“Yes, and…” with Jennifer Nasta Zefutie

This week, I’m talking to Jennifer Nasta Zefutie, who has accomplished what many people think is impossible: she’s a working actress, and the co-founder and co-producing artistic director of the Pegasus Theatre Company in central New Jersey.

Jennifer has one of the most interesting (and unlikely) creative journeys you’re likely to hear, and our wide-ranging conversation also covered loss aversion, why failure is essential, defining success for ourselves, and the theatrical improv rule of “Yes, and…,” both as a creative principle and a way of life.

Our greatest artists, our greatest inventors, the most innovative people on the face of the planet who’ve made the biggest contributions to the world, are failures. They were failures until they had their one big discovery.

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie

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Pegasus Theatre Company website

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Transcript

Please note: This is an unedited transcript, provided as a courtesy, and reflects the actual conversation as closely as possible. Please forgive any typographical or grammatical errors.

Nancy Norbeck [00:00:07]:
Hello and welcome to Follow Your Curiosity, where we explore the ups and downs of the creative process and how to keep it moving. I’m your host, Nancy Norbeck. I am a writer, singer, improv, comedy, newbie, science fiction geek, and creativity coach who loves helping right brained folks get unstuck. I am so excited to be coming to you with interviews and coaching calls to show you the depth and breadth both of creative pursuits, suits, and creative people to give you some insight into their experiences and to inspire you. I am really excited to introduce you to Jennifer Nasta Zefutie, the co-founder and co-producing artistic director of the Pegasus Theater Company here in Central New Jersey. I’ve known Jennifer for quite a while, and the story of her theatrical journey, which you’ll hear shortly, is both fascinating and inspiring. We talk about loss aversion, which says we fear loss more than we anticipate gain. Perfectionism, defining success for yourself and “Yes, and…,” the improv rule we both think is a fantastic guide to a meaningful open life.

Nancy Norbeck [00:01:10]:
Yes, that’s a hint. Without further ado, here’s my conversation with Jennifer. You are one of the rare people in the real world who manages to make a living doing the things she loves, especially when that thing is acting. And so I’m thrilled to be here.

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [00:01:27]:
Yeah.

Nancy Norbeck [00:01:29]:
Yeah. So I know, like. Cause I’ve talked to a couple people who, you know, have gone to New York and done their thing and eventually came back home and said, this isn’t quite, for me, this isn’t exactly what I had in mind. And you’ve done something so different from that. So I am really curious to hear how you got started in the first place. Like, did you always know when you were a little kid that this was something you wanted to do, or did you come to it later, or how did, how did that go?

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [00:01:55]:
I came to it a bit later. I wanted to be a singer when I was, when I was a kid. That’s really what I wanted to do. And acting, was something that never occurred to me. And I went off to college and I was majoring in biochemistry and minoring in English because I thought I was going to be a doctor. And my sophomore year, I took one of the basic level English classes that you need to graduate. One of the core canon classes. We were given an assignment and we had to sort of stage it out in the classroom.

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [00:02:42]:
And I remember I was a tree. So we made like this poster board, you know, tree, and I stuck my head in it. It was for an epic poem. We had to recite lines and I mean, it was ridiculous. It was absurd. But after that, the professor of that class, Suzanne Westfall, who was also a director in the drummer program, came up to me, and she handed me a script and said, we’re auditioning for this play. I want you to come to the auditions. And she was probably one of the most intimidating women I’ve ever met in my life, because she’s brilliant and strong and is the type of person who knows something about everything and can have a conversation about anything and is dynamic and, like, you could just feel the creative energy coming off of her.

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [00:03:35]:
So I tried to give her every excuse under the, under the sky why I couldn’t audition, because I was terrified, you know, my God, you have to memorize lines, and what do you do if you forget them? And, you know, singing seems so much safer because you were up there with music, and it was easier to improvise if you forgot words. And who forgets words to songs? Everybody knows songs, that type of thing. But she wouldn’t take no for an answer and pretty much told me, well, if you can’t come to the auditions, you can come to my office and privately audition for me during office hours. So I ended up going to auditions, and it was for Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia, you know, which is a pretty heavy lift of a show. And I was cast in the lead of Thomasina.

Nancy Norbeck [00:04:26]:
Well, she was serious for a reason.

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [00:04:30]:
Yeah, yeah. And, you know, so once I sort of got over the terror of that, started rehearsing, you know, I was like, okay, this is kind of fun, but I didn’t really know what I was doing. And about two weeks into Virgil, whose hand stands up and looks at me and says, jennifer Nasta, you are the one miserable spot in this otherwise happy play. Start acting. And again, I was horrified, sure. And I stood there and was like, I didn’t even want to audition. I have no clue what I’m doing up here. I don’t know what I’m supposed to be doing to act.

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [00:05:19]:
I just went on and on and on, and she turned to me and she said, you didn’t act at all in high school. You’ve never done this before? And I said, no. And she’s like, okay, come see me in my office hours tomorrow afternoon, and we’ll talk through this. And we sat there, and she started teaching me how to break down a script and sort of the elements that go into character. And I learned a ton in that first show and just absolutely fell in love with the process. And she continued to mentor me and, you know, eventually sort of ushered me into attending the National Theatre Institute and. But, you know, it was that show that pretty much. And that experience, as horrifying as it was to begin with, wow.

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [00:06:08]:
That just made me absolutely fall in love with it.

Nancy Norbeck [00:06:12]:
I’m kind of amazed that it never occurred to her that you might not have done this before, considering how much resistance you put up, because that’s a lot.

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [00:06:21]:
Yeah.

Nancy Norbeck [00:06:23]:
I mean, you fall dead, you know.

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [00:06:28]:
Pretty much. Pretty much, yeah. I mean, the only reason I even went to the audition was because I was afraid for my grade in that class, you know? Wow. Yeah. I mean, otherwise I probably would have called in dead, so.

Nancy Norbeck [00:06:44]:
Sorry, can’t come today.

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [00:06:47]:
Yeah.

Nancy Norbeck [00:06:49]:
Wow. So do you stay in touch with her? Did you stay in touch with her for a while?

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [00:06:54]:
Yes, we are. We are still in touch. She is still a huge supporter of mine and of Pegasus, my theater company. So it’s been. It’s been wonderful, you know, sort of having her be part of at least seeing the evolution of my career. And, you know, I’ll go back to her for advice and suggestions for plays and that sort of thing. And what else is interesting is another actress that was in Arcadia with me, and we became very good friends, lost touch over the years because this was back in the nineties and, I mean, email hadn’t even caught on yet. So, you know, it was very difficult to sort of stay in touch with people.

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [00:07:43]:
We’ve since reconnected, and she is now on our board of trustees.

Nancy Norbeck [00:07:48]:
Very cool.

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [00:07:49]:
So. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, I think that first. That first theatrical experience has been very important just to the entire evolution of my career.

Nancy Norbeck [00:08:05]:
Sure. Well, and, you know, I think it’s kind of interesting because you, you know, people talk about jumping in the deep end or trial by fire, but, I mean, you had your trial by fire at the very beginning.

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [00:08:18]:
Yeah. You know, everything since then has been, you know, really not scary at all in comparison, which is a little bit of a blessing, I think, in a business that is so wrought with, you know, rejection and having to take risks in the face of failure, you know, so sort of getting that out of the way right at the start. Exactly.

Nancy Norbeck [00:08:47]:
You can survive that.

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [00:08:49]:
Helpful. Yeah. Yeah.

Nancy Norbeck [00:08:52]:
Then what can’t you do? Which I think.

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [00:08:57]:
I’m sure there’s a long list, but. But, I mean, one of the things they.

Nancy Norbeck [00:09:01]:
One of the things they tell you.

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [00:09:02]:
As an actor is anytime a director asks you if you know how to do something, your answer is always yes. Like, if you’re in an if you’re in an audition and the director says, oh, by the way, do you know how to play the oboe? You say yes, and then you figure it out. You never say no, it’s yes. And then how do I do this? Do you know how to ride a horse? Sure, I can ride a horse. You get cast.

Nancy Norbeck [00:09:24]:
You know what?

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [00:09:25]:
You go out and you take a few horseback riding lessons, or you take a couple oboe lessons. Yeah.

Nancy Norbeck [00:09:30]:
So improv.

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [00:09:31]:
Yes and yes, and that’s right.

Nancy Norbeck [00:09:36]:
I’m becoming more and more convinced that yes and is a great life philosophy.

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [00:09:41]:
You know, I really think it is, too. It’s the one way to really just leave yourself open to whatever opportunities the universe is going to present to you.

Nancy Norbeck [00:09:56]:
Yeah.

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [00:09:57]:
You know, it’s just, it’s just this approach of complete openness.

Nancy Norbeck [00:10:03]:
Yeah. It’s like, oh, here’s this thing. Okay. And I think a lot of us, we’re so used to saying no to things that we don’t realize how often we do it. Whereas if you.

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [00:10:13]:
Right, and you end up saying no to things before you even consider them.

Nancy Norbeck [00:10:16]:
Right, right. And, you know, if you start to think about just even the things that you encounter on a daily basis and saying yes and to them instead, you start to realize how often you say no without thinking about it even. I’m just doing that in the last two minutes and realizing, wow, how many things have I said no to without really thinking about it? Just in the last, say, the last week or the last day or two. It’s a big number, and I think, so I’ve been.

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [00:10:51]:
Because no is so often tied to can’t. I can’t do that. No. No, because it can’t happen. No because it’s impossible. No, because you know that that’s nothing I could ever do. And. And I just don’t believe that’s the case for almost anything.

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [00:11:15]:
I just really don’t.

Nancy Norbeck [00:11:17]:
Yeah. I would add no, because that’s a. Scares the absolute living hell out of me.

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [00:11:22]:
Yes. Yes.

Nancy Norbeck [00:11:23]:
I think that’s a big one. And I think we don’t realize how much that happens, too. I’ve just been hearing recently about loss aversion and how apparently the single biggest motivator of human behavior is fear of loss. It’s not anticipation of what you might gain. It’s that you’re terrified of something you think you’re going to lose, which, you know, from an evolutionary, you know, the whole saber tooth tiger thing, I understand. You’re afraid that if you take the chance the saber toothed tiger is going to get you and you will have no more chances because you’ll be dead. But at the same time, that means you don’t think about all the things you might get out of it. You don’t think about how great it might be because you’re too busy being afraid that you’re going to lose this other thing.

Nancy Norbeck [00:12:08]:
And, you know, I think if you start to do. Yes, and, and I’m saying I think because obviously I need to play with this as much as anybody else. But, you know, you, you start to see opportunities where you didn’t know that there were any before.

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [00:12:24]:
Exactly.

Nancy Norbeck [00:12:26]:
I mean, I know.

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [00:12:27]:
Exactly.

Nancy Norbeck [00:12:28]:
I read years ago how, you know, Tina Fey, when she was offered the weekend update gig on Saturday Night Live, just kind of looked at it and said yes. And, because that’s, you know, she’d been in Second City and that was like her, her whole thing. And it wasn’t that she wasn’t scared. She was just like, here’s this thing. Pretty sure I should say yes to, to this. Not sure I can do it, but I’m going to give it a try. And now we all know who Tina, right?

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [00:12:49]:
Yeah. You know, the thing is, too, is what I will sometimes ask myself is what’s the worst that can really happen?

Nancy Norbeck [00:12:57]:
Yes.

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [00:12:58]:
Do you know what I mean? What is the worst that can really happen? I mean, you know, if you’re offered a gig like that, what’s the worst that can happen? You fall flat on your face and you totally bomb. All right, so what, you stand up, you brush yourself off and you move on to the next one, right. You know, I mean, nobody, nobody has died of embarrassment.

Nancy Norbeck [00:13:19]:
Though many people probably have wished they could, at least momentarily.

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [00:13:23]:
I’m sure, I’m sure as, and as one of the world’s biggest klutzes on the face of the planet, I’ve been in those moments, you know, so I get that. But, but the reality is if that’s the worst that can happen, like, so what? In a couple of days people will have forgotten about it or you know what? You’ve got a great party story.

Nancy Norbeck [00:13:50]:
Yeah. And you might have learned something along the way that you wouldn’t have learned otherwise.

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [00:13:54]:
You’ve absolutely learned something. There’s always, there’s always a lesson, you know, that’s always a gain, regardless of any experience, right. Whether, whether it’s, you know, even traumatic ones, which, you know, you don’t wish on anyone, but it’s part of our lives. You still gain something from it because you learn something about yourself and the world around you.

Nancy Norbeck [00:14:16]:
Right.

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [00:14:18]:
You know?

Nancy Norbeck [00:14:20]:
Yeah. And, you know, my mother said to me years ago, I don’t know how many years ago now, but a good long while ago, you know, what’s. What’s the worst that can happen? Somebody says no, and you have nothing less than you had when you’ve asked.

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [00:14:34]:
Exactly.

Nancy Norbeck [00:14:35]:
Which, honestly, is how I got Rob Sherman and Kelly Flanagan to talk to me for this podcast. Like, what’s the worst that can happen? They say, no, they didn’t. Hey.

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [00:14:45]:
Exactly.

Nancy Norbeck [00:14:46]:
So that’s always exciting because you’re going, really?

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [00:14:48]:
Really?

Nancy Norbeck [00:14:49]:
You’ll talk to me. That’s awesome. Like, wow, I’m glad I asked because otherwise I’d be sitting here going, I wonder if. And that’s the other thing that I think people don’t realize, because then if you don’t take the chance, then you also have to live with wondering what would have happened if you had.

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [00:15:05]:
Yep.

Nancy Norbeck [00:15:06]:
And by the time you figure that out, if you haven’t gone and given whatever it is a try, then it’s too late, and you’re sitting there going, I should have tried that thing.

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [00:15:16]:
Well, you know, and it’s funny you bring that up because that’s actually something that I’ve always. It’s sort of like a personal philosophy that I’ve always followed is I would rather regret doing something and having that experience, regardless of what that experience is, whether it’s wonderful, miserable. I feel like a fool. Whatever that is. I would rather regret that than regret not doing it when the opportunity was there and never having the chance to do it again.

Nancy Norbeck [00:15:47]:
Right. There’s a quote. You know, those quotable cards? There’s one that I saw on there once that’s something like, you know, what you’ll regret in 40 years are the things you haven’t done, not the things you actually did. Yeah. I mean, obviously there are exceptions to that. You know, if. If you decide to kill court, I’m pretty sure you’ll regret that. But that’s not what we’re talking about.

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [00:16:09]:
No.

Nancy Norbeck [00:16:12]:
I like to qualify things just because, you know, somebody out there is sitting there thinking, oh, I don’t know. I can think of that within the.

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [00:16:19]:
Realm of reason and within the realm of the law.

Nancy Norbeck [00:16:25]:
Don’t go get yourself locked up. Yeah. You know, those are the things. It’s like, well, okay, yeah, it was crazy, but at least I tried it, and I found out it was crazy. And, you know, maybe it didn’t work. I’m glad it didn’t work, or it did work. And here I am, but.

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [00:16:41]:
Exactly.

Nancy Norbeck [00:16:41]:
But at least, you know, you’re not sitting there second guessing stuff you did 30 years ago because you didn’t try it.

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [00:16:49]:
Right.

Nancy Norbeck [00:16:52]:
Which really is an awful way to. To live your life now that I’m thinking about it. Who wants to do that? Nobody wants to do that, but that’s what loss aversion does. I think the coolest thing about finding out about loss aversion to me is that now I know it exists. And so now it’s like once you’re aware of a thing like that, you can sit there and look at yourself and go, is this what I’m doing? And I think it gives you that perspective that you wouldn’t have otherwise. So it’s a little bit of a war.

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [00:17:18]:
I mean, it sounds like it goes a little bit deeper than the concept of risk aversion because loss is the reason for risk aversion. Right, right. So that. That’s actually interesting. It’s like a natural progression in that idea.

Nancy Norbeck [00:17:31]:
Yeah. And the research for this was apparently published, like, 40 years ago. I’m going, why am I only hearing about this now?

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [00:17:38]:
Yeah. Yeah, that’s fascinating.

Nancy Norbeck [00:17:40]:
It’s out there, and I feel like it’s something we should all talk about because it’s controlling things we do and we don’t even necessarily know about it, making you say, dear professor, no, I’m not going to your audition because that’s crazy. And I’m going to fall flat on my face. Right, right. Yeah. But look, you know what happened with you and in the last 20 something.

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [00:18:01]:
Years, I can’t even begin to tell you the number of times I’ve fallen flat on my face. We have been. And you know what?

Nancy Norbeck [00:18:08]:
Right.

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [00:18:09]:
But you know what? It’s not so bad. So what?

Nancy Norbeck [00:18:14]:
You’re going to fall flat on your face somewhere somehow, whether it’s that scares you or the small thing that you’re not even worried about, you’re going to fall flat on your face somewhere.

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [00:18:26]:
You’re absolutely right.

Nancy Norbeck [00:18:27]:
So you might as well make big mistakes. I mean, you know, you talked about singing. I’ve been a choral singer for pretty much as long as I can remember. And, you know, that’s one of the things that conductors will tell you because they don’t want their singers to be hesitant, you know, and they’ll say, look, if you’re going to make a mistake, a big one, make it loud enough that everybody can hear it. Which, of course, is what strikes terror into your heart when you’re a choral singer, because you’re like, no, no, that will ruin everything. But they have a point. It’s hard to live up to that point sometimes, but they definitely have a point.

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [00:18:57]:
Well, I mean, I think we live in such a perfectionist society.

Nancy Norbeck [00:19:01]:
Yes.

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [00:19:02]:
Where really the perfect is what’s worshipped from what we see in our celebrity culture and in magazine and on Instagram to on social media. You know, I mean, our friends aren’t posting, you know, their, their pictures of when their kids are having tempered tantrums, which is probably happening more often than, you know, they’re smiling, eating watermelon by the pool. But those are the pictures we’re seeing. And, you know, I think this perfectionist society has led to such a fear of failure.

Nancy Norbeck [00:19:40]:
Yes.

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [00:19:40]:
And failure is so important to success.

Nancy Norbeck [00:19:45]:
Yeah. You can’t really succeed if you don’t fail.

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [00:19:49]:
No, my God, you can. Exactly. You’re not stretching yourself.

Nancy Norbeck [00:19:56]:
Not at all.

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [00:19:57]:
You’re not challenging yourself. If all you’re doing is succeeding every time you do something right, that just.

Nancy Norbeck [00:20:06]:
Means you’re doing the same thing over and over again.

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [00:20:08]:
Exactly. Exactly. I mean, our greatest artists, our greatest inventors are the most innovative people on the face of the planet who have made the biggest contributions to the world are failures. Yeah, they were failures until they had their one big discovery, and some of.

Nancy Norbeck [00:20:29]:
Them didn’t even have their big discovery in their own lifetimes. Like Vincent van Gogh.

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [00:20:33]:
Exactly.

Nancy Norbeck [00:20:34]:
You know?

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [00:20:34]:
Exactly.

Nancy Norbeck [00:20:35]:
Everybody thought he was crazy.

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [00:20:37]:
Exactly.

Nancy Norbeck [00:20:38]:
And now look at him.

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [00:20:41]:
So, I mean, it’s really. It’s really important to embrace that. So the record van Gogh was kind of crazy. Well, he was really. You know what I mean?

Nancy Norbeck [00:20:51]:
They thought his work was horrible, you know, because nobody.

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [00:20:54]:
Yeah, no, I know. I’m teasing, but no, absolutely.

Nancy Norbeck [00:20:59]:
I wouldn’t say it was crazy. I would say he was mentally ill, but, you know.

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [00:21:02]:
Yes, yes.

Nancy Norbeck [00:21:06]:
Sorry. I’m realizing lately how much I throw the word crazy around where I shouldn’t. But. But, yeah. You know, and the other thing is, like, if you think about the people that you really connect with, they’re not the people who have the picture perfect magazine life, you know, they’re the people, you know, you know, where they’re afraid and you know, where they’ve messed up and you know, where they’re human. And it’s the fact that they’re willing to be that human that makes them relatable, that lets you connect with them and makes it possible for you to be that way with them. You know, it’s. It’s a two way street.

Nancy Norbeck [00:21:39]:
So if. If you’re so busy projecting this aura of perfectionism, nobody can connect with you because they can’t figure out.

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [00:21:48]:
Right. Because it’s superficial.

Nancy Norbeck [00:21:50]:
Right.

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [00:21:51]:
You can’t connect to the superficial. You need something deeper.

Nancy Norbeck [00:21:55]:
Right. Which is why, you know, sometimes I’ll post crazy things on Instagram just because, you know, I think they’re weird or I think they’re funny, or I’m going to laugh at myself because I did this thing and look at this giant mess I made. And this is really kind of hilarious because really it is, you know, giant mess is a giant mess. But, you know, like, embarrassment, it probably won’t kill you, but.

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [00:22:20]:
No, but it’s authentic.

Nancy Norbeck [00:22:22]:
It is. It is. I mean, it’s. And yet it’s the thing that we resist. And I think it’s that loss aversion thing again. It’s like, oh, people. People will leave if they realize I’m not perfect. No, they won’t, actually.

Nancy Norbeck [00:22:33]:
They’re much more likely to stay around. It’s. It’s like with teaching, you know, where. Where kids will say to me when I was tutoring, you know, and I. They’d come in and they would say, I don’t understand this assignment from my teacher. And I would look at it and I would say, yeah, I don’t understand it either. And, you know, so. So when’s it due? Tomorrow.

Nancy Norbeck [00:22:55]:
Great. Did you talk to your teacher about it? You know, or maybe it would be, you know, a week later, but before they would see me again and I would say, you know, you need to go ask your teacher about it. And the look of horror on their faces. No. Then my teacher will think I’m stupid. No, actually, your teacher will be really smart also. I’m really hoping that if you go and, you know, and your teacher is forced to see that their assignment is really difficult to understand, that they’ll realize that they should have done a better job, but that’s probably too much to hope for. But, yeah, you know, it’s like, no, actually, your teacher will think you’re really smart because you wanted to get it right and you came in and you got more information right.

Nancy Norbeck [00:23:36]:
And they don’t see that. And we’re, you know, I mean, yeah, it’s easy to say kids don’t get it, but honestly, I don’t think adults get it either. A whole lot more than the kids.

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [00:23:44]:
No, they don’t have.

Nancy Norbeck [00:23:45]:
They really don’t. No.

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [00:23:46]:
And what’s tied into that a little bit is the fact that we’re all our own worst critics.

Nancy Norbeck [00:23:52]:
Yes.

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [00:23:53]:
So asking the question, making the mistake to anyone else watching us or being asked the question, it’s just, all right, I’ll answer. Or oops. Well, that stinks. That’s a mistake to make, but, oh, well, move on. For us individually, our internal critics, and that inner voice is the worst.

Nancy Norbeck [00:24:19]:
It’s deadly, you know?

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [00:24:20]:
And, I mean, it’s something that I have always battled with, you know, that voice in the back, in the head, oh, you’re not good enough. Oh, you should have done that better. Oh, I can’t believe you made that stupid mistake. Oh, you really need to ask that question. Nobody else seems to have the same question. You know, that little.

Nancy Norbeck [00:24:38]:
Yeah. When the truth is other people do have that question and they’re too afraid to ask.

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [00:24:43]:
Exactly. Exactly. And, you know, I don’t think the trick is silencing that voice, because I don’t think it’s possible to do that for a lot of people. I think it’s acknowledging it and just saying, well, I’m gonna go ahead and ask the question anyway.

Nancy Norbeck [00:24:59]:
Yeah. And I don’t think that it’s really possible not to have an inner critic. I think anybody who tells you, no, I don’t think it is either lying or delusional. But, yeah, I agree. And the inner critic has its purpose, you know? I mean, it’s there to try to protect you. It’s just that it goes.

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [00:25:15]:
Absolutely.

Nancy Norbeck [00:25:16]:
So, so it’s like you’re saying. It’s like to acknowledge it, kind of hear, okay. But then you have to assess whether or not what it’s telling you is true and to what it’s true if it is, because otherwise it’ll just rule everything you do.

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [00:25:31]:
Mm hmm.

Nancy Norbeck [00:25:34]:
Funny how we don’t teach.

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [00:25:35]:
Absolutely.

Nancy Norbeck [00:25:36]:
We should be teaching kids how to do that.

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [00:25:40]:
Yeah. You know? Yeah. I feel like arts education starts to teach kids a lot of this, and I feel like English and literature can, because it’s no deal. It’s, at least the good classes are about interpretation and understanding and empathy and, you know, all of, all of that. I know when I was teaching, this sort of thing was a huge part of what I discussed with my students. Maybe a little more so in the drama class than in the english class, but we got into it in the english class as well. And, you know, I mean, look, it’s, it’s. Oh, my goodness, 15 years ago, I left teaching.

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [00:26:34]:
Oh, more than that. 18 years ago, I loved teaching because I thought back in 2000, 2001, ouch. That realization hurts a bit.

Nancy Norbeck [00:26:43]:
I’m learning as I get older, not to do that math any more often than I have to.

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [00:26:48]:
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. But, you know, I mean, look, the classroom was a very different place than, than it is now because we weren’t. So teaching to the test like teachers have to these days, which I think, you know, really sort of handcuffs them in terms of being able to teach a lot of, you know, I mean, like, one of the things I really wanted to teach my students was how to think.

Nancy Norbeck [00:27:15]:
Yeah.

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [00:27:16]:
You critically think about things to form your own opinion rather than just regurgitating and parroting what other people are telling you. Your opinion should be about things.

Nancy Norbeck [00:27:24]:
And you can’t teach that if you’re forced to teach to a multiple choice test.

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [00:27:28]:
Exactly. Exactly. But to teach that, you also have to teach about sort of this inner critic and the inner voice and listening to instinct or not listening to it, to that inner critic because you hold an opinion that’s different than anybody, than everybody else’s.

Nancy Norbeck [00:27:43]:
Right.

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [00:27:44]:
You know, so I think when, when you’re teaching to a multiple choice test, you sort of don’t get to talk about the big ideas as much.

Nancy Norbeck [00:28:00]:
Yeah. And you also don’t get to, you know, take advantage of a teachable moment that crops up in class either, because.

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [00:28:06]:
Right.

Nancy Norbeck [00:28:06]:
That would be great. But, you know, the state says I have to get through this today, so that’s what we’re going to do.

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [00:28:11]:
Exactly.

Nancy Norbeck [00:28:13]:
Which is part of why I don’t ever see myself teaching in a public school. You know, private school. I didn’t have to deal with it. And I have endless admiration for people who can do the whole public school thing these days because of that.

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [00:28:27]:
Yeah, I couldn’t go back to teaching in public school. I was in a catholic school as well, so we were even a bit more relaxed even 18 years ago than it would have been. So.

Nancy Norbeck [00:28:43]:
But, yeah, I think people forget that when you would, you give everybody standardized tests, you are going to end up with, to a certain extent, standardized people. And is that really what we want? I think that’s what some people want, but if you really stop and think about it, that’s not what we want. We want everybody to be all of who they are and to be curious and to, you know, because critical thinking and curiosity go hand in hand, you know, any kind of arts, like you were saying, like, you know, when you’re talking about breaking down a script and figuring out how to, how to approach a role or if you’re writing a story. I answered a question about this on Quora the other day because somebody said just creative writing teach critical thinking skills. And it’s like, yeah, how could it not? Process of creative writing is asking questions.

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [00:29:34]:
Right, exactly.

Nancy Norbeck [00:29:35]:
Well, not only to imagine something, but you have to be able to question it in order to figure out what’s not working or where it’s going. Or should I cut this part? Any of it. And it’s not just in the editing. It’s also in the writing. I was amazed somebody else who, you know, has higher degrees than me answered and said, nope, there’s nothing critical to that. It’s all in the editing. And I thought, boy, I don’t know how you write, but I don’t think most people can write like that. It’s not pulling imagination onto a page.

Nancy Norbeck [00:30:02]:
And even if it were, that all comes with critical thinking stuff anyway, right?

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [00:30:08]:
Absolutely.

Nancy Norbeck [00:30:09]:
Yeah. Anyhow, I didn’t get into it with him because that’s not what Quora is for, but it did make, when I saw his answer, I was like, really? And you have a PhD?

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [00:30:23]:
Yeah, really. Did you know what his PhD was in?

Nancy Norbeck [00:30:28]:
I don’t know. Off the top of my head, I also wonder, wondering if he was like.

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [00:30:32]:
An engineer answering, well, maybe.

Nancy Norbeck [00:30:35]:
But, you know, it’s also kind of like maybe he just hasn’t really sat down and thought about it.

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [00:30:41]:
Well, that’s true. I mean, you know, if his process is that into, is so intuitive that he doesn’t actually realize he’s doing it. Yeah. Which I think is common for a lot of artists. Yeah. You know, if you break down the process too much, if you break down the approach too much, all of a sudden it kind of stops working. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like, it’s just sort of.

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [00:31:05]:
If it’s part of, if it’s just part of who you are and what you do. Yeah.

Nancy Norbeck [00:31:12]:
Yeah. You know, that’s a good possibility, obviously, you know, I had a physics professor in college, obviously brilliant at what he did. Couldn’t teach it to save his life.

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [00:31:22]:
Oh, yeah.

Nancy Norbeck [00:31:22]:
You know, because it just comes that, that easily. You know, the things that.

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [00:31:26]:
Right, right.

Nancy Norbeck [00:31:27]:
We all have something that we do that comes so easily that we can’t understand why other people don’t understand how to do it. Those things. You know, there’s, there’s the school of thought, and I think it’s largely true, that says, you know, if you can’t write about it or explain it to somebody, you don’t really understand it. But I think there are exceptions with people like that who just get it on such a phenomenally intuitive level that they can’t break it down. Because it just happens so naturally. It’s like breathing. Like, how do you explain to someone how to breathe? I don’t do it.

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [00:31:55]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Nancy Norbeck [00:31:59]:
So. So, yeah, that makes those rules.

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [00:32:02]:
Yeah.

Nancy Norbeck [00:32:03]:
So you did not end up doing this theater company out of, you know, it did not just spontaneously come to you, and I know this because we met at work, so.

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [00:32:16]:
Right. Yeah, I took a rather circuitous route to it.

Nancy Norbeck [00:32:21]:
Yeah. How did that all come together?

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [00:32:25]:
Well, my goodness. Do you want the long story, the short story?

Nancy Norbeck [00:32:29]:
How long do you have?

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [00:32:31]:
Well, you know, like I said, I took a circuitous route. And graduating from a college like Lafayette with the loans that I had and not coming from a family that was independently wealthy and could try to write a check to pay. Right. You know, I realized that I needed a more reliable job than actors traditionally have in order to be able to afford to survive. And so while I was kind of figuring things out, I never questioned wanting to pursue acting. The question was, what’s the best way for me to go about doing it? Upon graduating, I was like, okay, so what job am I going to get? I was like, oh, you know, maybe I want to be an editor because I loved writing, and, you know, that’ll keep me in New York so I can go to auditions. Maybe I want to do this. Maybe I want to do that.

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [00:33:32]:
A teaching position opened up in St. John Vanny High School in Holmdale, New Jersey, and it was part time, which was great because I had no teaching experience whatsoever. So it was sort of a way to ease in. It was junior level English, which was sort of right up my alley because it was the Britlitt year, and that was what I loved most about my english studies in college. And, you know, it was two classes a day. It was like a few hours, and I was like, this is perfect. I can do this. And sort of start to establish a teaching career or get some teaching experience, at least while, you know, having summers off and getting out of school early enough to head into the city for auditions or do whatever I needed to do there.

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [00:34:22]:
So I got the job, and about three months into working there, the head of the drama department had to step down from her position, and they offered it to me.

Nancy Norbeck [00:34:34]:
Sweet.

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [00:34:36]:
So I was like, you know what? Awesome. I’ll take it. And so now I was teaching a drama class on top of my english classes, and I was running the drama program, which meant I got to direct for the first time, you know, two shows a year. And it also meant, though, that I didn’t have much time to audition professionally. And that was okay, though, because I was learning so much working with the kids. You know, I feel like I was teaching. I clearly was teaching them a lot because I had had this background and, you know, my degree was in English and drama. I studied at the National Theater Institute and the Moscow Arts center.

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [00:35:18]:
So I had all of this training that I would work with them to teach technique and that sort of thing. But their approach and their perception on things and just their worldview taught me so much. And sort of having them experience the technique with such freshness and without sort of experience of comparison sort of brought out new things for me that I didn’t realize or, you know, so I learned a ton. And, you know, getting to direct, I realized, oh, my God, I love directing, too. And I don’t think I’m half bad at it because I direct from an actor’s perspective. And so, you know, my first year, we did a Tom Stoppard, and everyone told me, you are nuts to do stopord with these kids. There are, there are like masters and PhD academics who spend a career analyzing and trying to understand stop word. You’re going to do stop word with these kids? And I said, well, you know what? I love his work.

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [00:36:21]:
I think they can handle it. We’re going to do it. So we did the real inspector hound, and they got it, you know, I mean, and it was great and it was hilarious and it was so much fun. And we did Shakespeare. We did Midsummer.

Nancy Norbeck [00:36:36]:
Why not?

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [00:36:38]:
They thought I was really crazy. You stoppered. And Shakespeare. But you know what? Again, it was great, you know, and we had a ton of fun. And I realized after about a year and a half of teaching that as much as I loved working with the kids, this was not something that I wanted to do for the next, you know, 30, 40 years of my life that I did eventually want to get to the point where I could realize the dream that I had when I left college, which was to continue acting and to have my own theater company. And so trying to figure out a path there, I kind of said to myself, well, you know, you have the acting training. I mean, you never stop with that. But, you know, it’s not something that you necessarily need to enroll in, like a conservatory program or a graduate program.

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [00:37:34]:
There are studios all over the city that provide incredible training. So, you know, you sort of, you have, you have your base in that. And that’s easy enough. Any additional training on is easy enough to pursue sort of on a one on one type of, type of way, but I felt like I knew nothing about the business world, and I knew that having a theater, I was going to have to have an understanding of contract law and real estate and just sort of how the world worked from a business standpoint. So I said, you know what? I’m going to go to law school. And. Yeah, yeah. So I went and I took the LSAT, and I applied to a few law schools, and I got into Seton hall and I said, okay, you know what? For the next three years, while I’m in law school, I am going to forget about theater.

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [00:38:32]:
I’m going to be a law student. I’m going to be the best law student I possibly can be, do everything I’m supposed to do, and then at the end of those three years, I’ll be able to get, you know, the great job and then do what I really want to do. I get to Seton Hall. I find a great apartment in the ironbound of Newark, and my first night living in the apartment, I’m looking out the window and I look across the street, and the old building, brick and stone building that’s across the street from me has engraved, like, carved in stone, the iron bound theater. And I just sat there and went, mother Hubbard, I can’t escape this. Like, I was, I was going to give it three years, and it’s like, nope, nope. That’s going to be staring at you the entire time you’re living here as a reminder.

Nancy Norbeck [00:39:35]:
Uh huh. Wow.

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [00:39:36]:
Okay, fine. So I get through my first year of law school, my second year of law school, things start off as usual. And a couple weeks into the first semester, I’m approached by a friend now, James Abels, who was a new first year at the law school and went to Lafayette. And so he’s a year behind me at Lafayette. He’s a year behind me as well at the law school. I didn’t know him at Lafayette, but apparently he was friends with people that I had done shows with. So he had come to see all the shows that I was in, so he knew me.

Nancy Norbeck [00:40:12]:
Oh, wow.

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [00:40:13]:
And he. Yeah. And he was always interested in pursuing, like, producing. So he said to me, he goes, want to start a theater company here at the law school?

Nancy Norbeck [00:40:27]:
You really won’t get in the way.

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [00:40:29]:
I mean, I literally, like, you know, you see those curses? I literally, like, looked up at the sky and, like, shook my fist. This is like, ah. So we would put together, right, I know, exactly. Exactly. So we put together a theater group in the law school, and we got funding through the student bar. Association, and we staged Ayn Rand’s night of January 16, which is actually a courtroom drama. And it has two alternate endings where you have a jury that comes back with either a guilty or non guilty verdict, and the ending is different depending on the verdict.

Nancy Norbeck [00:41:03]:
Oh, wow.

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [00:41:04]:
And, yeah. Yeah. So it was. That was a lot of fun. I both directed it and was in it, and I was like, okay, so, you know what? This was great. This was, like, a good way to. You know, we sort of couched it in this being a fun and non threatening way for budding litigators to get some experience, you know, on their feet with public speaking. And that’s kind of what sold it to the.

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [00:41:32]:
To the SBA. So, a retired judge, union county judge, came to see the show, and Judge Menza, he’s since passed away, and he always had the dream of being a playwright.

Nancy Norbeck [00:41:48]:
Oh, good.

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [00:41:49]:
He came over to me. He came up to me, and, you know, we had this long conversation, and he was like, you can’t. You can’t sacrifice your dreams. I understand what you’re doing. But, you know, I ended up getting married out of law school and having two boys very quickly, so I could never pursue my dreams of being a playwright. Don’t let that happen.

Nancy Norbeck [00:42:09]:
Wow.

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [00:42:10]:
There was, like, nothing I could do to say to the world, to the universe, to God, to whatever you believe in that I am nothing. Following this path.

Nancy Norbeck [00:42:22]:
Yeah.

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [00:42:23]:
And so, you know, he had. He had a one woman show that he was hoping to produce in New York, and he sent me the script and, you know, was, like, read over it. Let’s. You know, let’s work on it together, and very. I love Judge Menza. He was such a great guy. And unfortunately, he ended up getting sick and passing, so. So, yeah.

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [00:42:51]:
But by the time I got to my third year, I was leaving class to run into New York to take classes at HB studios to make sure that my acting skills weren’t getting, you know, rusty as a result of being in law school’s not enough. So my three years of not doing anything theatrical because I wanted to focus on law school never, ever happened. So each year, something, you know, pretty big occurred to remind me of what my path was supposed to be. So, you know, then on graduation, I got a job at a law firm, and I was, you know, just working, but still, you know, taking classes when I could, and I did a little community theater here and there when something interesting popped up again just to kind of keep. To keep my skills fresh. And I found myself one day sitting in my office wondering what they would do if I just let out a blood curdling scream. Like, I felt like the walls were closing in on me.

Nancy Norbeck [00:44:02]:
And I think a lot of people had that feeling.

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [00:44:06]:
Yeah. Oh, yeah. Especially lawyers. But it was like, what would they do? Would they call the police? Would they just think I was too crazy to do anything and just leave me alone? Like, I literally probably spent about a half an hour running through every possible scenario of what could have happened if I sat there and did that. And I realized I need to get out. I need to stop doing this. This is not healthy for me. And, you know, I had been, like, sneaking out of my office at 4430 in the afternoon to go to the city for auditions or for, you know, classes, and I was like, I need to figure a transition out before I’m just fired.

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [00:44:44]:
Right. You know, because this is. This is not good. So I transitioned to working in a knowledge management, which is more of an administrative type of position for a big law firm in New York, which was great, because I was auditioning on my lunch breaks, and after work, it was just much easier to do because I was there. And so, you know, I did a few projects in the city, a couple of festivals here and there, and some off off Broadway stuff, and that was great because I met some amazing people, you know, I’m still friends with and still in touch with and who are still doing incredible things in theater. And I learned so much, you know, from just working with. There’s a huge difference between academic theater and professional theater, just in terms of approach and the dynamic. And so that was a really great educational process for me.

Nancy Norbeck [00:45:46]:
Sure.

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [00:45:48]:
And then, interestingly enough, I transitioned to Princeton University, where we meth doing the same thing, because the. The commute to New York was getting to be too much. And I realized that while I was getting cast in things, I was. I wasn’t. I wanted to do bigger things. I wasn’t, you know, I wasn’t auditioning for Broadway. I’m not a musical theater person. And the plays that go up on Broadway and even off Broadway, you know, they’ll have their equity called, but nine times out of ten, they’re already cast with named stars.

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [00:46:33]:
And so if you don’t have, like, a resume the length of your arm with, you know, really well known theater companies already on it, like, regional theater credits, your chance of even being seen or considered is nil. And so I, you know, I wanted to be able to do sort of the great works. And, you know, I had found myself in New York doing a lot of really good plays, but a lot of them were, you know, workshops of like, a workshop version of a new play that some NYU grad had just written, which, you know, you read it and you say to yourself, you know what? In, like, five years, when this is really edited and refined, this is going to be great. But right now, it’s not so much, you know what I mean? Like, the bones are there, but there still needs to be a lot of work. And it would have been different if, like, to be part of the process of that development is one thing, because I’ve done that as well, and that is an amazing experience. But to just be like, okay, we’re just going to do this as part of sort of like a one act festival. You know, it’s two performances. It’s.

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [00:47:44]:
I wanted bigger, I wanted more. And I knew eventually I wanted to start my own theater company, and I wasn’t going to be doing it in New York.

Nancy Norbeck [00:47:50]:
Right.

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [00:47:50]:
So I got the job in Princeton, which allowed me to learn a little bit more about the theater scene locally, which, you know, is primary. Aside from McCarter in Princeton, and they’re the theaters in New Brunswick, right here in central New Jersey, most of the theater scene is community theater based, and there are some wonderful artists who are working in community theater. And so coming back and working here gave me a chance to network and meet some of the really incredible actors who are working locally in community theater. And, you know, doing things periodically here and there and throughout that there was a company called Shakespeare 70.

Nancy Norbeck [00:48:37]:
Yes.

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [00:48:39]:
Yeah, they do mostly classic work, classical works, and nobody does that. I love Shakespeare, and the opportunity to do Shakespeare is so few and far between, but it’s a company that also casts out of their core group of actors. So. And they very rarely hold auditions. So they were holding auditions for Antigone. And, you know, knowing the play, I kind of knew that there wasn’t really a role that I was right for just by age and type. You know, you get to a point where you kind of know where you fit. But you know what I said, I’m going to follow the old adage that they tell you in theater school, and I’m going to go to the audition anyway so they can get to see me and see my work and get to know me, and maybe they’ll think of me for some sort of future work.

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [00:49:29]:
So I did that, and I gave, I guess, a really good audition, because about six months later, I heard from one of the directors in the company, Janet, who works for another company called Simulations, Inc. Where they hire professional actors to do training in corporate industrials and videos and that type of thing. And I’ve been working with them now for the last seven years, and it’s SAG AfTRA. You get a nice paycheck. Yeah. Yeah. So that is primarily sort of how I make my living as an actor. And, you know, but again, it’s like, who knew that the community theater audition would turn into this? And I also.

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [00:50:26]:
I did another show at the Kelsey with my now partner in Pegasus Theatre Company, Peter Biskeer. That’s how we met. And it was the worst experience of our lives theatre wise. Like, we were sort of compatriots in misery, but we kind of, as a result of that miserable experience, we both sort of realized that we each had this lifelong dream of having our own theater company. And we sat down together and we’re like, why aren’t we doing this? Like, what’s holding us back at this point? And, you know, we certainly can do it a lot better than this. We want it to be. We want a professional company where artists are being paid for their work, because too often, we’re taking advantage of our time and our talent.

Nancy Norbeck [00:51:20]:
Yes.

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [00:51:21]:
Because it’s not quantifiable, the same way, you know, the work of an accountant or a doctor is, for example. And so we were just like, you know what? Let’s do it. And I got pregnant shortly thereafter, which kind of ended up heightening my need to feel like I needed to do this because I wanted my daughter to grow up knowing that it’s possible to live your dream. It’s possible to have a dream about doing something with your life and making it happen.

Nancy Norbeck [00:51:59]:
Yes.

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [00:52:03]:
So, yeah, that’s been the last four years. And we started out performing at the West Windsor Arts center, and we’ve been very successful there. So successful that we are now in transition and looking for our new home. Because our own home, I should say. Because doing two shows a season with just two weekends of performance for each show, you know, our patrons were starting to ask, why aren’t you doing more than two? And why are you running them so slowly? I tell my friends, and by the time they’re able to get here, you’re closed.

Nancy Norbeck [00:52:37]:
Right.

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [00:52:38]:
And we want to run educational programming and, you know, do community outreach and all of that. But one of the things I am proudest of is we started off with our very first show saying we are paying everyone, and we figured out a way to make that happen.

Nancy Norbeck [00:52:56]:
Bless you.

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [00:52:58]:
And, I mean, look, it’s not a ton you know, we were sort of incrementally increasing it, and we’re aiming to be. To be an equity house within the next few years. But it was very important to us that we pay everyone from day one, you know, and we figured out a way to do that, and we managed to do that and still sell enough tickets to, you know, cover ourselves and then some be able to keep producing.

Nancy Norbeck [00:53:33]:
You know, it’s like the thing that we were talking about before, you know, and the whole loss aversion thing. So many people would think of that and say, oh, God, it would be great to do that, but there’s no possible way. So we’re not even going to try. And I just think it’s fantastic that you’re like, nope, this is a priority, and we’re going to make it happen somehow, even if we don’t know how, even if it’s not very much. This is a really important thing.

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [00:53:53]:
And, yes, and, yeah, that’s exactly what it was. You know, we just. We built it into the budget, and I think we were smart enough to pick shows that, you know, weren’t astronomically expensive to produce. I think we, you know, both Peter and I have sort of been in the business long enough to have a reasonable expectation of what our audience sizes would be and what our income would be. So we were able to plan accordingly to be able to afford it. You know, I think we were just smart about the approach. And so, you know, this next big step we’re taking is so incredibly exciting, you know, and it’s a little bit like taking a step off a cliff or, you know, taking a step into the abyss, because at this point, we have no idea where we’re going to land.

Nancy Norbeck [00:54:50]:
Sure.

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [00:54:51]:
But I’m at the point where after, you know, 20 years since graduating from college, class of 99, Lafayette, you know, sort of every, every step of the way in my career up until this point have been guided in some way.

Nancy Norbeck [00:55:09]:
Yes.

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [00:55:09]:
I’ve just allowed myself to be open to those signs and open to. Well, there’s a little path there. Let me take a few steps down this way and see where it takes me. Oh, okay. There’s another path that way. Let’s go that way. And, you know, each sort of landing point has been significant in getting us here. So I just have to trust that.

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [00:55:35]:
And that’s going to continue.

Nancy Norbeck [00:55:37]:
Yeah, definitely. But there’s just, I mean, not that I’m an expert and not that I have a crystal ball, but honestly, having heard all of this, there’s just no reason to believe that it won’t.

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [00:55:49]:
Well, I mean, that’s exactly right. At least that’s what I tell myself on a daily basis.

Nancy Norbeck [00:55:54]:
No, I mean, really, come on. The Seton hall story, there is no reason to believe that it won’t.

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [00:56:02]:
Well, you know, it’s so funny, because I. A couple years ago, I went back to Lafayette to speak on a panel of alumni in the art. And one of the questions that a number of the students had was, you know, how did you know that this is what you were supposed to do? And what was fascinating is. But there were ten of us on the panel, and. And I would venture to say that seven of us had similar stories where it was like the universe would not let us do anything else. We kept trying. We kept trying, but no matter what we did, we kept getting funneled back into this, whether it was writing, whether it was acting, whether it was producing films, because we were from all different genres and mediums of the art, you know? And I think it’s a combination of those signs being there, because I think everyone is given signs. I think if you are aware enough to experience in the work the world, in a way that you are keenly observing the details around you, I think there are things that you will observe that will suggest these.

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [00:57:26]:
Yes. And opportunities. I think too few of us are open to seeing them. You know, I mean, how many people could have been in my position? And I, you know, saw that across the street and said, ah, you know, that was an old movie theater. Has nothing to do with me. Has nothing to do with the type of theater I do.

Nancy Norbeck [00:57:56]:
Right.

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [00:57:56]:
You know, or, or, you know, had someone approach them their second year in law school and said, you know, look, I made a commitment to doing this full on, and I’m gonna stick with that. Like, do you know what I mean? Right. You know, but I think. I’m sorry, say that again.

Nancy Norbeck [00:58:16]:
That’s so easily we, you know, we say, no, no, just like we were saying.

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [00:58:20]:
Yeah, we discount. We ignore. Exactly. Exactly. But I think when something is a part of who you are and whether it’s. You’re an artist, whether it’s science is your, you know, mode of creativity, whether it’s painting, whether it’s teaching, you know, I think we all have these qualities that. That are a part of who we are. And when you’re in touch with them and when you are in touch with the joy it brings you, it’s hard to ignore those.

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [00:59:00]:
Yes.

Nancy Norbeck [00:59:00]:
And possibilities certainly harder, at the very least. But, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [00:59:07]:
You know, but I think we’re so often desensitized to those, even allowing ourselves to have those personal experiences, or we.

Nancy Norbeck [00:59:16]:
Find things that we decide are signs that we shouldn’t be doing something. You know, like you and I have talked before about how do you define success? And I think it would have been so easy for you to be working at that job in New York and going and not getting the kind of roles that you wanted, you know, or, you know, anything like that that may have said, you know, I wanted to be, you know, headlining on Broadway by the age of x, and I’m not headlining on Broadway, and I’m x plus one. And therefore, this is a sign that I shouldn’t be doing this. And that’s.

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [00:59:49]:
Well, you know what, though? It’s funny that you bring up that example specifically, though, because that was a big thing for me. I had to. I struggled for a long time in defining what success looked like for me because for the longest time, you know, family, friends, people who don’t know sort of the full opportunities that exist within the theater and the arts world conceptually, their understanding of success is you’re either a Broadway star or you’re a film star in Hollywood. Right. And if you’re anything less than that, then you’re a failure in the industry.

Nancy Norbeck [01:00:30]:
Right.

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [01:00:31]:
And to a certain extent, that was ingrained in me. It was what I was hearing from lots of people. And, I mean, it made me feel really bad about myself and my ability and, and what I was trying to do. And I had to get to a point to say, what is my definition of success? My definition of success is living a life in the theater. And how do I go about creating that within the life and the lifestyle that I want? Does it mean that I have to be on Broadway? No. It means I’m doing good work. It means I’m doing the kind of work that I want. It means I’m working with talented artists who are nine times out of ten better than me because I can learn from them.

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [01:01:17]:
It means that theater is a part of my everyday life, whether it means I’m reading plays regularly to select our next season or I’m preparing a role or I’m preparing to direct something. You know, it doesn’t have to be Broadway or the silver screen.

Nancy Norbeck [01:01:36]:
Right.

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [01:01:38]:
And it took me a long time to get to the point where I was comfortable with that.

Nancy Norbeck [01:01:41]:
And I think, you know, I think there are more opportunities for things to happen, more the way they’ve happened for you than people realize, you know, absolutely be doing something like that while being in suburban New Jersey or, you know, suburban Kansas for all that matters, you know, it’s there. Some of it you may need to create for yourself, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t do that. Some of it may exist already, but that’s all right. And, you know, it’s interesting because while you were talking, I was thinking about, I have a friend in Poland who is about 20 years old, I think, who I met online kind of by accident about a year and a half ago. And we just got to talking, and pretty quickly she said that she was trying to decide if she was going to just go get a regular university degree or try to go to drama school. And just in the way she was talking about it, she said, I want to be an actress, but that’s just silly because there’s no jobs, there’s no money in it, and whatever. And I told her, I was like, you know what? Literally, I just had this experience where I realized that this was a big part of me that I denied so well, for so long that even I forgot there. And I said, you know, I’m, I’m 25 years older than you.

Nancy Norbeck [01:02:59]:
Do you want to hear from your 25 years older possible self? Because what I would tell you right now is, go do it. Go do it in whatever way you need to go get the acting degree. Even if not doing that, you’ll know you did it for a while and you’ll have had that experience. It’ll take you, it’ll lead you to places that you would never have guessed because you don’t know who you’re going to meet there. You don’t know what connections will lead to, other connections. And just don’t talk yourself out of it, because plenty of other people are going to try to talk you out of going to acting school and being an actress. They don’t need your help. They’ve got that part covered.

Nancy Norbeck [01:03:37]:
You need to be on your own side. And if you ever start to doubt yourself, you come find me and I will be your cheerleader because I wish what I’m telling you to do. And so, you know, even if it doesn’t, even if you still end up, you know, heaven forbid, working in, you know, a bank or a desk job, that, and there are plenty of people who love working in a bank and working a desk job. But if you’re really wanting to be an actor, that’s probably not where you really want to be. But even if you end up doing something that isn’t what you expected or it isn’t in the way that you expected. At least you’ll have that. At least you’ll be able to say for three or four years or whatever it ends up being. I got to do this thing that I really, really loved, rather than like we were talking about before looking back and saying, wow, I really wish I’d given it a try.

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [01:04:22]:
Absolutely. Yeah. You know, I’ve always hated that advice that you often hear in theater schools where, you know, like, the artistic director of the program will stand up and say, if there’s anything else in this world you can do that will make you happy, go and pursue that. And I forget about acting. Oh, yeah, no, that’s. That’s not what that’s about. It’s like, yeah, you know what? But you know what? But the reality is. The reality is, if there is something else in this world that will make you happy, then acting probably isn’t for you.

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [01:04:49]:
But it’s not taken that way. You know, it’s taken in a way that that is meant to be discouraging, and, and, you know, it. If you are meant to live a life in the arts, whether it’s theater, whether it’s painting, whether it’s writing, if you’re meant to live a life in the sciences, whether it’s physics, whether it’s engineering, whether it’s computer science, that is something that is in your core. I believe in vocation. I always say that, you know, like, acting is a calling for me, the way people are called to the religious life.

Nancy Norbeck [01:05:33]:
Yeah.

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [01:05:35]:
You know, I mean, yeah, there are other things I do that I enjoy. I mean, I liked working at Princeton. I. It was intellectually stimulating. I liked the people I met, clearly, because we’re still friends. I mean, do you know what I mean? It wasn’t, it wasn’t like I was, you know, miserable every single day. I had to go into the office. But you know what? There was a part of me that, you know, it felt like I chopped off my arm and had left it behind me.

Nancy Norbeck [01:06:04]:
Yes.

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [01:06:04]:
You know, there was a part of who I am that was no longer a part of my life in the level of fullness that it should have been. You know? And I think that’s very different than saying, if there’s anything else you can do and be happy with, you know, pursue that instead, it’s. It’s whatever you feel like is so inextricably entwined with who you are.

Nancy Norbeck [01:06:34]:
Yes.

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [01:06:34]:
You have to pursue that. You cannot ignore it.

Nancy Norbeck [01:06:38]:
You really do. And, you know, I think that that advice comes from a point of you know, this can be really hard, trying to know what you’re in for before you decide this is what you want to do. But it doesn’t that way. It sounds. It makes it sound like this is for the rarefied few who either won’t do anything else or literally can’t do anything else. It’s almost. I mean, like they can’t do anything else. It’s almost like it’s a pity thing, you know, you poor thing.

Nancy Norbeck [01:07:07]:
You can’t do anything else. You’re stuck doing this really difficult thing where you’re going to get doors slammed in your face for the rest of your life, you know?

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [01:07:14]:
Exactly.

Nancy Norbeck [01:07:14]:
And I don’t think that’s where it’s coming from, but I think they don’t realize that’s how it sounds. And, you know, it can be such a destructive thing to hear because it makes you doubt everything.

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [01:07:23]:
Well, and especially because it’s not like it’s 40 year olds hearing that. You know, if someone said that to me now, I’d laugh in their face.

Nancy Norbeck [01:07:30]:
Right.

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [01:07:31]:
Like, it was me. I was 19.

Nancy Norbeck [01:07:34]:
Yeah.

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [01:07:35]:
You know, it’s like. It’s like 18 to 23 year olds that are being told this. Yeah. You know, and I mean, my God, you’re. You’re a kid. You have no life in experience. You have no way of putting that into. Into context of real world life pursuits that.

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [01:07:52]:
Yeah, I think. I think it comes off differently than it’s intended, which means the effect of hearing it is different than intended.

Nancy Norbeck [01:07:59]:
Definitely. Definitely. And if you have a chorus of people sitting behind you saying, this is crazy, you know this is crazy, right? You’re going to be broke in five years, and you’re going to be living in a box street. That kind of stuff is just like. So I’m not allowed to dream about anything and I have to go get the boring job that’s going to have me wondering about the blood curdling screen, which, quite frankly, I think you should write a play about that. I would come see it. Totally, totally would. But, yeah, it’s just too many of us live in places where we wonder what would happen if we let out that blood curd screen.

Nancy Norbeck [01:08:36]:
You know?

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [01:08:36]:
I think absolutely.

Nancy Norbeck [01:08:37]:
More people than we even would guess.

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [01:08:40]:
I think you’re right.

Nancy Norbeck [01:08:41]:
But. But, you know, I mean, it’s just like, what, what do we do to ourselves? You know? We say no instead of. And. And here’s where we end up. So, anyway, I should go for it.

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [01:08:53]:
I think that’s the. I think that’s the moral of the story. Go for it.

Nancy Norbeck [01:08:57]:
Absolutely.

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [01:08:58]:
You know, yes and yes.

Nancy Norbeck [01:09:02]:
And this is the “Yes, and…” interview for sure.

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [01:09:06]:
I like it.

Nancy Norbeck [01:09:07]:
I do too. And I know I should let you go, both for time and because your little one is home, but I love this conversation. Thank you so, so much. I knew it was going to be great. It was even better than I expected. So many, many thanks.

Jennifer Nasta Zefutie [01:09:20]:
Thank you so much. This was so much fun. Thanks for the opportunity. I’m glad I said yes.

Nancy Norbeck [01:09:24]:
And that’s our show for this week. Thanks so much to Jennifer Nasta Zefutie for joining me and to you. I hope that you will start to find opportunities in your life to say yes and to things, rather than dismissing them out of hand. Please do tell a friend if you enjoyed this episode. Thanks so much. You can find show notes, the six creative beliefs that are screwing you up, and [email protected]. i’d also love for you to join the conversation on Instagram. You’ll find me @fycuriosity.

Nancy Norbeck [01:09:55]:
Follow Your Curiosity is produced by me, Nancy Norbeck, with music by Joseph McDade. If you like Follow Your Curiosity, please subscribe, rate and review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. And don’t forget to tell your friends. It really helps me reach new listeners. See you next time.