BRYCE
Welcome to Beyond Travesti, a podcast where I talk to transgender and gender-expansive opera and music theater professionals about the old constructs, our present concerns, and future visions of our individual and collective work. I'm Bryce McClendon. I'm a writer, countertenor, and creative consultant based in Manhattan.
On this episode, I'm talking to Jude O'Dell, the General Director of the Jupiter Opera Development Foundation. We're going to talk about community theater and resourcefulness.
JUDE
I can make something from nothing. Take me to a dump, take me to a construction dumpster, like I will get you a set, ma'am.
BRYCE
We'll talk about Jude's experience working in wardrobe and makeup and how uncommon it is to see professionals from those roles rise through the industrial ranks to the level of leadership.
JUDE
I got from my first union foreman at San Francisco Opera, like, just do it the way that it's on the chart. You don't have anything to contribute.
BRYCE
And Jude will share some of his insights on working as a truly collaborative theater maker.
JUDE
I don't want your suggestions. I don't want your comments. I want your help. I'm soliciting collaboration with and from you.
BRYCE
But first, I want to zoom in on a little story from the news.
This episode I'd like to talk about a story from this fall out of Texas. On August 10, 2023, the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas filed an administrative complaint with the U.S. Department of Education against the Fort Worth Academy of Fine Arts and its governing body, the Texas Center of Arts and Academics. The complaint concerns a young transgender and non-binary singer named Margo Moe who was prevented from auditioning for the school's premier choir, The Singing Girls of Texas.
According to the Texas Center of Arts and Academics website, The Singing Girls of Texas is a professional-level young women's choir program founded as a sibling organization to the Grammy award-winning Texas Boys Choir. Margot chose to audition for the ensemble that aligned best with their gender identity and their vocal range. They moved through the initial audition with the full support of the choir's director, Kerra Simmons, before the board of the Texas Center of Arts and Academics halted the audition process to review its policies and perform a community survey.
After temporarily blocking Margo's audition, the board then permanently blocked it, passing an eligibility policy which states that students must perform with the choir that aligns with their sex assigned at birth. Now this is obviously a super distressing policy, makes very little musical sense, and is just another example of a school board overreaching in its authority to stir up controversy so that they can further demonize transgender and non-binary youth. The ACLU's complaint against the FWAFA, which receives federal funding, says that this new eligibility policy is in violation of Title IX.
I bring this up because it's a frightening example of how transgender and gender non-conforming kids are being kept out of voice training spaces and opportunities. This is by far the greatest opportunity this young singer has at their school to advance their vocal development and they're being denied that. This is just another example of how as opera professionals out in the world now we have to totally recalibrate what it means for someone to have a pedigree or to have experience.
Margo, I hope you don't see this as any indictment of your worthiness, talent, or validity. I hope this policy is retracted in accordance with the ACLU's suggested remedies as soon as possible. The Singing Girls of Texas is far worse off without you and your voice. Full stop. Period.
Check out the show notes to read more about this story.
Today my guest is Jude O'Dell. Jude is the Executive Director of the Jupiter Opera Development Foundation. Jupiter's mission is to solicit, develop, produce, and promote original and adapted works of musical theater and opera by queer and transgender / gender non-conforming artists in order to increase the accuracy, quality, and quantity of on-stage representation of these populations and to significantly widen the breadth of repertoire available to queer performers.
Jude has a vast and diverse array of experience working in the performing arts both on and off stage. He has worked on creative teams as a librettist, dramaturg, director, and producer, and as we'll discuss in this episode, he also has extensive experience working in wardrobe and makeup.
Jude did send me a bio for this episode and I have asked him to read it for us. So without further ado, here's Jude.
JUDE
Jude O'Dell writes a new bio every time because his life is too much of a story to tell all at once. For this story, let's call him a half-man of indeterminate age and stature who lives to produce magic, usually of the narrative vocal music variety. He writes words that sound like music before they're sung. He weaves opportunities from little more than air and hope. He designs dream craft from spare parts. He is spare parts. Please welcome Fairy Goblin Impresario and Community Theater Martyr, Jude O'Dell!
BRYCE
Amazing.
JUDE
See, I'm a whole show. I don't need a resume.
BRYCE
Jude, thank you for talking to me today. Tell me first about what brought you to opera and then tell me what keeps you in it.
JUDE
I got sucked in at the age of six years old by an outreach program at my mostly black public elementary school in Virginia -- Southeastern little Hampton Roads corner of Virginia. Norfolk to be precise. And it was, you know, that lady singing the really high notes in the big dress. When you're six years old, that's impressive as hell. And you don't know enough to know that it's cheesy or out of touch. It's just big and cool and what is she doing? How do they do that?
I was like pouring over scores and libretti by the time I was like in my early teens. I had a subscription to Opera News at 14 and for Christmas that year I got the big book of like 101 opera libretti and I would go to the library like I would find out what The Met was going to broadcast that weekend during the season
...
So I was just that weird, like hardwired to be really impressed by all this fancy shit kid. Yeah, that's how ... What keeps me here? I'm unemployable. I think that's the main reason I'm still doing opera is because I can't, I know I'm not going to make money doing opera. But, um, I don't know.It's like I can't stop fucking with it. I can't put it down.
I don't want to be involved in the industry. The industry is disgusting. The art form, though, and the ways that it changes and weaves itself into the land of the living. Like, I think that stuff's cool.
BRYCE
So, you recently founded the Jupiter Opera Development Foundation.
JUDE
Yeah.
BRYCE
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think you just had your first full, like, inaugural year.
JUDE
No, we had our pre-season. Our spring-summer pre-season moment. Our 23-24 season is kind of kicking off right now and we only have one thing on the calendar and it's the biggest thing in the world. But we're giving ourselves a year to build up to it.
It's kind of Jupiter is sort of a continuation of the first opera nonprofit I started in California in 2017. I think we start I started operating in 2017. And then I started I did the paperwork in 2018. And so this is like, just more of that more of that.
And at this point, I kind of started my first little company because I knew I had more to contribute and I needed to have more control to be able to make the contributions that I wanted to do That was all I knew when I started my first little opera company. I was like, I'm not gonna fit in there I need to do my own thing and it's become more and more and more focused until in these latter days.
It's like oh I now want to do a company that's all about community and resource sharing and improving representation for marginalized communities like that's all it's not about me or my thing but like my company is all about the great we of opera people who really love the art form and have no use for the industry.
BRYCE
Yeah. The mission statement says that your mission is to solicit develop produce and promote original and adapted works of musical theater and opera by queer and transgender slash gender non-conforming artists. So I'm curious to know if there was a point in your career and maybe it's inflected by or intersected with your own gender journey where you decided that your time and resources were specifically just going to be dedicated to trans and queer focused work.
JUDE
For me it was kind of like a life wake up moment. And God told me, God spoke to me and was like, it's because you're making it all about you. And you know damn well I made you a community serving person. I gave you a heart for service. What the fuck are you doing?
You're failing because you're not supposed to be so focused on creating your own shit and making yourself the center of attention. Like why don't you actually do the thing that makes you happy, which is sharing and creating for others and ...
You know, I do love creating, but being the one to uplift others who are also creating gives me a much greater sense of fulfillment and justifying my own existence.
So one of the first projects I wanted to do was to create a physical space, which I'm sitting in right now. It's bigger than you can see. It's more than two curtains. That's a great name for a theater company, more than two curtains.
...
I created a space where I could do workshopping, rehearsals, and shows. I'm based in Virginia. It's not a super friendly place right now for trans and queer folks. Our governor is kind of trying to squeeze us all out of existence So it feels like there might be some legislation around that that would make a nice private space like a very good idea to have. So that was one of the first projects I did I raised some money. And about a thousand dollars and a lot of manual labor later, I had a functional theater space.
The next thing I did was: One format that I'm really, really familiar with is coaching new creators of opera virtually. The Aria Institute is an online program that I started participating in during the pandemic as a coach, as a participant, as a resident artist. And it's really just like: okay so here's you and me and a bunch of other artsy people and we're going to meet online once a week and then we're going to pair off and each little pair is going to write an aria. I'm going to do the words you're going to do the music we're going to share some duties in the middle and make it a thing. And then we're gonna let the parent company, the people who are instructing us, find somebody to demo that and we get to hear it.
Oh it's so exciting and fun. And it really kind of democratizes opera and it's such a gateway to accessibility for creation of opera. Opera is so easy to make, and I think the reason the canon is stuck in the canon is because we just don't have the confidence to be like, oh yeah I'm gonna go write an opera. So, democratizing opera for people who don't have access to high high high level education programs...
So the first thing I did after I had the barn space up and running to do the demos is I ran version of that and it was wonderful. We got a lot of wonderful people writing songs for the stage for the first time and we created some really exciting demos. It kind of ended really abruptly. We kind of ran out of money and people all at once But we still have songs in the hopper. We still have sheet music There are things ready to go as soon as we get more money to pay more musicians.
BRYCE
Yeah, cool. In the story you're telling about yourself and about Jupiter, it's like a story of living with both the intense pros and the intense restrictions of working outside of common industrial spaces. You know, it's like you have both a lot of freedom and mobility in what you can do and you can create these accessible experiences for people–
JUDE
Oh my god, I can do anything the fuck I want as long as it costs a thousand dollars or less.
BRYCE
Yeah!
JUDE
But here's the thing, I am such a resourceful goddamn opossum bitch, like, I am redneck, okay? I can make, like ... when I said in my little insane intro, I'm spare fucking parts; I can make something from nothing. Take me to a dump, Take me to a construction dumpster. Like, I will get you a set, ma'am. Okay, we're gonna get you costumes. It's gonna be like 25% discount from the gay thrift store.
But like, let's take that framework and kind of flip it upside down. Why the fuck does opera cost so much? Like, it's a little bit unreasonable to say, you, I want you to pay $300 to sit in this nice little seat for a few hours and watch this thing that's kind of unrelatable. It's gonna feel like homework in sections, but don't worry about Dress up wear your most compressing underwear and sweat your balls off and Everything you eat is gonna be stale and overpriced. So it's like that's like not a super great proposition for me.
...
They charge these insane prices for this okay return for the ticket buyer. When you think of just how much money like how much groceries you could buy with that amount (it's like what the fuck, like they're totally out of touch). So where the fuck do you get off having a multi-million dollar opera budget, and you're still barely paying minimum wage down the line to all your crew, you're charging your audience hundreds of dollars per seat, and the product is still not popular enough that people want more of it?
Like, to me, the way I'm doing things makes so much sense. I'm using what I have. I'm squeezing the most out of it. I'm investing in people first before infrastructure, before production resources. People come first, right?
...
BRYCE
You've worked in the performing arts industry, you've worn a lot of different hats, you've been a librettist, a director, a dramaturg, you've been on stage and backstage, working in costuming, wigs, and makeup. When you and I spoke about this conversation in advance, you mentioned specifically you wanted to talk about "pink-collar jobs", referring to a lot of those latter experiences I mentioned of working backstage in wardrobe and makeup. Can you talk about that term as it pertains to theater and then tell us what you've learned in roles like that that you think people should know?
JUDE
Yes, okay. So that term I came across in a sociology undergrad course like 20 damn years ago, and I feel like what it refers to is like a secretarial pool or nursing where there's obviously somebody who's in charge and then a whole stratum of people who are not. And so back in the day the pink collar professions were sort of pointed out by sociologists to say, hey, hey, hey, why are they making less money doing more work? Teachers, for example, a pink-collar profession.
So in in the theater industries, I think of pink collar as a lot of the costuming, wigs, makeup — where the girlies hang out. And in any production meeting, that's likely to be the least respected person in the room, where the director who has no experience in that discipline may have the most hard, wrong opinions and directives that are also going to be the most expensive and impractical and just boneheaded and [that director will] be least likely to listen to the professional, the department director sitting across the production table from him.
This is anecdotal, but I find that it is so much more common to see people (men) rise through disciplines like singing, composing, set design, into, you know, direction, production, blah blah blah. How often do you see a wig bitch go direct something? Well I think we need to see more of that because I know a lot of wig bitches who have big opinions, big thoughts, you know? [They] have to tackle the whole production and understand all of the research so much, and then they get it right down to this is why the wave pattern is shaped this way. Like they have to see the fine fine details but you know they also got the big, big picture and they have been prohibited specifically from thinking about big picture by top-down directors.
Like I got from my first union foreman at San Francisco Opera, just do it the way that it's on the chart. You don't have anything to contribute. And I'm sure for scene set painters it's the same way, but like, that mentality exists whether you're in the, you know, painting people the chorus in the makeup chair or whether you are sitting at the production table as a designer. If you're in a pink collar position, you have no expertise. Everybody's an expert and will tell you what to do.
One of the things I love so much about doing dressing room work, wardrobe, makeup, wigs, costuming stuff sometimes, but really wardrobe: when you are in there when they are sweating, when they have diarrhea, when they have been through a breakup, when they are having a really great night, when their family comes and they're trying to have a good night but they're really stressed that their fucking family is there, when it's the matinee after opening night and they are happy and they are exhausted and they have a donor dinner after the matinee.
So, it's like, at those moments you are full on undercover CEO and you learn how to build an artist-centered company. Because you know the little foibles, the little things that you don't think about when you're like, oh, you know, we have a contract, we'll just have her do the donor event too. Or, you know, it's a beautiful costume, it's very historically accurate, and, you know, it's been in stock since the 70s, it's gonna be great. It's like every little goddamn thing that makes it more expensive that makes the performer's life harder that has a reason going back to like more than 50 years that's no longer applicable because of technology or the way we produce sound or whatever.
You kind of learn in those, like physically intimate [moments]... Like I have to deal with the real effects of this life on your body, on your voice, on how much you sweat, on how much you cry. I'm the one there for all of that and when you need a safety pin and you're coming to me, I hear everything. I know what's wrong and I know what's right. I know what could be done better in a way that you don't really get when you're doing the lights. I mean, you don't get to know what the performers go through when you're doing the lights, but when you're doing wardrobe, makeup—
BRYCE
Yeah, that's really interesting to, to loop back to what you were talking about, about how we don't really see paths of evolution from those sorts of roles into positions of authority.
JUDE
And do you know why? Because those people would improve conditions for artists which would mean less money for administrators and which would not make donors happy because they would also say hey donors you're not allowed to grope those bitches anymore and we're not going to come out and do every fundraising opportunity. And it would be such a win for artists if those people got promoted up through the ranks with their insight and empathy into what it's really like for performers it wouldn't serve the institution.
...
I find that the most uncomfortable thing as an artist is, and you know what, I'll tell you in one phrase, edit access. Saying, okay, I'm a librettist, I wrote this libretto, you're the composer and you're a dramaturg and you're a friend, I'm gonna give you edit access. That's like, I don't want your suggestions. I don't want your comments. I want your help. I'm soliciting collaboration with and from you. And I love and trust and know my art, but I also trust yours. I trust your aesthetics. I trust that us together create something stronger and more powerful than what I know by myself. And the synthesis of the two will be greater than the whole.
BRYCE
Since, as you've mentioned in this conversation, you have lots of experience with hair and makeup and particularly wigs, I saw you talking on Instagram recently about the toupee tape in Donald Tr*mp's mugshot and I wondered if you could just go off about that for a minute. What's wrong with it, aside from the fact that it's obviously on Donald Tr*mp's ugly, stupid head?
JUDE
The only thing that's really, really wrong with it is the fact that we all ain't talking about it more, okay? Now, it looks synthetic. And not all synthetic looks synthetic, so it's like cheap cheap. And then, I'm looking at the hairline trying to like—cuz you know I care about the little things. But I see here like it's a nice enough hairline, but then there's this weird little... right at the part, right where the skin under the piece is visible (because I was like you know what maybe it's just wishful thinking maybe I can't clock a piece from a mile away in a mugshot) and then I zoomed in, and I zoomed in, and I saw this hard white line right up by the hairline. And I was like, no, it's the opaque toupee tape.
It's like wig fucking tape. And it's just white, and it's right there. Do you know they make this stuff clear? You know they make it clear. You know they make glue. Ma'am, have you ever seen Beyonce's wig tape? No, because she wears glue, like an adult. Right, she wears glue like a person with money. Donald Tr*mp is not welcome at the beauty supply store. I think that's what we've learned today.
BRYCE
That's all for my conversation with Jude O'Dell. To learn more about Jude's work and the Jupiter Opera Development Foundation, you can follow their website jupiteropera.org or follow Jude on Instagram @jolieodell.
You can follow the podcast on Instagram @beyondtravesti and you can follow me @the.bryce.is_wrong or on Substack at brycemcclendon.substack.com. The best way to support what I'm doing is by becoming a paid subscriber on Substack.Behind a paywall, you'll hear extended versions of this conversation (once I get around to editing and uploading them), but all the proceeds from Substack are going straight into this effort. So if you like what I'm doing, that's a great place to support it.
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I also really encourage and welcome feedback, questions, any thoughts that you have, if there's something you want to hear discussed or someone you think that I should reach out to to speak with. I already have a pretty good slate of people to interview throughout the next several months, but would love to keep running a list with people that folks who are listening want to hear from. So please email me, brycemcclendon@substack.com, or you can just DM the Beyond Travesti account and I'll see it when I see it. But yeah, please, please feel free to engage in that way. I'd love to hear from you.
Thanks so much for listening and until next time, much love and much care.