to be this constant juggle going on between I just need to survive and get through the next week, but I also need to do something creative and get this out to the world, because that's where my joy comes from really, really interesting, but thank you for that.
JD:Um so, with all of that in mind, if you could go back and talk to jai 20 years ago, or when you started this journey with the knowledge that you have today and the experience for today, what would you want to tell yourself back at the beginning of this journey? Yeah well, that's sort of it, isn't it?
Jye:so what would I tell myself? Would I tell myself, go study something different? Probably not. I think that it would really just be around making myself aware of just how arduous the battle and the journey is. You know that's a long, arduous battle, and to take and enjoy it.
Jye:It shouldn't be as you said, it shouldn't be about the destination. The destination is we may never even get to that destination, whatever that destination is. So enjoy the process along the way and enjoy the people along the way as well, because that is one joy of musical theatre. Particularly when you're someone that doesn't sing, dance or act, it means you rely on other people that sing, dance and act, and so the people along the way that I've met have been some wonderful people that have just brought a lot of joy into my life, and we've had situations and opportunities based on my work that we wouldn't have had had I not written a song or a script or whatever. That situation wouldn't have existed. So enjoy those things. You know that. That, I think, is really one of the takeaways for me so.
JD:So I'm hearing going to this with your eyes open, like be be aware of what the journey is going to be, at least, or be open to what the journey is going to be, and then and then embrace the experience, embrace the entire experience, the highs, the lows, the bumps, the setbacks, but but all recognize all of that as part of the journey. I think that makes good sense. On your journey, uh, or now is there? Is they? Is there a person either known or or that you don't know personally? That's been a major, major influence on you? Who's the person that you would model or that you would get your inspiration or your energy from?
Jye:Yeah, I think it's really my parents.
Jye:In that sense my parents are working class people who have a lot of perseverance and determination and very much can do attitude.
Jye:So that idea of sticking at a goal even if there's no real sort of reward or any sort of accolades or any of those things, I guess it's through my parents that I've recognised that you just continue to do what you believe is your calling, is what your journey is, no matter whether other people get it or not.
Jye:As well, my parents have been amazing in the sense that there have been times very early on in my writing and producing theatre career where a producer pulled out who had supposedly booked the venue at least we were told the venue was booked only to find out that the, the producer, vanished and nothing had ever been booked. And so, and so my parents, who really couldn't afford it, said, well, do you still want to put this show on? And I said, well, I sort of do want to put it on. And they said, okay, well, okay, let's see what we can do. And so for the next month my family ate toast morning, noon and night in order to pay for one of my earliest shows to go on, and that sort of stuff. The sacrifice that we put if we believe in a goal is something that I've learned very much from my family, so that's quite helpful.
JD:What a great story too. What great parents they are to back you that way. That's fantastic, that's awesome. How was the show? Did it turn out? Well?
Jye:Yeah, it was great. It was good, we learned a lot of things and, in some ways, because the producer pulled out, it meant that mum and I had to produce it. So the producer pulled out, it meant that mum and I had to produce it, so we had to learn some things we didn't know before.
JD:So you know Part of the learning journey, right? That learning probably pays off in all the things you do now, because you know now to plan. That's the way it works right Make new mistakes or learn new things.
JD:You may have just answered the question I was going to ask you. I was going to ask you if you've had an embarrassing or humorous experience in a career that's influenced you. It looks like you avoided the embarrassment with that one. You had the show go on. But is there an experience that you've had that was particularly embarrassing or humorous?
Jye:There's plenty of musician experiences that are embarrassing, and one of those I realised when I was thinking about this is the amount of times I've left the transpose button on. Singers don't like that. When you start playing the song not in the key they rehearse, you've got to take that button off, and so I've had a lot of filthy looks from a lot of vocalists over the years because I've got a very short memory because the response is I was just testing your range, right that's right.
Jye:That's right. You don't get hired for gigs much after that.
JD:Oh, you're gonna try and mix it up, make it interesting, of course.
JD:Yeah, I love that yes, I can picture those scenarios. I wouldn't be happy at all if you did that to me. I promise you. All right, I've just got a few questions I want to kind of go through as we close this out. These are the same questions I ask every guest through the process and they're pretty quickfire questions. But if you could only read one book for the rest of your life, it's literally the only book on your shelf what book would that be, and why?
Jye:Well, that would be a cruel question to ask, because I do love reading, but I guess, in terms of what we've been talking about today, there are two, well, probably three books that stand out as really, really important ones. I don't know that I could narrow it down to one, to be honest. If I could, it may be the book Originals by Adam Grant. That book, I thought, was just really affirming as a creative person, around being authentic, around being creative or all of that sort of stuff. I felt that that book was just so important as a read for a creative person.
JD:Awesome. I will definitely include that in the show notes and I'm going to check it out myself. I don't know that book at all, but it sounds intriguing. It's a non-fiction book. Non-fiction yep.
Jye:All good books I read have to be in the non-fiction category.
JD:Got it Understood, okay, so originals.
Jye:That's right Originals.
JD:Fantastic, all right. Is there a ritual or a habit? Or a hack that you've identified and that you use that's had a significant impact on your confidence or your success.
Jye:I'm huge into routine. To me, routine is the answer for everything. Now, if you're not a routine person, you're not going to believe me, but routines for me, that's the magic in my life. So that means every morning, between 6 and 7 am, I do one hour of writing every day. Now I write at other times as well, but it's my morning ritual that I sit at a cafe before I go to work for one hour with my laptop. Now I'm not stuck to just do one creative task. It could be any creative task, but it's just that one hour of creativity. That just sets my day off in the right space.
JD:And it's been a theme in a few of the podcasts that I've done so far with different people is that folks who've had success have that power hour or have that period of the day where they're in flow or they're likely to be at their best. I'm the same, by the way. I'm a morning person and I'm one of these idiots that wakes up at 4 30 most days just because the body clock wakes me up, and I find the same uh is that that? That that period when the sun hasn't quite come up yet is when I get my best work done. So I love that. I think that's quite relatable. So I want to ask you two questions, and one is about positive and one is about negative energy. And so the first question is you know if you need to be superhuman, if you've got to invoke the superpowers you need to get you through a massive challenge? You know where's your rocket fuel come from. Where does that energy come from for you?
Jye:Well, I think it's, the answer probably for both of those questions is probably going to be very similar answer. It's really in terms of getting energy. It's got to be from other people. As an extrovert, I get energy from others, so especially creative people that have sort of can-do, you know, growthets they're. They're the types of personalities that can just really spark ideas for me and that I can go away from my interaction with that person energized from that, and that would usually be enough for me to then go away and write something, because I'm inspired by can-do attitudes, the growth mindset sort of stuff, and people that are just open and and you know, have have a lot of energy themselves so how does that manifest?
JD:is that having coffee with somebody that you find, oh yeah, that's inspiring, or yeah?
Jye:okay, and so for me that could be. There's a fair few different friends that I'll catch up with every month or two and it'll just be a coffee here or a lunch there or a breakfast and we'll talk about anything. It won't always be just creative stuff, but I'll go away from those encounters just feeling really pumped Nice.
JD:I like that Very relatable. So let's flip it and I can see where this is going to go. What's your kryptonite, right? So what's the thing that's going to suck the energy out of you and demotivate you?
Jye:I think the being alone too much can be that for me I need to be around, I need different energies. That's really, really important. So being too much alone or people that are hypercritical, very fixed mindset of people that for me I just find demotivating and, as a result, that just doesn't work for my creativity.
JD:So what's your strategy in that situation? How do you get around that?
Jye:Well, I tend to have very clear boundaries with people, people that are very fixed mindset. I don't really have a lot of people in my life that have fixed mindsets. I tend to surround myself with a lot of sort of growth mindset of people. But where there are people maybe people I've had in my life for a long time that I tend to keep because you know they've known me for so long and we've got such a long history together, I just need to keep boundaries around what I share and what sort of conversations I have. People that are hypercritical I wouldn't generally share my creative updates with. I wouldn't necessarily say, hey, what are your thoughts on this? Because I know that they're just going to be a lead balloon and anything that I say that's hypercritical and not necessarily constructive criticism, it's going to be deconstructive criticism.
JD:Just general negativity. Yeah that makes perfect sense. Um, good now, I love, I love both of those good lessons there and certainly easy to apply. I love the notion of getting coffee or having drinks with people who inspire and motivate and and create that kind of creative mindset. Um, very relatable. But final question or final, you can make a choice here. It's always my commitment that I want to leave the audience either inspired or at least laughing or humorous or whatever, and so you have a choice here either a notable quote that inspires you or affects you, or your worst dad joke.
Jye:I think it's got to be inspired. I think it's got to be inspired and for me, the the most inspired quote is um, not everyone who chased the zebra caught it, but he who caught it chased it not everyone who chased a zebra caught it, but everybody who caught a zebra chased.
JD:I love that. So what does that mean for you? I mean mean, what's your takeaway from that?
Jye:For me it really is just about you've got to be in the race. You can't sort of win and whinge and say, oh, I didn't win and didn't even show up. So I sort of think, well, look, just because I joined the race doesn't mean I'm going to win, but it's going to increase my chances of winning. And so it's the same thing. In terms of creativity, the same thing. Not all of my musicals are going to work, but I've got to write a musical for one to work.
JD:That so beautifully underscores everything we've talked about in terms of how you operate your mode of moving right. So it's just do, do, just keep doing, keep doing, and and be tenacious and never give up, and so I think that's a kind of perfect quote for you. I could definitely see how that, how that relates to you and and aligns with your values. I think that's fantastic. Joe, this has been fantastic, awesome. It's been a great conversation. I've learned so much about you and you continue to inspire me. You always do so. I appreciate all the sharing and the openness and the lessons you've learned for our listeners as well. I will include Jai's contact details, all of his social media sites and so forth, so you can go and have a look at the work that Jai is doing, the incredible work that he's doing. What?
Jye:can you do for our listeners?
JD:incredible work that he's doing. What can you do for our listeners, you know, if they want to reach out to you. What services do you provide or what do you have to offer for any listeners that want to take advantage of your incredible skills?
Jye:Yeah, well, I guess it's anyone that's writing musicals, that has any interest in theatre, that maybe wants to write songs, wants to, anything like that. If you've got inquiries, you want to know where to go to next, or if you want to get access to my books or you want to see any of my shows, any of that stuff, reach out to me fantastic and again, as I said at the very beginning, I can, I can testify this gentleman is indeed a gentleman, so by all means make contact.
JD:So I thank you again um fabulous conversation. I appreciate the sharing. It's been an absolute joy to see you again.
Jye:I haven't read.
JD:Thanks, pat, chat soon.
Jye:Sounds great, thank you.
