Author: Christa Avampato

The short of it: Writer. Health, education, and art advocate. Theater and film producer. Visual artist. Product geek. Proud alumnae of the University of Pennsylvania (BA) and the Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia (MBA). Inspired by ancient wisdom & modern tech. Proliferator of goodness. Opener of doors. Friend to animals. Fan of creative work in all its wondrous forms. I use my business skills to create passion projects that build a better world. I’ve been called the happiest New Yorker, and I try hard to live up to that title every day. The long of it: My career has stretched across Capitol Hill, Broadway theatre, education, nonprofit fundraising, health and wellness, and Fortune 500 companies in retail, media, entertainment, technology, and financial services. I’ve been a product developer and product manager, theater manager, strategic consultant, marketer, voice over artist, , teacher, and fundraiser. I use my business and storytelling to support and sustain passion projects that build a better world. In every experience, I’ve used my sense of and respect for elegant design to develop meaningful products, services, programs, and events. While building a business career, I also built a strong portfolio as a journalist, novelist, freelance writer, interviewer, presenter, and public speaker. My writing has appeared in The Washington Post, The Huffington Post, PBS.org, Boston.com, Royal Media Partners publications, and The Motley Fool on a wide range of topics including business, technology, science, health, education, culture, and lifestyle. I have also been an invited speaker at SXSW, Teach for America, Avon headquarters, Games for Change, NYU, Columbia University, Hunter College, and the Alzheimer’s Foundation of America. The first book in my young adult book series, Emerson Page and Where the Light Enters, was acquired by a publisher and launched in November 2017. I’m currently working on the second book in the series. A recovering multi-tasker, I’m equally at home in front of my Mac, on my yoga mat, walking my rescue dog, Phineas, traveling with a purpose, or practicing the high-art of people watching. I also cut up small bits of paper and put them back together as a collage artist. My company: I’m bringing together all of my business and creative career paths as the Founder of Double or Nothing Media: • I craft products, programs, and projects that make a difference; • I build the business plans that make what I craft financially sustainable; • I tell the stories that matter about the people, places, and products that inspire me. Follow my adventures on Twitter at https://twitter.com/christanyc and Instagram at https://instagram.com/christarosenyc.
art, creativity, theatre

Inspired: I’m Looking for Team Members for My Play, Sing After Storms

Christa Avampato

unnamedLooking to stretch your creative wings in 2014? I’d love to have you join the on-stage or behind-the-scenes team for my play, Sing After Storms. Most roles don’t require any experience, though if you have experience we will gladly find a way to put it to use. I’ve done all of these roles at some point in my career and I can help as much as needed. So if something below looks interesting, don’t be shy. Hop on board – I’d be glad to have you join us. I’m also glad to take referrals of friends whom you think would be interested. Please feel free to forward, share these details, and ask questions.

Business / Promotion
Photographer, Videographer, PR, Marketing, Fundraising, Event planner (opening night party and talk-back event with actors), Investors / in-kind sponsors, someone interested in crowdfunding (Kickstarter, etc.)

Production (I would love to have these people involved in the casting decisions)
Stage Manager, Assistant Stage Manager, Assistant Director (we have an incredibly talented director on-board!), Production Assistants

Design
Costumes, Props, Set

Performance team
Light and sound board operator (very simple system)

Cast
We will be holding auditions in March / April for the remaining roles that have not yet been cast. If you’re interested in auditioning, or you know someone who would be interested, please let me know!

Additional info:
– Rehearsals will be held in the evening in mid-town Manhattan from mid-May to mid-June, Monday nights through Thursday nights.
– Performances will be held as part of New York City’s Thespis Theater Festival on June 18th @ 8:45pm, June 21st @ 9:00pm, June 22nd @ 9:30pm at Cabrini Repertory Theater, 701 Fort Washington Avenue in Washington Heights (northern Manhattan.) All actors, the stage manager, assistant stage manager, assistant director, and the light and sound board operator will need to attend the tech rehearsal in the theater on June 18th from 2:30pm – 8:30pm.
– Many people are cast in roles of other productions and hired for off-stage roles as a result of Thespis Theater Festival performances.
– All roles are volunteer-based (mine included!) You will receive comp tickets to give to anyone you’d like and you’ll have your headshot and bio listed in the play’s program and on the website. I will also be forever happy to provide you with references and loads of good karma for the rest of your life. My goal is to make this a fun, close-knit community that will continue to work together on future productions of this show and others.
– It’s my hope that Sing After Storms will have a long and healthy life long after the theater festival is over. As original team members, I would love to have everyone from this production continue on with us wherever this path leads.

Have an idea for a role that’s not on here? Please let me know!

inspiration

Inspired: Is This a Year that Questions or Answers?

Christa Avampato
From Pinterest
From Pinterest

“There are years that ask questions and years that answer.” ~ Zora Neale Hurston

One of my blog readers, Aimee Johnson, sent me this quote and it hit me like a ton of bricks. Wonderful, magical, inspiring bricks. We need both – years when we question everything and years when we vow to answer those big life questions. Which one will 2014 be for you? For me, it’s time for answers. 

 

inspiration, music

Inspired: Be Brave – a Children’s Cancer Hospital Takes Sara Bareilles’s Song to a New Level

Christa Avampato

We can fight anything, even cancer, with the power of music. Patients and staff members of Unit 5 at the University of Minnesota’s Amplatz Children’s Hospital showed how they’re brave when they set this 4-minute video to Grammy nominee Sara Bareilles’s song, Brave. This video may inspire you to get up, run outside (when the weather gets warmer!), and change the world. You’ve been warned. Oh, and grab a kleenex. This is powerful.

creativity, work

Inspired: Work at Your Level

Christa Avampato
From Pinterest
From Pinterest

I’m currently working on a project that is far below my ability level. I’m overqualified for it. The organization thinks they need me and my skill sets and education, but they don’t. Putting on my strategy hat for their best interest, I will have to engineer myself out of the job and help them see why that’s the best option for them, and for me.

This is another tough lesson from freelance land: we have to work at our level. Even if it is just a day job, a way to pay the bills, or the fuel that supplies our creative projects. The work still has to be interesting. We still need to learn something. It still has to matter than we spend our time and energy doing that work. Otherwise, boredom sets it. And boredom is the straw that breaks our creative backs.

I have learned this ugly lesson the hard way and I don’t want you to go through it. Learn from the many mistakes I made in this area. I’m all for having a day job because I’m all for you finding a way to do your very best creative work that lights you up and makes you feel alive. Just make sure it’s a day job that gives you more than just money.

art, creativity, film, movie, war

Inspired: How the Monuments Men Saved Italy’s Artistic Heritage

Christa Avampato
The cast of The Monument Men
The cast of The Monument Men

While generals were in war rooms plotting and re-plotting ways to defeat Hitler and the Nazi forces, a small band of brothers thought of art. Specifically, they thought of Italian art. Next month, the movie The Monuments Men and its star-studded cast will pay tribute to these soldiers who thought of art in a time of war. During World War II, Italy was at risk for being pillaged and pummeled beyond hope. Supported by President Roosevelt, the Monuments Men made it their business and risked their lives to make sure that didn’t happen. Today, Italians and tourists alike can delight in the glory of Italian art because of these brave soldiers.

Smithsonian Magazine did a marvelous and in-depth article on the Monuments Men in their January issue. You can view that article online by clicking here. It is an emotional, riveting read. It made me want to run out and buy my tickets to the movie right now. We owe so much to these men who had the foresight and courage to save priceless and inspiring treasures for future generations.

Trailer for The Monuments Men:

creativity, work

Inspired: Keep Up the Creative Energy

Christa Avampato
From Pinterest

“The secret of change is to focus all your energy not on fighting the old, but on building the new.” ~ Socrates

The hardest thing to manage, and the most valuable asset we have, is time. When we are following a dream, especially when we’re doing it on the side, our success is largely determined by our ability to eliminate distraction and stay inspired about our creative projects. This is especially difficult when the distraction (our day job, for example) pays well and the work is easy to do. I’m dealing with a bit of this right now: a project that as a whole is interesting and will be great for my portfolio, but with daily work that doesn’t excite me. Because I’ve committed to it, I will finish it, produce high-quality work with a smile, and move on as fast as I can. Here are the lessons I learned from this experience:

1.) It’s a wonderful thing to try something that gives you the resources (whatever they may be) and identify very quickly if it’s the right fit. Don’t beat yourself for making a choice that doesn’t work out. Recognize it, learn from it, and let it go.

2.) There is just so much homework you can do when finding a day job that works for you. In interviews, everyone is on their best behavior. Even in the first few days or weeks, everyone does their best to make any set of circumstances work. That’s human nature – we do the best we can with what we’ve got. For dream chasers with passion projects, this state can only last so long. And that’s okay. When it’s time to go, go. And do it with grace.

3.) In every situation, there is something to learn. It may not be what you intended to learn, nor what you wanted to learn, but learn you will. And you never know when that knowledge will be valuable. So take it in stride. While you are somewhere, learn everything you can. Take it all in, and then take it with you when you make your exit.

4.) Don’t let your day job deplete you. This is the biggest lesson and challenge. The past couple of days, this is what’s happened to me. The work I’m doing for this client is very important to the project and equally mind-numbing. I get home and I’m worn out. It’s been an act of sheer will to keep going on my own creative projects, but I’ve muscled through, just as we do to exercise even when we’re tired. And you know what? I’m never sorry that I’ve exercised once it’s done. The same is true for creative projects. It might be a struggle to create at the end of a long day, but it’s always worth it.

Have you ever been in this situation? How did you find the energy and inspiration to create, even when your day job sapped your energy?

art, creative, creative process, creativity, theatre, writer, writing

Inspired: Shakespeare Didn’t Write for a Living

Christa Avampato
From Pinterest
From Pinterest

“This above all: To thine own self be true.” ~ Shakespeare’s Hamlet

Maybe your creative projects have taken a backseat to other parts of your life. Maybe you aren’t making the progress you want to make in the time you’d like to make it. Don’t beat yourself. And please don’t give up. People whom you will never meet and never know could gain so much benefit from your creativity. If you love the work, then keep at it. Bit by glorious bit. Here’s why:

When I say Shakespeare, what do you say? Theater. Hamlet. Romeo and Juliet. Playwright. Old Globe. All of these are probable, wonderful answers. Shakespeare made a life in the theater and he made a living in real estate. He wrote plays because he loved to write them. I was shocked to recently learn this and I want to share it with you for a very specific reason: your career does not have to define your legacy. What you do to make money and pay the bills doesn’t need to consume you. You can choose, independent of your paycheck, how the world will remember you. Your title does not determine your passion, nor does it dictate where you place your heart, loyalty, and energy. Those are choices, and only you can make them.

Shakespeare could have easily thrown himself into his real estate work and abandoned his writing altogether. He could have relegated himself to be a laborer who didn’t have time for creative pursuits. And we would all be worse off for that choice. It took a long time for him to stabilize his finances so that he could spend the majority of his time writing in his later years. Creative pursuits are like that – we do as much as we can when we can out of our sheer desire to make something that matters. If that sounds like you, don’t despair. You’re in good company; the Bard felt your pain. He kept going. So should you.

art

Inspired: Art Makes a Life

Christa Avampato
From Pinterest
From Pinterest

“The object of art is to give life a shape.” ~ Shakespeare

The human experience is captured, shared, and studied through art, and yet it is generally deemed as less worthy than other disciplines in our education system. It’s labeled as a nice-to-have luxury instead of being rightfully celebrated as the crux of what it means to be human. I’m not sure when or why art was relegated to be a lower priority than other parts of our education. For many, myself included, art saves, serves, and inspires. It has kept me reaching, working, and striving for as long as I can remember. We’d be lost and unrooted without it. We would lose our history, sense of self, and connection to one another across generations.

In a time when everything seems to be up for negotiation in how we should educate our children, I hope we can change this. I hope that by the time my nieces are grown, the choice to be an artist is revered just as much as the choice to be a doctor, lawyer, or scientist. I hope art is no longer relegated to the select few who can afford it and that everyone will cultivate their own inner artist as a part of their everyday lives. Art, and the ability to make it, is a birthright, not a privilege.

choices, inspiration, theatre, writing

Inspired: I Spent My Summer Doing What I Loved Most. It Paid Off.

Christa Avampato
Birds sing after a storm; why shouldn't people feel as free to delight in whatever sunlight remains to them? ~ Rose Kennedy
Birds sing after a storm; why shouldn’t people feel as free to delight in whatever sunlight remains to them? ~ Rose Kennedy

The most exciting (and terrifying) project I have planned for 2014 is the production of my first play, Sing After Storms. It will be staged as part of the Thespis Theater Festival in New York City on June 18th at 8:45pm, June 21st at 9:00pm, and June 22nd at 9:30pm at the Cabrini Repertory Theater, 701 Fort Washington Avenue in Washington Heights. What led me to write the play and ultimately submit it for production can be summed up in one word: priorities. On the surface, it’s not such a sexy word, but it made all the difference for me.

I wrote the play while I was in California this summer on a creative sabbatical from my work. I went there with about a dozen personal projects I wanted to complete and quickly realized that even if I worked 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, for the entire 8 weeks I couldn’t get them all done. They were so massive I couldn’t even get 2 of them done. (I live by the philosophy of “make no small plans.”) I quickly realized I had to choose. I tried to wiggle out of choosing and tried to select a few. It didn’t work. I had to sit down and decide what mattered most. And though it was the least lucrative and least likely to generate anything other than happiness, I spent my last 4 weeks writing my play. With much coaching and encouragement from my dear friend, Trevin, I finished the first draft. It felt amazing to do what I loved simply because I wanted to. That experience also helped me make up my mind to focus on writing and content development full-time.

When I returned to New York, I completed the second draft and submitted it to Thespis. That was the first time I ever submitted the full play to anyone for review and I expected to be rejected about 100 times before anyone even gave it a second look. I’m proud of the work, though I worked in professional theater management for a number of years. After managing Broadway shows and national tours, I know how difficult the industry is. I know how much work doesn’t make it, how many artists never get any shot. I wanted to be passionate and realistic. I wrote that play simply because I loved the story. I never expected anything else to come of it even though I knew I would keep trying to get it produced.

When I got the acceptance from Thespis five days later, I was shocked. And nervous. And excited. And overwhelmed. I spoke with Trevin immediately, and then with my dear theater friend, Amy, who also read the script and encouraged me to give it a shot. Should I do this? Both emphatically said, “Yes!” So I reviewed the contract and accepted the next day.

Now there are many months of hard work and long hours ahead. Trevin is going to direct the piece and I’ve started to look for other people who want to play a part in this new project – actors, a stage manager, designers, technicians, stage crew members, marketing and publicity, investors. (If any of these opportunities sound interesting to you, please email me at christa.avampato@gmail.com.) While I will now be consumed by this next phase of the process, I remind myself that this all happened because I put the wheels in motion by following my gut this summer, by doing what made me happiest. I made a choice. One single choice. And that was enough to get started.

inspiration, New Years Eve, theatre, writing

Beautiful: 2014 Will Be a Year to Inspire

Christa Avampato
From Pinterest
From Pinterest

Last week Aimee Johnson, one of my blog readers, wrote me an email to thank me for helping to inspire her on her path to healing. She started her own blog as a result: http://aimees-apothecary.blogspot.co.uk. I’ve never met Aimee in-person though she wanted to make sure I knew how important my writing was to her, that my daily posts give her the motivation to keep going. I am humbled by her sentiments and her thoughtfulness to send me this note.

Just that morning I had been wondering how to structure this blog in 2014. I try to stick with a theme every year and 2013 was a year dedicated to making something beautiful, in my case a life and a career. Until I got Aimee’s email I was struggling with what to do for 2014. Aimee helped me solve that problem – 2014 will be about inspiring others and shining a spotlight on people who inspire me. I want to help people let go of things that don’t serve them and take more chances. Stories give us the courage we need to make that happen.

I’ve got a good feeling about 2014. Something tells me it’s going to be one of those landmark years with twists and turns and wild rides. I’m ready for it. I’m ready for all of it. Happy New Year!