Steve Cuden: On today’s story beat …

Kiesha Lalama: Andrew Barth Feldman, Renee Rapp, uh, Kyle Selig. The list is endless. As many as the success stories have happened around, you know, the winners, more success has happened with people that have just participated in the program. They weren’t even finalists or winners, but they were just in the show and have gone on to do this thing and have also absolutely made it on Broadway or doing film or doing regional theater, but they’re still in the business.

Announcer: This is StoryBeat with Steve Cuden, a podcast for the Creative Mind. StoryBeat explores how Masters of creativity develop and produce brilliant works that people everywhere love and admire. So join us as we discover how talented creators find success in the worlds of imagination and entertainment.

Here now is your host, Steve Cuden.

Steve Cuden: Thanks for joining us on Story Beat. We’re coming to you from the Steel City, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. My guest today, Keisha Lalama, is an internationally recognized dancer, choreographer, and teacher who has created works for stage film and tv. She’s currently Point Park University’s interim dean of theater, film and animation, and the executive producer of the Pittsburgh Playhouse.

Keisha co-founded and has choreographed 15 years of Broadway’s, the Jimmy Awards, which has reached over 120,000 students annually. She choreographed the feature films, the Perks of Being a Wallflower and Sorority Row, the documentary series, Broadway or Bust for PBS and two, critically acclaimed TV series Outsiders and American Rust.

Her International Concert Dance works continue to be performed throughout Europe and Asia, including shed catapult, Allegria. Connects, aftermath, wish jolt, unsung moment, and vicious cycle. She’s also created three critically acclaimed full length dance theater productions, including the bench journey into love, heart shakes, and bound in before.

Keisha’s Regional Theater highlights include All Shook Up at North Shore Music Theater, Jesus Christ Superstar at Kansas City Starlight Theater, into the woods at ARS Center, and for the Pittsburgh CLO Judge Jackie Justice Ruthless, the musical first date, and the Gene Kelly Awards. For the record, Keisha and I have known one another for a number of years as we were both faculty members in the Conservatory of Performing Arts at Point Park.

So for all those reasons and many more, it’s my great pleasure to welcome the dancer, choreographer, educator, and executive producer of the Pittsburgh Playhouse. Keisha Llama to Story be today. Keisha, welcome to the show. 

Kiesha Lalama: Hi. Thank you for having me. It’s so good to see you on the screen, but thank you for having me.

Steve Cuden: Well, thank you for being on the show with me and it’s terrific to see you too. So let’s go back in your history just a little bit. You’ve been a dancer and a choreographer for some time now. How old were you when you first became interested in dance and being a dancer? 

Kiesha Lalama: Wow. Yeah, so I actually was interested in movement.

Gymnastics. When I was three years old, I kept flipping on furniture in my house and my mom said, we need to put you into class ’cause I’m done with you breaking my couches. So I signed up for gymnastics at a very young age and then grew out of it. A bunch of my friends were getting injured. I got injured and just the fear kind of kicked in and I got tall.

Yeah. So that was a problem. And uh, you know, I, I took about a year or two off from that kind of training, and I dabbled in some sports and basketball, softball, those kinds of things. Loved it. And, uh, I was always making dances and routines in my front yard and my basement and my backyard with my neighbors, my sisters and my mom said, why don’t you sign up for dance class?

There’s a dance studio that opened up in town. And I started training there, and I was about 14, 15 years old, 

Steve Cuden: right? 

Kiesha Lalama: So it was a little later than most, but I had that gymnastic background. Uh, it, it definitely changed my life when I entered that space. 

Steve Cuden: So you knew early on that you were gonna be a physical person.

You like to move through space? 

Kiesha Lalama: Yeah, I’ve always been physical. Uh, my, my family is, it’s either artists or athletes. I. So I feel as if I’m this hybrid and I’ve got both, so I feel so blessed, but I, uh, you know, it’s just part of it. And certainly western pa with the athleticism and football. My dad’s a football coach.

My mother is an artist in her own right, but she wanted into nursing. And, um, it, it all comes down to what you’re around and what you’re exposed to with your family. And for me it was both. And so I feel as if I had the best of both worlds. 

Steve Cuden: Was that what drew you to dance? Was that It was both things. 

Kiesha Lalama: Yeah.

I mean, it was the ath. Mm-hmm. I was, I am an athletic dancer. Mm-hmm. So ballet was interesting. That was a little challenging for me because it really is about craft rather than adrenaline. And for me, I, I definitely gravitated more towards jazz because it’s flashier, aggressive, athletic, I could tumble and do tricks and still do those kinds of things.

So I was definitely more of the commercial side of things. 

Steve Cuden: I’m gonna probably use this word wrong, but it’s less graceful than ballet. Is that a good way to say it? 

Kiesha Lalama: Sure. I mean, I, I will say that there is a heightened sophistication about ballet that I have such a respect for. Uh, I really love choreographing ballet works with ballerinas that are trained that way.

I just respect it because I know what goes into it. My body, back in the day when you had certain kind of types and looks and bodies. Body types. I didn’t fit that, that mold for ballet either. Uh, you know, my big gymnastic legs and strength just didn’t lend itself to that kind of, um, aesthetic, which is fine, but I was able to appreciate it and definitely kind of gear towards the more athletic side.

Steve Cuden: That’s the stereotype of the Willowy Ballet dancer. 

Kiesha Lalama: Yeah. And what’s crazy is that ballet, you know, it takes a lot of strength to do ballet, and I think people underestimate the power that goes into it because they make it look effortless and that maybe it comes off that way, but it’s actually really, really powerful and it is athletic and aggressive, don’t get me wrong.

Steve Cuden: Right. 

Kiesha Lalama: They make it look like it’s floating on air and, you know, all those wonderful, wonderful, heightened experiences because of their technique. So it’s, it’s actually quite interesting if you look at the dynamic between the two, they both take the same kind of. Of athleticism just looks different because of the, I guess the release, the style and the way it’s displayed through the aesthetic.

Steve Cuden: Well, I like to use the example of Fred Astaire because he, he was extremely athletic and he worked his butt off to make those things look like they were just floating through air. Like he was effortless. That’s right. And that’s what it takes. You really have to work at it, right? 

Kiesha Lalama: Yeah, that’s right. And I mean, I look at athletes and you think, wow, how hard could that be to throw a football 90 yards or something, you know?

And they make it look effortless once you reach that, that level. But yeah, that’s all part of it. 

Steve Cuden: Well, yeah, you go out and do it. Yeah, 

Kiesha Lalama: exactly. And then you try it and go, wait a second. Maybe not. 

Steve Cuden: So where, where did you get your training? 

Kiesha Lalama: So I trained with Janet Amar first in Beaver County. For dance. And then I trained with Doris Singer Dance Studios also in Beaver County, and then moved on to the one and only Point Park University.

So, uh, I trained at Point Park University and this entire institution has really launched my career. 

Steve Cuden: So you’ve been there quite some time then? 

Kiesha Lalama: Yeah, I’ve been here for a long time. Uh, I started, you know, I, I transferred, I went to Slippery Rock University for a semester, believe it or not, the athletic side of me.

I threw discus and shot put in high school. 

Steve Cuden: Really? 

Kiesha Lalama: Yes. Wow. So I definitely have my dad’s football quarterback arm. Uh, and ironically enough, both of my boys ended up throwing discus and shot put two through high school and Jax through college. Hmm. But I ended up getting a scholarship at Slippery Rock for discus and dance.

But no one talked about how I was gonna rehearse and be at track practice at the same time. And so it just became a conflicting issue. And, uh, and then I hurt my knee really bad, so I took a semester off. I had surgery, uh, and all of these injuries from the past gymnastic training, you know, you don’t realize what it does to you long term.

And, uh, you know, I took a semester off. I went to New York City. I watched two Broadway shows with my teacher, Doris and her daughter Darcy and I, that was it. I was like, I’m gonna do that. I watched the Will Rogers Follies and they did the whole, the whole like slap dance, that, that, that whole thing. And, uh, I, in that moment, I said, that’s what I’m gonna do.

I took class at the Broadway Dance Center. I’ll never forget this David Story. Did a contemporary, I didn’t know what kind of dance that was. Contemporary dance combination to What was the music? Oh, more than words. Good song in the early nineties, more than words, more than Words. Remember that song? And I never felt a sense of freedom or connection to dance that way.

And I went back home and, and talked with, uh, one of my colleagues, Kim Hanney, who was going to Point Park and um, actually she was teaching in the studio when I went back home with Doris and Darcy and she said, you need to go to Point Park. I said, what’s that? And I went in for my audition and I got in.

But as soon as I put my feet on the ground here and I met Ron JustOne and some of the faculty members, I knew this was, this was the place for me. 

Steve Cuden: For the listeners who have no idea, what is it about Point Park that makes it unique, special, and, and internationally recognized? 

Kiesha Lalama: I, I think Point Park is a funky little place.

It’s like that little place that could, there’s a family style here. There’s something about the communication and the connection between the humans that are here. 

Steve Cuden: Mm-hmm. 

Kiesha Lalama: Everybody cares. I think people care. I don’t wanna say too much, uh, maybe they care too much, but it’s an honest, sincere investment in each other.

In your colleagues, in your professors, in your friends, in the staff. There’s a, there’s a, because it’s so small, it is a tight-knit community and through the years, those connections are there with you forever. I still have some of my college friends that I consider my. Best friends, sisters, brothers today.

Steve Cuden: Well, me too. In a totally different way. Yeah. From different schools. But yes, I think that’s one of the things that’s great about advanced education is that’s where you form your basic foundational peer group. Not just education, but your actual people that you’re gonna know for the rest of your career, assuming you have a career, you know, not everybody in the arts does.

Kiesha Lalama: Yeah. And even if you decide not to go into it, you have formed those bonds because you walked through some kind of transition together, right? 

Steve Cuden: Mm-hmm. I 

Kiesha Lalama: don’t wanna say you walk through a fire necessarily, but you’re in those transformative years where you’re finding yourself and who you really want become, and those people are with you.

So as you find your voice and you find yourself, those are the people walking with you, picking you up, or cheering you on. And it’s a, it’s an, it’s an amazing bond that can’t really be matched. 

Steve Cuden: And, and Point Park itself, as I say, is internationally recognized for dance. You turn out tons of dancers that go off into the real world and be and become dancers or dance teachers.

One of those too. 

Kiesha Lalama: Yeah. Is that 

Steve Cuden: correct? 

Kiesha Lalama: It is. It’s remarkable. Our, our success stories are, I mean, I unlimited, I don’t, I don’t, I don’t even know another word. I don’t know, a cruise ship, a theme park, a Broadway show, a concert dance company without a point Parker that are, that is currently in it or has gone through it.

Mm-hmm. And for me, uh, because I’m so young and Sprite like I’ve been doing this for so long, I feel like, uh, you know, through the years, the coolest thing in the world is seeing my friends, my peers, kind of take the behind the table seat, become the artistic directors, become the vision for tomorrow, change and transform the industry to meet the needs of today’s market.

Mm-hmm. And the talent of the students. And so I think that’s the coolest thing about Point Park is that. So many of the people that have graduated are in it for the long term. And even if you’re not in the business for the long term, you can still enjoy it, reconnect with your friends, appreciate it because you truly had a, you know, a wonderful, remarkable experience.

Steve Cuden: Alright, so what point in your life did you think to yourself, you know what? I’ve had this training, I love doing this. When did you think you were really good at both dance and then choreographing dance? That’s fun. When did you know you were good at it? 

Kiesha Lalama: So for me, I was always a choreographer. 

Steve Cuden: Hmm. 

Kiesha Lalama: I think that’s the kind of difference I was never really interested in performing.

It was fine. I think for me, dance never replaced the adrenaline rush that is gymnastics when you’re standing in the corner on a floor mat. And as young as I was, I’ll never forget that. Fire, that light that ignites within your soul to do a runoff back, handspring, double back. I mean, there’s a, there’s a flip of that switch and there’s an energy that, for me, dance in the studio never really fulfilled that, that adrenaline fire, I can’t even, there’s no word to put into it.

Right? And so, ironically enough, I, I remember when I got my master’s program, my advisor had asked me, what is your very first memory of choreographing? And I never thought about it. My masters had kind of made me dig deep and reflect and really think about myself and my, my history and where I came from.

And so this one memory surfaced immediately. And I remember standing in the corner of the gymnastic floor and my coach, Danny looked at me and he had a red tank top on. And he said, what’s wrong with you? Why aren’t you choreograph? Or why aren’t you dancing? And I said, the choreography doesn’t go with the music.

He said, what do you mean it doesn’t go with the music? I said, don’t you hear that? It sounds like a puppet. It doesn’t, what you’re giving me doesn’t go with the music. And he said, okay, fine. Choreograph it yourself. I was nine. I mean, so I always, when I hear music, I see movement. And so if I’m at a spa or getting a massage or driving a car, it’s hard for me to listen to music because I just see movement or patterns, choreography and all the things.

So that, that has always been there. And then, you know, as I mentioned, when I stopped gymnastics, I would be in my backyard forcing my sisters and my neighbors, Nikki and Renee to do plays with us. And every Thanksgiving and Christmas and Easter and Flag Day, you know, we forced our families into watching our show.

And so it was, it was Andy Hardy always put on a show. Can you imagine my poor parents and my family? But we were. Yes, we always did shows and I was always choreographing. And then, um, that was always my heart from the very beginning. I always wanted to make dances. And as I got more comfortable, my confidence really started in high school.

I knew that was it. And as I made my way into the dance studio every day, I just, it became more, uh, real. Mm-hmm. That that’s what I wanted to do. 

Steve Cuden: Mm-hmm. Do you think you, you alluded to the fact that you put on plays and so on when you were a kid. Do you think of dance as a form of storytelling? 

Kiesha Lalama: 100%. So all of my dancers are not really, uh, movement based as much as they’re very athletic in the concert world, my full length stories are all love stories.

Um. I believe in love and all those wonderful things. 

Steve Cuden: They’re all, every one of them is about love. 

Kiesha Lalama: It is the bench is about love. The bench explores, family love, romantic love, brother, sister relationship, son, father, mother, daughter, all the love relationships in the bench. And then the heart shakes is about relationships that are broken, relationships that are getting, you know, repaired and those kinds of things.

Uh, bound in before is about high school love story that two high school, uh, lovers kind of fall apart, get back together, disconnect, get back together, disconnect, disconnect, disconnect, and do they get back together. And then certainly, um, ascend is about the new show that I’m working on now at Point Park and the Pittsburgh Playhouse is about the journey of yourself, loving yourself and loving humanity and, and lifting.

It’s all, it’s called Ascend. Right? 

Steve Cuden: So how do you then take a story that I’m assuming you conceive, or are you basing any of your works on an underlying story that exists? Or is it all coming outta your head? 

Kiesha Lalama: Do you mean 

Steve Cuden: biography? Well, when you’re, when you’re choreographing a dance, you have a piece of music, you’re gonna choreograph it too, right?

Kiesha Lalama: Yes. 

Steve Cuden: Are you then basing it on an existing story, like a short story or a Oh 

Kiesha Lalama: yeah. 

Steve Cuden: It is. 

Kiesha Lalama: No, actually, no. I, I got what you were, you were saying. I don’t, I make up the story story. You up the 

Steve Cuden: stories. You’re the author of the story Underlying the Dance. 

Kiesha Lalama: Yes. 

Steve Cuden: Okay. So how do you make that come to life through movement?

That’s a big question. You may not be able to answer easily, but how do you, how do you bring a story to physical movement with, with music and no dialogue? 

Kiesha Lalama: So for me, there’s, I love movies. I love film. I, I really just, my, I used to sit there in the evenings with my parents and just watch, I mean, every kind of film you can imagine.

Of course, I was raised on The Godfather, uh, my parents woke me up one night and said, I think you’re gonna like this. And it was West side story. Ah, and I remember sitting there and my mother made these homemade apple donuts so good. And then, uh, popcorn, I remember like sitting there eating this, going, I wanna do that.

And, um, I, I, it’s, the movement to me tells a story. So even when you’re walking down the street, the physicality of you, I, I, I see how you feel. And it’s just different for me, it’s very pedestrian. But I love theater. I love musical theater. I love acting. I love all of those things. And so to be able to bring that kind of physicality beyond technical dance to the story is the way that I can relate to it best.

And I feel like maybe audience members that don’t understand high art or concert dance can better relate to the story. And I, for me, my mission with my art is to kind of bring people together in a room. And I like pieces that unite people. And I feel like that familiarity allows people to insert themselves into a dance and better understand it.

So one of my favorite scenes is the dinner scene in the bench. No one could believe that I was able to choreograph an entire dinner. At a table. And it became one of the iconic moments in that show. And I’ll never forget, I was with my cousin David, who wrote all the music and they had asked us in an interview, you know, oh, how did you come up with that dinner scene?

It was absolutely brilliant. And I was like, oh, well, when I was choreographing and I just thought about dinner plates, he went, stop it. That was grandma’s house every Sunday all you did was bring your life to, to the stage. And he is. And he is. Right. 

Steve Cuden: Well that’s what all authors do. 

Kiesha Lalama: Exactly. And when in that moment as I was finding my voice and realizing I could do this, I realized that so much of my life is in my works and my experiences and, and that is certainly one of them.

Steve Cuden: Alright, so when you start to, to form a dance, um, you’re going to put certain dancers into certain roles, I guess you would call it. Yeah. Yep. Do you cast people that way? 

Kiesha Lalama: 100%. So as I’m casting a new show, I go back and forth and I, it, it is casting 1 0 1, and I have that experience from all the musical theater and theater I’ve done.

Mm-hmm. And so a, a dear mentor of mine, Jack Allison said, it’s all in the casting. It’s all in the casting. It’s all in the casting. Yes, 

Steve Cuden: indeed. And I 

Kiesha Lalama: It is. And so it’s, it’s the same for dance. It 100% is the same. 

Steve Cuden: Has it happened to you where you’ve gotten deep into something and realized you’ve miscast it?

Kiesha Lalama: Yes. 

Steve Cuden: And then, then are you stuck that way or do you try to make a change? And I’m not looking for you to call anybody out or anything. 

Kiesha Lalama: No. There was an experience with one particular show, and I won’t call names out, but I was doing the heart shakes and I was it, something just wasn’t clicking and this was the first time that it happened and I had cast with my heart instead of my head and, you know, used a dancer that I was more familiar with.

Steve Cuden: Mm-hmm. 

Kiesha Lalama: Sat there, talked to my best friend who was there with me working on the project, and Jason looked at me and said, you know, you know you have to make a change. And I teared up because I didn’t wanna hurt the dancer, da da da. Of 

Steve Cuden: course, 

Kiesha Lalama: I walked in the studio the next day and approached the dancer and said, can I talk to you?

Said, I, you know, I think that I might make a switch. And he was like, thank you. You know, and you, in that moment, you think you’re doing something horrific. And the sense of relief that that came over him was, was really remarkable. 

Steve Cuden: It’s interesting you were probably seeing that, that they were having reservations.

Kiesha Lalama: Yeah. And there was no connection. It was a love story. It was the best duet ever in my career that I created. And I’m like, why is there no chemistry between these two? And there was just, you know, it was a disconnect between them, the material, the story, it just, they didn’t gel and, uh, or, or to the story too, right?

Not so much each other, because everyone. It’s really close and it, it, it’s just the story of what they were trying to do. And as soon as I made the switch, magic happened and the whole room went, you know, and that’s how, that’s how you know, but yeah, mistakes happen. Well, I don’t even know if it’s mistakes.

It’s, um, decisions and how you come out of those decisions matter. 

Steve Cuden: Correct me if I’m wrong, most, if not all dancers have dancers that are principles or leads within that number, correct? 

Kiesha Lalama: Um, 100%. And those are usually selected based off a connection with the, the choreographer in front of the room or even the director.

Right. You have to trust the person. You have to feel a connection. You almost have to feel as if this person can emulate what you’re trying to get them to do through you. And so that connection is real. And I think the misconception is that a lot of, probably younger dancers feel like there’s favoritism or this person, it’s not even favoritism, it’s an organic connection, a human connection of trust.

Allowing your vision to come through another person is a very difficult thing to pass off. Well, and they all 

Steve Cuden: have to serve the piece. Yes, 

Kiesha Lalama: exactly. 

Steve Cuden: The whole piece. Yes. Do you think of the other dancers, if they’re in the, I guess would you call them the chorus? They’re, they’re not the principles, they’re not the leads.

Do you cast them as characters in your mind’s eye 

Kiesha Lalama: in some show? That’s an excellent question. In some shows, 100%. Uh, for example, the show that we’re working on now with Ascend, there are characters. The Ascend takes us on a journey through the four elements of Earth, wind, water, fire. So there are characters playing the four elements.

They become the four elements, but then the 12 ensemble, right? They are characters of time. So they play a very important role in the show in really kind of transferring the audience member through each episode as the show un unravels through earth, through wind, through water, through fire. Those time ensemble members are key to the storytelling and the journey.

Steve Cuden: Well, thank you for saying ensemble. That was the word I was searching for and I Oh, yeah. Came up with chorus, which, which of course is ensemble. That’s that’s correct. Yep. Uh, and most dancers are not pos, most dancers are not just one dancer. They’re, it’s usually an ensemble of dancers. So, so you have to have that cohesive group that works and pulls all for the same thing.

It’s like any other form of entertainment to me, in the sense that you are the conceiver of it, but everyone in it is interpreting what your conception is and you’re all pulling for one end, and that’s a complete piece. Uh, correct me if you think I’m wrong there. 

Kiesha Lalama: Oh no, it’s 100% correct. I feel like. I mean, let’s go with the largest epic ensemble ever.

And that would be Lord of the Rings in my head. I don’t know why that surfaced right now, but Lord of the Rings, right, everybody has to play together. Mm-hmm. 

Steve Cuden: No question. 

Kiesha Lalama: From the smallest of role to the lead actor, to the sound, to the boom, to the lighting, to the director, to the assistant, to the pa, I mean, and I think that in film you’re, you know, in so many ways that that movie is epic, but the epic energy it takes to fill, fill that ensemble with one direction is extraordinary.

That same effort goes into a two person play. The lighting, the costumes, the sound, it all has to move together. And if people were just simply more collaborative that way, I feel like art would definitely take on. Uh, just a more transformative experience for everybody through the process, all the way through that moment where you hit the stage and you pass it off to the audience and allow them that journey to transform as well.

Steve Cuden: Well, I always say, and I’m not the, uh, you know, it’s not my idea, but I always repeat what others have said, which is that once you have created the work, whether it’s a book or a movie or play, or a dance or whatever it is, once you’ve created it, it’s yours that you’ve created. But it becomes the audience’s piece.

They own it. The people that perceive it, it becomes theirs, however they interpret it in their mind’s eyes, they’re watching it. So you don’t have any control as a creator over how an audience feels. You can try to make them feel. But you don’t have, you truly don’t control it. They do. That’s an interesting thing that happens to me, that transition.

So I’m gonna ask you a question that I ask lots of people, and I always find the answers interesting, which is what for you makes good choreography? 

Kiesha Lalama: Good? Oh, that’s an excellent question. For me. With choreography, it, it’s really about the authentic voice. I know that’s probably used a little too many times, but for me it’s really about finding a choreographer like Fosse, right?

Mm-hmm. I mean, Bob Fosse is a genius. He had a very specific style, very, very specific voice, and you looked at it and you went Fossy, 

Steve Cuden: Fossy, no question. You 

Kiesha Lalama: knew that was fossy. That’s how I feel about choreography today. I can look at a piece and go, that’s crystal pipet. Oh my God. Right? And there’s a handful of choreographers out there that have that signature.

This is what I do. Um, Susan Stroman, Susan Stroman. I mean, you know, it’s, there are some, some amazing iconic choreographers out there and some up and coming as well. And I just find that that to me is really the key that, that, that moves me to be inspired, certainly. 

Steve Cuden: Mm-hmm. You, you are an admirer of certain choreographers that are existing today and those from the past as well.

Who do you most admire? Is it a Fosse? Oh, 

Kiesha Lalama: Fosse. Fosse. Hands down. So, the greatest compliment in my life, the very first musical I ever choreographed here at Point Park was cabaret. 

Steve Cuden: Mm-hmm. 

Kiesha Lalama: And I remember getting my chance, right. They were like, do you wanna choreograph a musical at the Playhouse? I was like, me?

Yes. And, uh, Chris Rossin gave me the, um, I probably to this day, it’s my favorite review of my life, right When they used to do reviews, but he, uh, he said it was Fosse pyrotechnics. Oh, right. Athleticism. Right. All those things. And I, that was probably the greatest compliment, and that’s what made me feel like I could do this for real, you know?

So, 

Steve Cuden: so for the listeners who don’t know, Chris Rossen, who has been a guest on this very show, oh, I 

Kiesha Lalama: love that. 

Steve Cuden: He was for, for, I don’t know, decades. He was the principal, uh, reviewer of theater for the Pittsburgh Post Gazette. Yeah. And so that is who Keisha is talking about. So when you start to prepare a dance, what is your first step?

What do you start to do when you, you now know I’ve got this concept. Yeah. Here’s the music I’ve gotta choreograph to, you have this space and it’s a certain size. You, you, where do you begin? 

Kiesha Lalama: I think for me, so much of it starts with the music. And I think that my music influence is two things. Growing up in my grandmother’s house, I.

And down in West Alo Kippa and listening to my cousins, David and Ralph Llama play their little jazz music, right? Uh, every Christmas there was music. My parents love music. There was always Motown r and b playing in my house, disco back in the day. Uh, we always, music is, it was always there. And so I think the other side of it is when I watch movies, the, the soundtrack makes me see and feel things.

So the music is my, probably my first inspiration. And then the stories kind of surface from there. Now, the bench would’ve been very different. I had the story set and I called David actually, and I was talking to my dad and I said, I need a composer, blah, blah. He said, call cousin David. I was like, he’s not gonna do it.

He’s like, famous, right? So I called David, I said, listen, I have this crazy idea. I sent him three pages, a three page crazy outline idea. He sent me 60 minutes of music. I’m not kidding. Like a few, not a few days. Maybe like a week later. And as soon as I heard, I’ll never forget it. I was listening to the DV.

D or cd, right? Yeah. CD in my car coming home. And I, and I hit, I put it in and I was listening to the first chimes in the bench and I saw the show. 

Steve Cuden: Wow. 

Kiesha Lalama: At a thousand miles an hour. It was so clear. 

Steve Cuden: It came to you. Fully formed. 

Kiesha Lalama: Fully formed as I listened to it. It just, the music takes me and drives me, certainly.

Steve Cuden: Mm-hmm. So, okay, so now you’ve got the music. You see something in your mind’s eye. Where do you begin? Is it then that casting process? Do you sit down and mark on paper what you’re going to do, where people are going to go? How do you, where do you go? How do you do this? Yeah. 

Kiesha Lalama: I start mapping out probably the story journey, right?

Where do we start? Do we start at a dark place? ’cause I like to start at a really stressful place that’s heavy and then take the audience on a journey, right? So, uh, shed is a piece that I choreographed years ago, and it’s really about shedding the darkness in your life. And so that started from a really dark place and evolved into a release shedding all the darkness.

Steve Cuden: Hmm. 

Kiesha Lalama: I would say that, uh, connects is about also, you know, stress and the darkness in the world and connecting with humanity and the power of numbers when you make, wanna make positive change. So most of the things go that way for me. I, I’m a, I’m a person who definitely sees light. I. I I in the darkest of hours, for some reason I have this gift, thank goodness of finding light.

And so that’s part of it for me is that, that’s usually the second part is how do I go from music to finding that ascend, right. It’s the same, it’s the same theme through almost every single piece that I’ve choreographed. 

Steve Cuden: Okay. So that’s your conceptualizing of the whole of the piece. That’s right.

Alright. Do you then go into the studio by yourself and start working out moves? 

Kiesha Lalama: Yeah. I love this. So you’ll appreciate this in my twenties Yeah. I would choreograph the whole thing and then enter the audition to see who could do it that way and then cast 

Steve Cuden: Hmm. 

Kiesha Lalama: In my thirties. Yeah. I had a couple times where I, I turned around and I looked at the dancers and thought, well, they, they look better than me, so maybe I should.

Make this a little more difficult. Uh, in my forties, things started really falling apart. 

Steve Cuden: Well take, take a number and get in line, 

Kiesha Lalama: right? And so just the physicality of it changed. And what I noticed was that when I stopped moving and I started carving and molding and crafting the dancer, the movement actually became more complicated because my physical body was giving out.

But the dancers actually became more talented than I was even in my twenties. And so now even working on this new work, I find myself stepping back and marking it and looking at them and saying, go, you know, how far can you go? Can your leg go this high instead of my leg going that high? Which, you know, I won’t recover, but not anymore.

So, um, it, it’s an interesting evolution of physical body meets mental capacity. So 

Steve Cuden: how do you, how do you show them what it is you want them to do? 

Kiesha Lalama: So I demonstrate on a smaller level and then ask them to go further. Got it. And it’s like through an arm. Like I’ll do things like this. This is your right leg right up here.

Steve Cuden: Got it. I’m 

Kiesha Lalama: not moving my right leg. I move my arm. 

Steve Cuden: Well, you know, this is one of the problems with all athletics and I think of dancers as athletes. A kind of athleticism. That’s right. There’s no way that you can go for the totality of what we think of as an average lifespan and still be at that level when you were in your late teens, early twenties.

The, the body just doesn’t do it. Yeah. So do you do a lot of research when you’re doing these, your, your pieces? 

Kiesha Lalama: I do. I, it really depends on which kind of show that I’m doing. But yeah, I mean, there are moments I come up, uh, for me. The research would mostly be visual images. Where are these things coming from?

Uh, again, I’d circle back to my passion for film. I love storytelling. I love imagery. A tree blowing in the wind, or just water waves, basic things to, to demonstrate what I’m trying to get. 

Steve Cuden: Do you keep a journal of some kind? So when you see something in the world and you think to yourself, oh, 

Kiesha Lalama: Keisha’s showing me a thick, thick notebook 

Steve Cuden: full of her notes.

Kiesha Lalama: I am showing gigantic notebook right now. Uh, yeah. So I read Twila Tharp’s book, the Creative Habit, when I was getting my Masters right. And I panicked because there’s this whole chapter on how she has these boxes and every single thing she’s ever choreographed has its own shoebox or box. And I was like, I don’t have a box.

I don’t have a box, right? I was like, oh, no, I’m not a real artist. And then I realized I had all the, I just bought one for the. For the new show, it’s in my bag. And every single thing I, I have ever choreographed from the smallest gig to the most extensive full length, has their own, has its own journal.

And every journal’s a little different. They’re not the same. I walk in, I look at them, this is right for that show. That’s the right energy out. I’m gonna get this book. 

Steve Cuden: Alright, so now you’ve gone along and you’ve started to work with the dancers and you know, in your mind’s eye what it you want it to look like?

Does it usually work out as you pictured it in your head, or does it change and you know, morph into something different? 

Kiesha Lalama: I have to say, uh, it’s always better. I’m pretty, I’m pretty clear with what I’m looking for. So I think in the studio that articulation of idea, articulation of vision is there. I think that, you know, with choreography.

I think the layer of maybe a skill that I have is education. 

Steve Cuden: What? What do you mean? 

Kiesha Lalama: Teaching is different than choreographic? 

Steve Cuden: Certainly is. 

Kiesha Lalama: And so I feel like my teaching allows me the articulation to really coach it, to be able to deliver the direction that I’m trying to get from them, whether it’s a technical move or whether it’s the soul.

Steve Cuden: Hmm. 

Kiesha Lalama: I’m able to get out of the performer what I need. And I do think that that has been something that has really served me in my career and even in the films that I’ve choreographed. It’s not that I’m the most talented person, but I’m a teacher and I can help. Coach actors on how to move in a movie scene, or I can coach high school students how to move through space with confidence.

If you’re just showing steps and choreographing, you’re demonstrating or giving or delivering, I can, if you don’t know how to deliver a step, I can coach you and break it down in a way that might be different. And not all choreographers are that way. Some just do it and say follow me, and some are able to break it down.

But for me, I would say that education component has always given me the upper hand that way. 

Steve Cuden: Well, lots of extraordinary artists are incapable of teaching what they do. Correct. They just do it. Yes. Yes. To you. There’s an advantage that you have this ability to teach because that, I assume, enhances your ability to make the choreography flow from your mind’s eye into reality.

Kiesha Lalama: Yeah, 100%. And I mean, I think it’s really important, uh. In the development of your work to be able to, to really, truly articulate from the inside out and the inside out. And dance starts with your body. And so if you can coach it and teach it and explain why, then it really helps the, the performer, right?

Your, your, your executor, right? This person doing the thing to be able to do it the way you want it to be done. 

Steve Cuden: And how often when you’re in a rehearsal process, do you get something from the dancers that changes your thinking? You go, Ooh, that’s even better than I thought. 

Kiesha Lalama: Yeah. 

Steve Cuden: Does that happen all the time?

Kiesha Lalama: I would say it happens a lot. So a lot. Yeah. And I mean, also you have to remember that I’m at Point Park University, so these dancers are here, you know, 

Steve Cuden: they’re already a cut above. By the time they get to you, 

Kiesha Lalama: they’re already a Yeah, yeah, they’re already a cut above. And I feel like when you give them a little bit of room, magic can happen.

And, you know, I’m not a true believer and here go over there in the corner and improv for 32 counts and I’m gonna take, you know, that and, and call it my choreography. Uh, I, I don’t believe in in that kind of collaboration for me because I’m not sure that it would allow itself to go where it needs to go for the story.

So, I mean, I know there’s different strategies and methods to choreographing, certainly now today, creating a piece. There’s a lot of artists that have like dance name of the company and dancers and they include them in that process. I think for me it’s, um, I’ve understood collaboration in a different way as I get older and e 

Steve Cuden: explain what that means.

Kiesha Lalama: So without the dancers, I don’t have a work. It’s not, that’s true. It’s not Keisha, the choreographer is the only thing happening in the space. 

Steve Cuden: Although theoretically you could go down to the animation students and have them animate a dance for you. 

Kiesha Lalama: Here we are now. Right? Yes. So it’s, it’s interesting.

We’ve incorporated animation and motion capture in Ascend. Mm. 

Steve Cuden: Great. 

Kiesha Lalama: And it’s the first time that I’ve done that in a project. Great. So that was an, an extraordinary experience and one that I hope to continue and bring to Point Park, you know, to evolve more. But yeah, it’s, it’s, um, working together again to meet that one direction focus and people all get there in different ways.

And for me, that’s, that’s the best way that I know how to get there. 

Steve Cuden: I’m always amazed when I see, ’cause I, I’ve never, I mean, I’ve danced in some things, but I wouldn’t, uh, actually categorize what I’m doing. Dance, it’s movement of some kind. ’cause I’m no dancer. Movement is dance. Yes. Well, but I’m saying I, yeah.

I don’t, I’ve been in, in musicals and have danced, but I wouldn’t call it dance. There’s dancer. Um, so one of the things that amazes me when I see people auditioning for dance. Yeah. ’cause I’ve seen some auditions, uh, is. Uh, somebody will stand up and say, okay, do this, this, this, and this, and there’s a whole bunch of moves to it and they just do it.

How does that work? How does a dancer, when somebody just shows them something lty split? Because if you rattled off a whole bunch of words to me and said, okay, say those back to me, I wouldn’t be able to do that. 

Kiesha Lalama: Yes, you would. 

Steve Cuden: So, 

Kiesha Lalama: no, 

Steve Cuden: I do. That’s for sure. 

Kiesha Lalama: I think I, honestly, I think it’s three different things, right?

There’s a, when you’re in the studio, there’s a laser focus, so it’s focus, right? And the other one I would say is practice. So when you’re in a dance studio, almost every day, the dance teacher’s throwing steps at you and you have to learn them quickly. And so it’s practice. It’s not as if someone walked off the street and jumped into an audition.

However, when you don’t practice all the time, you do lose those skills. 

Steve Cuden: Sure. 

Kiesha Lalama: So it, it is a skill. It is a practice. Behavior, which is really interesting. 

Steve Cuden: And that’s the same thing for memorizing the whole dance then. 

Kiesha Lalama: 100%. And, and it’s, it just becomes no different than someone reading a LA monologue. Mm-hmm.

Right? So if you’re mem I remember watching, um, my goodness, why is his name escaping me? The star in the bear? The, 

Steve Cuden: the bear. Uh, yeah. Jeremy, Allen, white. 

Kiesha Lalama: Jeremy. I was like, Jeremy. Jeremy, Jeremy. That last scene in episode one. 

Steve Cuden: Mm-hmm. 

Kiesha Lalama: That camera moved in, closed in on that monologue in one shot, take one camera.

That single shot right there. I looked at my husband and I went, he just won the Emmy and he did. Mm-hmm. But I mean, that to me takes those things as well. Focus practice. And the third piece of it is dedication. Dedication to your craft. And constantly doing it. And constantly doing it. And constantly doing, when you’re in the room, you have to focus.

It’s constant practice, but then that dedication to those things. 

Steve Cuden: Can you see that in a dancer as they’re auditioning for you? 

Kiesha Lalama: 100% you can. It’s, I think that there’s an energy about it. There’s a focus and there’s a confidence. If you have focus and you have, you know, discipline, right? And you’re dedicated to this thing and you’re practiced, you’re gonna have a confidence about you.

And if you’re not, you’re unsure, you’re uncertain something’s off. And that is very, very readable. I tell students all the time, or whoever I’m working with are like, if you had one piece of advice, you know, in an audition situation, what would it be? And I’m like, confidence. 

Steve Cuden: Confidence, 

Kiesha Lalama: confidence. 

Steve Cuden: Can you teach that to someone?

Kiesha Lalama: I think in time. Yeah. I mean, I, I, I do, I do believe that it is something though, that you have to work on yourself. They can gain confidence. 

Steve Cuden: Have you seen students go through the program who are come in and they’re shy and not confident, and you see them blossom into a confident dancer? Yes. 

Kiesha Lalama: That’s my favorite part.

Yeah. That’s the greatest reward is to see the kids. I shouldn’t even call them kids ’cause they’re, they are adults. They’re adults. They know what they’re doing, but they are, and to see them flourish is the greatest thing for me. That’s why I think that’s what keeps me, keep teaching and here at Point Park to keep going.

And, um, it, it’s interesting, but the confidence thing, they can also gain confidence within a certain work. The first couple days of, of choreography in, in my concert works is really challenging. And because it’s, the vocabulary is authentic. It might not be familiar or be comfortable, but as you go through it and it gets in your body and you can feel it and it’s working and it’s, it’s familiar and carved and crafted, you gain that confidence within a work.

It’s no different than rehearsal for a musical or a play or whatever. 

Steve Cuden: It’s like a basketball team, you know? It’s a team of players running down the court, co coordinated in real time. Not, not choreographed, but they’ve rehearsed it so it gets into their body that this is what we’re gonna do if something happens this week.

That’s right. 

Kiesha Lalama: That’s exactly 

Steve Cuden: same for the same for dancer, I assume. 

Kiesha Lalama: 100%. Same exact. 

Steve Cuden: So you alluded to this already numerous times. Let’s talk about one of my favorite subjects, musicals. Yeah. There is a difference between choreographing. I’m gonna assume, and you’ll correct me if I’m wrong, choreographing a dance work.

Mm-hmm. For a recital or a concert versus putting a number into a musical play. 

Kiesha Lalama: Mm-hmm. 

Steve Cuden: Yes. 

Kiesha Lalama: 100%. Uh, 

Steve Cuden: so what are those differences? 

Kiesha Lalama: Yeah. I feel like I’ll start with similarities, right? So the similarity would be that the choreography should propel the story. 

Steve Cuden: Absolutely. 

Kiesha Lalama: Right? So I think that a lot of times it’s like the 11 o’clock number, and then you’re like, but what story were we telling?

Uh, you know, I feel like there’s like a lot of dancing and a lot of stuff, but we, we haven’t mm-hmm. Propelled the story forward. Uh, the Outsiders on Broadway right now is a perfect example of telling the story through the choreography to keep it moving forward, right? Illinois was the same way. Right.

Move the story forward through the movement. Those would be the similarities. Concert dance, musical theater. I think the difference is, is that in concert dance, so much of it, uh, it doesn’t really rely on narrative. Yeah. Or it doesn’t rely on props, set pieces, those kinds of things. And you can see in today’s concert dance, a lot of those kind of, uh, elements are being added to the dance to make it more interesting.

Storytelling, all of those things. I think the other thing too is a lot of concert dance works have kind of gotten smaller because funding has gone away, and so you have less numbers to deal with. And when you’re doing big, big musicals, a lot of patterns come into play. 

Steve Cuden: Like what? 

Kiesha Lalama: So I would say lines, cannons, some of your traditional big numbers that are, um, 

Steve Cuden: like a kick line or something like that.

Kiesha Lalama: Yeah. I mean those, and then, um, bold, A lot of bold flash. Well, because concert Yeah, but concert dance can be bold too for sure. So like, I don’t know that I. That there’s real big differences. Do you approach 

Steve Cuden: choreographing a number in a musical different than choreographing a piece that you’ve created yourself?

Kiesha Lalama: Yeah, definitely. I, I do feel so what’s 

Steve Cuden: that difference? How do you approach it different? Musicality. 

Kiesha Lalama: The musicality musicality is always different for me. Yeah. Because there’s so many accents and dynamics, and I guess that’s what I mean by bold mm-hmm. Is that in musical theater you can look at a, a, a music director and say, can I get a ting on two to accent the little hat, you know, and those kinds of fun things.

But um, yeah, I do feel like I approach it differently in the fact that you gotta tell the story though. And in concert dance, I can take a longer journey where there’s a three maybe section piece that takes you from down to up. Right. Right, but this is, how do I transfer to connect that character to that character?

Why does that character angry with that character? They shouldn’t be dancing together. I mean, the dance of the gym and West Side story is perfect for this, right? But if you connect characters that shouldn’t be together, it doesn’t make sense. So I think that would be the one thing is the narrative in musical theater would be completely approached.

With first, that’s the first action where maybe in mu in concert dance, it’s the movement. So 

Steve Cuden: you are, you’re talking about one of my favorite topics to talk about, which is story structure. So in a musical it is a structured piece that has specific structure that must have every single piece of, it must relate to the whole in a dance recital.

I think that’s true too, but it’s le I think it’s less obvious to an audience unless you’re very, very specific about what those movements are doing. You have to have that structural integrity, which is what I’m glad to hear you say. Or else the dance piece suddenly in the dance, in the, you know, in the musical number doesn’t make sense in the story.

Kiesha Lalama: That’s correct. 

Steve Cuden: It has to, it has to, uh, support the story Totally. 

Kiesha Lalama: Yeah. And I mean, so the bench when I first did it was concert dance fused with theater. Right, right. And I’m gonna circle back to that dinner scene one more time. That dinner scene. It transformed the concert dance for a lot of people because there was 9 million story, uh, chapters, check marks that we had to go through in that dinner scene to get from point A to B.

Why was the dinner scene there? Why do we care what happened? What are the conflicts? Who are the people? And that’s rare in concert dance. Mm-hmm. You can have a duet go on for 12 minutes in concert dance, and it’s the same story. They love each other, right? And they make pretty lines. And they’re doing five pirouettes, but it’s 12 minutes long to tell that story.

Where in musical theater, usually it’s a little quicker. 

Steve Cuden: So when you’re working on a. Because you’ve done a lot of theater work where the dance is in a live situation with a live audience, but you’ve also done a certain amount of camera work. 

Kiesha Lalama: Yeah. 

Steve Cuden: What are those differences? What changes there? 

Kiesha Lalama: Yeah, that’s an awesome question.

So it was, it was interesting work on the, on the television shows and, and films that I’ve been so blessed to be invited to be a part of. And, um, it is, it’s completely different. I think you’re choreographing it’s blind as a choreographer for the projects that I’ve worked on. I haven’t had blind, you know, so you’re working with a director that might see the number one time, 

Steve Cuden: ah, 

Kiesha Lalama: and that’s when you’re on the set.

And then the cinematographer in my experience is just doing whatever they want. They don’t really invite you in to have the conversation that you should shoot this from here and maybe consider this angle here. I’ve never been in a situation where it was like Chicago, the movie or la la land, and had that kind of experience until I did American Rust.

And I walked on the floor waiting for the director and I thought it would be the same conversation. And he looked at me and he said, the floor is yours. And I went, I’m sorry. Right. And uh, I, in one minute I went, oh, one second. Right? Oh my God. And then I went, okay, great. And so I was able to talk to the cinematographer and the first ad and walk through what I thought it would be.

And when I look at that wedding scene, wow, I think it’s in the second episode or the end of the first. It’s the first or second episode. I watch that. And it’s one of my favorite moments of my works on film because you could see it. And so there’s a handful of things that get lost because of the way they’re filming or editing or whatever it is, especially with a choreographer.

Yeah. 

Steve Cuden: Well I’ve had the great good graces to interview Rob Marshall on this show. 

Kiesha Lalama: Exactly. 

Steve Cuden: And had a conversation with him on the show about, you know, you’re a choreographer, you started as a dancer, you’ve been a choreographer your whole life. Is it, is that a huge advantage when you then have the dance and you’ve got the control of the camera as well?

Yes. And he said Absolutely. Absolutely. ’cause he could then choreograph the camera to his vision. 

Kiesha Lalama: That’s right. And that’s, that’s a thing. I mean, and where the camera’s pointing is choreography 

Steve Cuden: a hundred percent 

Kiesha Lalama: and Exactly. And it, it is all the same. And when you can control all that, and I never realized, you know, I would watch movies and clips and be disappointed and go, oh, they missed the best part, you know?

And, uh, through the years, even with the Jimmy Awards, if there was a big moment for dance with all those talented, amazing, talented students on stage. There were moments where the highlight reel would come out and I’d go, oh my God, they missed the best part. So through the years I was like, could you please just edit this in there to make sure that we get the one good dance dancing part?

Steve Cuden: Well, going back to a stare. That’s why he insisted that they have the camera wide and you could see all of the movement. 

Kiesha Lalama: Yes. Yeah. And I think that as a young person coming up, I didn’t feel that it was my place to do that. I just couldn’t believe I was there. Like, how did I, how did I get here? I’m so lucky.

And then as, as I went through it, I just started asking the questions like I. Yeah. But if you come over here, that’d be great. And yeah. Explain for the 

Steve Cuden: audience who probably has no idea what we’re talking about, what is the Jimmy Awards? What’s that all about? 

Kiesha Lalama: Oh, uh, the Jimmy Awards, uh, celebrate High School musical theater.

And what it does, it’s very much like the Tony Awards for high schools and best actors and actresses from around the country. And I think they’re up to 55 participants this year, uh, which send two. So that takes us to 110. Mm-hmm. Uh, hopefuls, right? Performing arts hopefuls, go to New York City. They experience one week of training.

Oh my goodness. Staging choreography, coaching, all the things they get to see Broadway shows. Last year he went to the Tony Awards. Uh, it is a pretty amazing experience. And the entire week, uh, culminates in them actually performing on the Broadway stage, doing a show. And then they announced, you know.

Finalists and winners and all those things, but it’s really not about that. When you go, you know, what people see is probably different than what actually happens, of course. But it’s not, the experience in and of itself really kind of eliminates the competitive factor. And then you realize that it’s a bunch of theater people who love theater coming together to make theater.

And it’s awesome. 

Steve Cuden: And this was, tell me if I’m wrong, this was started by Van Kaplan? Yes. 

Kiesha Lalama: Yeah. So, uh, it was actually Van Kaplan, myself and Michael Moritz. We are the co-founders of the Jimmy Awards. Hmm. So for 15 years we built that program and, uh, it, it, to have that legacy live on is, is definitely one of the greatest honors of my life for sure.

Steve Cuden: And Van for decades ran the Pittsburgh CLO? 

Kiesha Lalama: Yes, he did. It is, I think it’s 24 years. Yeah, 24 years. 

Steve Cuden: And, uh, am I right? The Jimmy Awards is named after Jimmy Nederlander. 

Kiesha Lalama: Jimmy Neland. Yeah. So Van, uh, formed a partnership with Nederlander and you know, they have a great relationship. And so Jimmy Nederlander, of course, the Nederlanders wanted something after their founding.

You know, Jimmy’s amazing. And, uh, we wanted to definitely honor his legacy and his life. And, you know, this program is perfect because he cared so much about the future of the arts and what better way to do it than with young aspiring hopefuls. 

Steve Cuden: Of course. And has anyone come out of there and done well in the world?

Kiesha Lalama: I would say almost. I, I don’t even know. I mean, at this point it’s gotta be hundreds ’cause it’s been years, but huge stars. Did Andrew Barth Feldman come out? Come out of there? Andrew Barth, Feldman, Renee Rap. Uh, oh my goodness. Jasmine. Oh, Renee Rap is currently starring in boop right now. Uh, Mason Alexander.

And here, the crazy thing about it is that, uh, Kyle Sig, the list is endless. I mean, mm-hmm. The way that the, the talent is harnessed, you know, and then, uh, just the talent around the country for musical theater and the arts is extraordinary. The United States has this way of really, really teaching and celebrating young artists.

And I, and I love that about it. So, you know, I really hope that we regain funding and support and, and continue to support the arts in so many ways. But the cool part about the Jimmys is that as many as the success stories have happened around, you know, the winners, more success has happened with people that have just participated, have participated in the program.

They weren’t even finalists or winners, but they’re, they were just in the show, had a great time with the experience for the week, and have gone on to do this thing and have also absolutely made it on Broadway, or doing film, or doing regional theater, but they’re still in the business. They love it, and it’s, it’s a profound, profound program.

Steve Cuden: Well, I think that’s, that’s exceptional and it’s really cool that you helped to, to found it and run it for a long time. Uh, it seems to me that it’s still the, one of the quintessential American art forms. Yes. Musical theater along with jazz is quintessentially American, and yet it’s all spread around the world at this point.

I think that’s, uh, one of the testaments to how good it actually is. And yes, we have great, great talent here in this country. I would be remiss if I didn’t ask you about your role with the Pittsburgh Playhouse at this point. Oh, uh, what are you doing? 

Kiesha Lalama: So, I am the executive producer of the Pittsburgh Playhouse.

I oversee everything that happens here, which is awesome. We have a lot of things going on. We have the Conservatory of Performing Arts, which is, you know, point Park, university, music, dance, uh, all the things, right? Musical theater, rather. Theater, acting, dance. Pretty awesome. What I love the most about the Playhouse is our theater production students as well.

We make things here. We have our own scene shop, prop shop, costume shop. The list is endless. Uh, there’s an artist making art from every aspect of the industry in this house, and it’s, it’s, it’s pretty, it’s a pretty special place. And then we have our presenting series, which we’ve tied to our alumni. I really wanna focus on bringing our alumni back to showcase their works, what they’re working on in any realm, whether it’s writing, whether it’s performing, whatever it is, dancing in a professional company and bringing them in to show our students they can do it.

Another aspect is new works. We call it the arts accelerator. That’s the Ascend show that I’ve mentioned. ’cause it’s clearly on my mind. I just came from rehearsal. But it’s one of those things where we’re launching new works and developing new works. We’re trying to definitely do more family friendly activities and, and to reach broader audiences.

We wanna make an impact on the city of Pittsburgh, whether it’s economic growth, you know, whether it’s tourism, we wanna, and, and I would say population wanna create jobs to keep students here. You know, you don’t necessarily have to go to New York or LA or Chicago to work. How can we keep you here in Pittsburgh and keep you moving forward in the art form that you love so much?

Steve Cuden: Absolutely. Right. So that’s 

Kiesha Lalama: what’s happening at the Playhouse. Yeah. Yeah. 

Steve Cuden: That’s, that’s exciting. And for a little while there, as we came out of Covid, there was a lot of less activity there. It seems like there’s a lot more activity now. 

Kiesha Lalama: Yeah. The, the Playhouse was built six or seven years ago, uh, and then Covid hit.

Mm-hmm. 

Steve Cuden: Right. 

Kiesha Lalama: And so I think it was really quiet for a little while and then we had to transition through. There are three presidents actually. So we had a president who retired and then a president that stepped in and stepped down. And then we had Chris Brules, president Brules came in. And with that came a new vision.

So as that new vision came through, uh, when we had the first conversation of me taking the lead to help bring that vision and the vision that I had had for the place to come to life, we, we connected immediately. Same page, same vision. This made sense. And, um, when you start forming, I think shows, productions, events for the community, they start coming.

So projects for the community by the community. And Pittsburgh’s pretty cool that way. It’s a loyal city that wants to support Pittsburgh. And I think we, we do it better than a lot of people. It’s, it’s a, it’s a cool place. 

Steve Cuden: Well, Pittsburgh is culturally rich at this point, and that’s, 

Kiesha Lalama: yes, it is very helpful.

And that’s what I mean. I, I do think that Pittsburgh is this cool place that just keeps transforming and the President is talking about, you know, Renaissance three because this place just keeps, you know, the city just won’t, it just won’t die down. 

Steve Cuden: No, the city won’t die down. It’s a, it, it’s been knocked down many times and always risen from the Ashe.

It’s up. 

Kiesha Lalama: That’s right. That’s exactly the fight that we have in us. 

Steve Cuden: We get up off our feet and fight. 

Kiesha Lalama: That’s right. Exactly. That’s my favorite. I think it’s Chinese proverb. Fall down seven times. Get up eight. Let’s 

Steve Cuden: go. Oh, let’s go. That’s, so I’ve been having just a marvelous conversation for an hour now with Keisha Lama and we’re gonna wind the show down a little bit.

And I’m just wondering, in all of your vast experiences, um, can you share with us a story that’s either weird, quirky, offbeat strange, or just plain funny. 

Kiesha Lalama: So this is one of my favorite stories, and again, this show is on my mind, so it’s perfect. Uh, a few years, not a few here, maybe 10 years ago I was working on a show and I had had a hiccup and I could not figure out what was wrong with the show.

Uh, my boys were there with me, Jake and Jax, and we went back to the rental apartment and I had a glass of wine and I was just sitting there writing down notes, finished my wine, and my youngest looked at me and said, now that you’ve had a glass of wine, can I give you some notes?

He was 12 years old and he gave me notes and he fixed the entire structure of the show. So he looked at me and Jack said, if you move this scene and this scene and do this, it will make sense. When you originally wrote it, you had an intermission. There’s no intermission now, so if you do this, this, and this, it’ll work.

He went on to Bucknell to become the editor-in-chief of his newspaper. He’s a journalist, he’s a writer, and uh, he and Jake both helped me write the show, ascend. So we created that together because they’ve come by it naturally with me. I think people would think that was weird and quirky and funny and all the things, but to have your child look at you and go, now that you’ve had your wine, can I give you some notes?

Steve Cuden: Yeah, but it’s in, it’s in his genes because it’s, you were telling people what to do at nine years old. 

Kiesha Lalama: Yeah, so he started telling me what to do at 12, and they’re still doing it today, Steve. They’re still doing it today, 

Steve Cuden: and they’re not going to stop doing 

Kiesha Lalama: it. Thank you for that reminder. Yeah. It’s awesome though to have that relationship and trust and I looked at him and I realized in that moment.

That he was gonna be a creator of some kind. And so, um, you know, he’s a journalist now and, and loves writing and all the things, so yeah, it’s pretty cool. 

Steve Cuden: Well, more power to him, that’s for sure. Yeah. Yeah. All right, so last question for you today, Keisha. Yeah. You’ve given us gigantic amounts of advice throughout this whole show, but I’m wondering if you have a single solid piece of advice that you like to give to those that are starting out in the business, either as a dancer or an educator or whatever, or, or people who are in a little bit trying to get to the next level.

Kiesha Lalama: Yeah, I love this. Um, you know, I think through my career, the one thing that I, that I regret is that I wasn’t living in the moment. So much was happening so fast that I wasn’t really present. I was always finishing, wanted to complete it, wanted to be success and move on to the next thing. I don’t, there are lots of things that I missed that I don’t remember.

People are like, remember that time? And I’m like, no, I don’t. And so I would say live in the moment, be present and cherish the time that you have because it is fleeting. And you know, instead of celebrating the small successes in the studio or celebrating the standing ovation or whatever it was, it was okay, what’s next?

And trying to prove myself and get the next thing to stay relevant or whatever it was, or all those things, kind of missed it, you know? And as I got older, that changed for me and I was able to pause a little bit and go, okay, okay, this is an awesome moment. I can feel this. So that’s my advice. 

Steve Cuden: That’s a very wise advice, because that takes a, sometimes that takes a long time to actually figure out.

Kiesha Lalama: Yeah, 

Steve Cuden: that is true. And it, truthfully, you can tell a young person that, but they may not see it until they have some experience in the world. 

Kiesha Lalama: That’s true. And I’m sure that we’ve been told that advice and just didn’t understand it until now, you know? 

Steve Cuden: Well, what is it? Uh, the infamous, uh, cliched phrase is youth is wasted on the young.

Yes. But the, you know, the, the, the truth of it is you have to kind of live your experience in order to find these things. 

Kiesha Lalama: Yeah. And it, it’s true. And to be able to share it is such an honor. And thank you for having me. I mean, 

Steve Cuden: oh, 

Kiesha Lalama: this is a wonderful platform to help so many people and reminders and in you inspire and it’s all the messaging that we need and continue to, to feed off of.

So as you go through and, and, and what you’re doing, please keep going ’cause it’s, it’s wonderful. 

Steve Cuden: Well, thank you very much Keisha la Lama. This has been a great pleasure to have you on the show and I greatly appreciate your time, your energy, and your wisdom. It’s very much greatly appreciated here today.

Kiesha Lalama: Honored. Thank you. 

Steve Cuden: And so we’ve come to the end of today’s story beat. If you like this episode, won’t you please take a moment to give us a comment, rating, or review on whatever app or platform you are listening to. Your support helps us bring more great story beat episodes to you. Story Beat is available on all major podcast apps and platforms, including Apple Podcasts, YouTube, Spotify, iHeartRadio, tune in and many others.

Until next time, I’m Steve Den And may all your stories be unforgettable.