Where to find Katharine:

Her One-Woman Show – “Yiayia Knows Best”
Her Website – www.katharinejordan.com
Instagram – @katharinejordan613

Prefer to read instead of listen? Here’s the longer version of what we talked about:

Her grandmother (“yiayia” in Greek) said, “Katie always wanted to entertain people.” When she was born, the nurses said “Good luck with this one!” because she cried so loud. And so began her career as an actress, singer, and entertainer.

She loved singing the Little Mermaid when she was little. Her preschool teachers suggested she take singing lessons. In her first grade opera, “Hansel and Gretl,” she played the witch.

Katie always knew she had a knack for acting and performing, but like all actors, has struggled with confidence and the way she sees herself. Some days she feels really proud of the work she’s putting in, but is always in her head, trying not to compare herself to others.

“There’s no way to not – it’s such a human thing to do. You have your up days and your down days as a person.”

She believes that being an entertainer is wanting to “lighten people’s lives” and give them something to enjoy. But she learns about herself through both comedy and drama.

“That’s one of the fun things about acting is exploring the human experience through somebody else’s lens.”

Comedy is also a good way to process things. She talked about her grandmother not liking someone she was dating – it was depressing at the time but can laugh about it now because he was not the right person.

At the University of New Hampshire, Katie was able to experience all of the different facets of theatre (direct, lighting, costumes, etc.). She took a directing class in college and a playwriting class. She enjoyed both but when trying them out professionally, realized acting is where she feels most confident and comfortable. She had the chance to try directing the show “No Exit” and was grateful for her assistant director who helped her bring her vision to life.

If you’re working and doing theatre at the same time, very hard to keep it up. Especially hard if you’re the director. The director has to have all of the answers and have thought everything out. You get credit if everything turns out good, and that reflects well upon your cast.

Playwriting is something she has to force herself to do. Doesn’t consider herself to be the best writer, because she had a tutor for English when she was young, and it really got in her head. She tried reading “The Artist’s Way” and tried to unblock her creativity with the exercises, but for her one-woman show, she just wrote all of her stories in a journal, sat on it for two months, and Mother Knows Best popped in her head in the shower. Then she sat down and edited it and made it happen. She was excited about it but is very Type A and afraid of failure.

Yia-Yia always wanted her story to be told in some shape or form. She came to the US at age 26, immigrating to Canada and then the states. She taught herself how to speak English but never really did it well enough to write her own story. Katie wanted to do something to honor her. She started writing with the intention of performing it.

At first, she found a piano bar in Chicago called Davenports where she could have a tech and set her own ticket price. The show was supposed to open on March 16th, but the city shut down on March 13rh for COVID. Couldn’t put people at risk for her less-than-an-hour show.

It took a long time to get over the depression of quarantine.

“Being a performer, having your entire career sort of shifted and uprooted and put on pause because of the pandemic, it just took me a while to finally be like, okay, I’m gonna make this into a Youtube thing, I’m gonna record it and edit it and have it be what it’ll be.”

She met her fiance (now husband at the time of this episode airing!) doing student film stuff in college. She was lucky to have his expertise to put the technical pieces of the online version of her show together.

She put so much time into writing the show, it was such a disappointment not to do it. She started recording a year after it was supposed to go up. That’s okay, because at the time she wasn’t in the right head space. She tarted therapy, and that helped reframe things. She didn’t know when things would open up for her to do it the original way, so just started revising it for an online format. The other characters in the show weren’t able to fully realized on stage because there was no time to do costume changes on the stage. They lived in voice but not in person. Being able to realize those online was a process, but more fun.

“This period, although in many ways it has been awful, has also, I think, proved the adaptability of people and the adaptability of artists.”

There were times when she wasn’t enjoying the acting as much in her kitchen because she was thinking about all of the production things, but was very proud and excited to be doing it again. Quarantine was a blow and everyone knows someone who’s been affected, but she’s proud of people who have been able to do things and also people who are just taking care of themselves.

“Surviving day to day is a big thing, too.”

It was scary to announce it, but she was really uplifted with the reaction from everyone.

“This is me. This is my show about my life and my family. I was absolutely terrified to share it with my family and the rest of the world.”

It’s out in the world, and she saw her Yia-yia laughing at it. It was an emotional roller coaster.

The Yia-yia scenes were easier because she was putting on her character. Caricatures of the different people live in her head. But it’s hard to be herself. It’s a show, but it’s also her talking and telling her story, and she didn’t want things to sound fake. The scenes where she was herself were the most difficult.

She recorded all of the music and singing first, then shot it music-video style. She wanted the takes to be good acting choices without worrying about hitting the notes. One less thing to be stressed about while filming.

When you’re doing a monologue, you’re thinking about what the character is thinking in that moment and the moment before. Casting offices were doing free workshops during the pandemic for monologues, which got her thinking. When monologues get stale, you stop thinking about those moments or you do it the way you’ve always done, and then they’re not real anymore.

Depending on the size of the theatre and the size of the stage, being on a thrust stage on the floor is a different beast. The audience is right there.

“Definitely that weird balance of trying to be present but knowing that you’re also onstage.”

Katie tells a story about singing a solo, thinking someone was on their cell phone and pointing them out in her song, but it was actually a volunteer firefighter with the reflective stuff on his jacket. She tells another story about forgetting 8 pages of lines during a show, looking at the audience, then it all came back and she spat everything out and walked off the stage and burst into tears. In her first grade opera, she tripped and fell into the “oven” as the witch and almost quit acting because she was so mortified. Her mother tried to reframe it for her.

“You want validation and that applause is definitely invigorating, but it is also listening to your partner and trying to be there as much as possible, because the audience that’s there, it might be the one time they see it, so you’ve got to give them the show.”

She’s very empathetic, sometimes vibing too much with other people’s energy, and that can be difficult. She thinks someone should feel a certain way and if they’re not, that’s confusing. Peel back the layers of the onion and break down the walls! Some people are good at communication and others are not. Some topics are hard to be able to discuss. Analyzing emotional situations, some you don’t want to go near.

“But when you are able to talk about those things freely and connect with people’s emotion on that next level, I think that’s really important and I think that in some ways, through acting, we do try to figure those things out about ourselves.”

She understands why some actors have substance abuse issues. Being in this constant heightened state of emotion can be very difficult, especially if you don’t know how to process it or separate yourself from your character.

In method acting, it’s difficult to separate your living situation from your character’s because you’re pulling from your real life experiences to be able to experience what your character does. It’s good if your character has an accent, etc., but pulling from real life can make you numb to things in your real life because you’re experiencing them over and over.

Katie primarily does Meisner – behaving realistically under imaginary circumstances, being present and really listening to your partner. What situation in your life was sort of like this? But she doesn’t connect the dots totally so she’s not actually reliving it. As a writer, it’s easier to pull from things that you know.

At auditions, people say “be you.” But that’s really hard because you’re there to be the character.

“There’s only one you and what you have to offer is great. We’re making a pizza here, okay, and your pepperoni might be really good, but I might want spicy italian sausage on my pizza that day. We need to be kinder to ourselves and proud of who we are as people. There are so many facets to ourselves.”

You connect with things, that’s what you do as an actor, but “everyone’s on a journey to find themselves…the more you’re in tune with the parts of yourself that you’re happy about, the more that helps you build your confidence.” And then the more you can focus on the work, you can be less self-conscious.

Her end goal as a creator is to support herself solely on creative means. Cool to be famous but just wants to contribute to her household income through acting and voiceover work. Trying to find creative things that fulfill her but not be stressed about contributing financially (wants to have kids someday, etc.).

She was able to get an agent a couple years ago, ans was very excited and proud. This opened doors she wouldn’t have been able to do herself. She hopes she continues to work and be someone who people like to work with. Always growing, has flaws, but hopes people want her back.

Not being able to perform, and with acting being so competitive, she has a meltdown a week about what she’s doing with her life and whether it’s the right path and if it’s worth it. She tries to reframe auditioning as “getting to do what she wants to do for 2 minutes.”

“Being a performer is a valuable skill in real life because it helps us to be vulnerable, to be empathetic, to connect with people, to be great public speakers, to smile through customer service, making people feel that they were the first person I called that day.”

People who are creative have skills with so many applications to “thrival jobs” – jobs that help you thrive in your “real life.” The business of acting is hard, and there should be more emphasis on the business side of acting.

“If what you’re doing makes you happy, and even if you’re not pursuing it professionally…if that brings you joy, then do it. Listen to yourself, be kind and patient with yourself, because no one knows what they’re doing.”

She recalls that “Orange is the New Black” star was going to give up and quit and then landed that role.

“The moment you want to quit or you’re at your lowest, sometimes things turn around or you find your new path.”

We’re all so strapped to make ends meet, sometimes hobbies become a way to make money. But do you really want to do it? If it brings you joy, then try to find time to do it. There’s a reason why children learn to draw and sing, sometimes before they really know how to talk. We connect to those things because it brings us joy and it touches our souls.

Takeaways

1. Creativity can bring us joy, but it can also be useful in helping us process our emotions.
2. When things get hard, take care of yourself first. Then find ways to adapt your creative projects to keep moving forward.
3. Find and be proud of what is unique about you. This helps you build confidence and learn to compare yourself to others less.
4. Make time to do what you love, even if it’s not what brings in your income.