EP 99: Surviving and Thriving Through Creativity with Jennifer Blaine

I’m here today to bring you a very special episode that I recorded with my amazing friend Jennifer Blaine. If you’re a long-time listener, you’ll know that Jennifer has been on the show twice before, but this is my first time getting to interview her. We had the most amazingly deep conversation about creativity that had us both in tears by the end. I honestly didn’t want it to end and I think we could have talked for at least another hour, but I am so so proud of what we managed to capture here. I hope this conversation gives you good things to think about if you’re stuck at home waiting out the coronavirus like me and everybody else. 

This episode is for the artists and creatives out there, especially the artists like me who sometimes struggle for a reason to keep making art. It’s for writers who have lost the plot, painters who are procrastinating and actors who aren’t sure if they can do one more audition. So strap your headphones on extra tight and enjoy the show!

About Jennifer Blaine

Jennifer Blaine has been performing one-woman shows for 25 years. Her original writing, performing, and comedy delve into serious and socially relevant issues and provides audiences the opportunity to unite in laughter. Jennifer has opened for George Carlin, and performed with Chris Rock and Joe Piscopo.  She has worked with iconic actors such as Glenda Jackson, Laura Linney, Joanne Woodward, and Paul Newman. She was featured on ABC’s Philly After Midnight: Women Comedians and has lent her voice to hundreds of voiceover projects. According to the Philadelphia Daily News “not even Sybil can compete with Blaine’s cast of characters. Her comic genius is like Lily Tomlin and Tracey Ullman.” 

Jennifer  was the resident Theatre Arts Instructor at the Showstoppers program at The Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts from 2013-2018 in which she created four original plays on topical issues from bullying to civil rights. She produced the “5,000 Women” festival, showcasing artists and social activists, in 2011 and 2012 and in Philadelphia in 2014. 

Her multiple FringeArts solo works include Sorry, White Flight, Hearing Voices, and Ridiculous and Dirty Joke which she created with Vashti Dubois, founder of The Colored Girls Museum. Blaine has toured her solo work throughout the country to colleges and theatre festivals -- highlights include The OpenStage of Harrisburg, The White Privilege Conference, PIFA, and the Annenberg Center for the Arts. She currently performs The Vicissitudes of Travel, which depicts a family traveling through brain surgery, in art galleries, museums, theaters, and recently performed The Vicissitudes for Jefferson’s Health and Humanities department and Wesleyan University. For more information visit  www.jenniferblaine.com

Warmly,
Brennen & Cynthia

Episode Music Credits

It Meant Everything to me by Le Gang
Nostalgia by Johny Grimes
Nostalgia by Tobu