Vocal Coach to Broadway’s Best: Mike Ruckles on Technique, Trust & Truth

What does it take to keep a Broadway voice strong, expressive, and injury-free through 8 shows a week?

🎤 In this episode, we’re joined by the brilliant Mike Ruckles — vocal coach, pianist, musical director, and the quiet powerhouse behind Tony, Grammy and Oscar-winning singers and actors.

✅ How Mike balances vocal science and artistic nuance
✅ The real challenges of coaching Broadway performers
✅ Tools for building sustainable technique under pressure
✅ Behind-the-scenes stories of vocal breakthroughs
✅ Moving away from voice training "Models"

Whether you’re a singer, vocal coach, or just obsessed with what makes Broadway tick — this episode will inspire and challenge your thinking.

0:00:00 - Why Artists and Educators Need Each Other  
0:05:22 - Mike’s Unexpected Start in Vocal Coaching  
0:08:12 - The Arrival Moment: When a Singer Owns It  
0:10:45 - What's Your Auditory Target?  
0:13:49 - Coaching Elphabas and Hamilton Voices  
0:17:05 - What Role Does Safety Play in Singing?  
0:20:11 - Are You *You* in a Casting?  
0:23:10 - The Trap of Fitting a Vocal Mould  
0:26:12 - When Technique Doesn’t Match the Voice  
0:29:14 - Singing is About Identity, Not Just Sound  
0:32:05 - Should We Have Homogeneity in Training?
0:35:00 - Honouring Uniqueness in Every Performer  
0:37:51 - Celebrating the Graduates Who Don’t Fit the Box  

📢 Share this with a singing teacher or performer who needs to hear it

Remember to like, subscribe, and hit the bell icon for more insightful episodes. Leave a comment below on what inspired you the most! 👇

You can find out about our Teacher Accreditation for singing teachers, vocal coaches and choir leaders and start your own journey here 
https://vocalprocess.co.uk/teacher-accreditation/

We've also got this ↓ 

For the best self-guided learning, check out the Vocal Process Learning Lounge - 22 years of vocal coaching resources (over 600 videos) for less than the price of one private singing lesson. 
Click on the link https://vocalprocess.co.uk/learning-lounge/learning-lounge-level-2-deep-dive/
 
If you want to discover if our singing teacher training programme works for YOU, message us - we can share the process for joining Cohort26. https://www.cognitoforms.com/VocalProcess1/TheAccreditationProgramme 

Get the One Minute Voice Warmup app here, it's got a 4.9star rating 
Appstore https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/one-minute-voice-warmup/id1212802251 
Google Play https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=co.speechtools.warmup&hl=en_GB  
 
Check out our Voice Journal, written with Rayvox's Oren Boder https://www.rayvox.co.uk/products/voice-journal?ref=VOCALPROCESS 
 
Find us - follow us on the socials! 
🐦 Twitter - https://twitter.com/Vocalprocess   
📸 Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/vocalprocess  
📖 Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/vocalprocess

 #vocalprocess #teacheraccreditation #voicetraining 

Broadway vocal coach, Mike Ruckles interview, how to train a Broadway voice, singing coach for musical theatre, voice science for singers, vocal technique Broadway, This Is A Voice podcast, voice teacher advice, musical theater vocal training, vocal health for performers, Gillyanne Kayes, Jeremy Fisher, vocal coaching podcast, how to survive 8 shows a week, Broadway vocal technique, vocal stamina tips, professional voice training, musical theatre voice tips

Transcript

0:11

This is a voice, a podcast with Dr. Gillyanne Kayes and Jeremy Fisher This Is a voice. Hello and welcome to, this is A Voice, season 11, episode five, the podcast where we get Vocal about voice. I'm Jeremy Fisher. And I'm Dr. Gillyanne Kayes We have been so excited about our guest today we think of him as a New York Vocal coach and so much more because we have Mike Ruckles with us today. And Mike is a Vocal coach, a pianist, a musical director, a composer, a lecturer, a singing voice specialist working in musical theater and contemporary commercial worlds clients, include Tony Grammy and Oscar winners. He's worked as a production Vocal coach on several long running Broadway shows and films. Worked on faculties of several prestigious New York organizations and has worked as a pianist with a number of high level artists, including Hugh Jackman, Tyne Daly Ben, Vereen and my favorite Ursula of all time. Sherie Rene Scott. Okay. Mike. Hi. Hello. welcome. Oh, I'm so pleased to be here. this sounds like Renaissance man. You are really multi-skilled. Yeah. When you list it like that, I go, that can't possibly be true. I can't, I haven't done all those things. I appreciate it. It's very it is a great boost to the ego this morning. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. So welcome and we've already done a couple of editions with Claire Underwood, who is a production Vocal coach on, in the West End. And we thought we wanted to get the Broadway version. So welcome. We're really excited to talk to you and also about the similarities and differences of working in all the worlds that you do. And cool. And I wanted to say, you and I, Mike, we've been connecting via social media for several years actually. And the occasional private messages between us about, perhaps topics about voice that might be considered a bit contentious. And I really appreciate, the connection that we've had. So to actually meet you in person is really quite special. So thank you for being here today. I. Well, I am deeply honored. I could not be more pleased to be here. And likewise, you have been such an invaluable resource I know for all of us, but particularly for me to be able to bounce ideas off of you has just been, it's been game changing. So, so thank you for both of you, for your mission both as Vocal educators, as lovers of the arts. It is, it's really inspiring. Thank you. Thank you. My pleasure. We wanna know what brought you to do the work that you do, because it's quite a wide range of things that you do and you've got a lot of history to get there. So what brought you to it? Well, I would say, given that long list, some of those things I no longer do or haven't done in many years. I can't remember the last time I actually wrote something, for example. And it's been many years since I was an md, but it's really a good question because it's hard to say which came first. The chicken or the egg in terms of. Voice teaching or music direction? I feel like for me, both pathways were developing simultaneously. Certainly I started as a singer, I was always singing, you couldn't stop me. Very odd because neither of my parents are particularly musical. They didn't know where this came from. And I just recall from a very early age being obsessed with the human voice and all the colors that were possible. And I, the I just recall the other kids being out playing and I was the kid who was inside with the headphones on much like this and my, do you remember cassette tapes? we do. You remember them. And I was listening to cast recordings and some opera I'd checked out from the library or maybe I'd be sitting at the piano plunking through a Vocal selection. That was what was exciting to me. I began piano lessons probably, I think it was around six. And I continued with that all the way through high school doing piano competitions in the whole nine yards. And so I think my parents naturally assumed that I was going to be a piano performance major, but I really could not have been less interested in that path. And I wanted to pursue my love of the voice. And so, long story short, I was in college as a voice major, classical voice, of course, because at particularly at that time, that was the only kind of voice degree one could But I began to make pocket money as an accompanist in the voice studios. And that was where my education really began. And Jeremy, I'm certain you would agree, if you have the ability and the opportunity to play for singers and accompany voice lessons, jump at that opportunity. Yeah. It's so interesting it's not dissimilar to your past. It's very similar to my past as well. It's not dissimilar. Oh, is Yeah, absolutely. Piano lessons at six. Went to college as a piano player and got interested in voice the whole thing. Really interesting. Yeah. And so, it was, oh, go ahead, Gillyanne. I've just wanted to say with you, Jeremy, you did sing in church, you were a choir boy, very high soprano. Yeah. But you didn't really consider yourself as a singer. No. And I know what happened with Jeremy was that the reason why he started coaching singers was 'cause he was fed up with them not being able to do what they needed to do. Yeah. Yeah. It's just frustration. But like you, Mike, he sat in on so many Vocal lessons. Yeah. And it's a real learning curve, isn't it? absolutely. It was absolutely invaluable. And I began to sort out in my mind what good and or efficient voice instruction really looked like. What strategies seemed to really work, which ones didn't, which teachers were really natural and wonderful communicators of what they were doing as performers, not just able to sing gorgeously at the student and then have them attempt to mimic it back, which was honestly a lot of the teaching that I saw. But to really be able to articulate what they were doing and to guide that singer with their words. And I observed the difference between teachers who were actually, know, No slight against 'em. They were actually very gifted coaches. They were skilled at communicating interpretation and style and phrasing versus teachers of technique who could really take you from point A to point B in your Vocal progression. Can I just say that is so exciting to hear you say that. Because I am a 100% with you on that. And I also think it's really fascinating as a piano player, when you are playing for in a studio, you are also an observer, but you are an active participant as well. And it's a really interesting position to be in that you can also judge what the teacher is doing, what the student is doing, what's working, what isn't you, and you pick up an enormous amount of information on things that work and things that don't. Love hearing you talk about that. It's great. And I just want to ask you, Mike, and again, I'm drawing from what Jeremy's told me if the singer is comfortable and happy with what they're doing and that, they've received the guidance they need, they obviously sing it differently. Did you find as an accompanist that you began to play differently? You could play differently for them because that had happened? Is that anything you noticed? You are onto something very interesting and almost metaphysical there. Gillyanne and I have observed this and I continue to observe this in the Voice studio. It's a funny thing when a singer has arrived at that place where the technique can go in the backseat and they can just be about the storytelling. They can just be about what they wanna do with the phrasing and the interpretation. I notice that my own playing improves as I accompany them, and I cannot. I cannot put it into direct words, but I, I suppose part of it is that my CPU, my brain is able to attend more to what's on the page. And less to, okay, where are we gonna go? Technically, how am I gonna tweak this? How am I gonna, what is my next strategy? So I suppose that's some of it. But I noticed this even when I wasn't voice teaching. I noticed that when the singer had arrived at that place where they had not, I don't know that we ever have mastery of our technique but they had arrived at a level that was supporting them beautifully. That suddenly I was freed also as their collaborative partner, I find that common. A hundred percent again, and I've experienced it a lot. And there's something about and this is so fascinating 'cause we're talking about flow, that the singer is in flow at that point. The piano player can pick that flow up and go with it, create it, mold it, interact with it. And I think what's so fascinating is that flow is a very movable thing because the flow, the same person singing that song with someone else playing piano will be a different flow. You as the piano player are. Or even as the singing teacher are still part of that flow, so that it's almost like flow is instantaneous. It's also absolutely specific to the moment. Yes. Agree more. and, I'm thinking on this that, 'cause sometimes Jeremy will come back maybe from a rehearsal or maybe having played for several singers in one day and he'll say, I couldn't find what they wanted to do. Nope. Because the singer wasn't in that place where they had sufficient mastery that they, they didn't need to think about it anymore. Therefore they didn't really know what they wanted to do, therefore he couldn't go with it and connect with it. Yeah. of putting it. I think often if they do not have an auditory target in mind, even just from that starting point, if there's not an auditory target of this is the goal so often what jumps to mind? I will have love to work with crossover artists, have a, sadly a wealth of opera singers coming in the last, oh, I don't know, maybe five years going, there's no work in opera to be had, and I love storytelling. So I, I've got to get better at this music theater thing. And what I find is that they go, so you have to teach me how to belt. You have to teach me how to make this sound or that sound. But when I ask them, who are you listening to, who are your role models? They have none. Right? And so that's the first problem, is that we don't have an auditory target. Oh, I like that. Yeah. There's so many places we could go immediately. Immediately we we could branch off in a million directions from Absolutely. Yeah. And this, and we ended up talking about this with Claire, didn't we? Yeah. About, it's not about whether you can belt or not. Yes. It's not about a number of sounds, it's about the storytelling. But I think you've landed on something that's quite acute, Mike, which is what is your auditory target? You don't really even have that pathway in there yet. So no matter how, creative and skilled you might be in putting across the technical aspect, that auditory pathway has got to be built in first because we've got all of that is looping through all the time, isn't it? I'm gonna go a stage further because I think it's a two stage process. I'm really fascinated that you've brought this up specifically because when you are wanting to change genres. You have to have a sound palette, a whole range of sounds that are appropriate, used in that genre. But it goes a stage further, which is once you've found that sound palette, you have to understand why they're there in the first place. So you have to understand in musical theater that it's all about story and therefore any sound that you make has to match what emotion that character is going through, what the storyline is at that point, what the character is doing, thinking, feeling, being. Whereas, and I'm sure you'll be able to talk about this when you are working with your commercial contemporary commercial people, it's not necessarily about second by second storytelling. It's more of a vibe. There are still sound palettes that you need and want and will use, but you'll have different reasons for using them. Okay, talk. Quite agree with all of the above. Probably if there's an overarching theme, if you were to be a fly on the wall in my studio from day to day, the overarching theme and I see this as a major movement within the world of voice instruction in general when I attend workshops and conferences, is that I'm very pleased to say that I think we're moving away from a model of voice training that is make the following Can you head mix? Can you chest dominant mix? Can you belt? What is your pure belt? What is your can you do a pure chest and a pure head? None of which we know truly exist but really we're moving towards what is the verb. What is the character trying to communicate in that moment? Is the verb to speak, is it as simple as that? Is it to whine, to cry, to whimper, to call to cheer? What is that verb for that character and how is that communicated in the voice and how can it be efficiently communicated on pitch? Love that. And I'm gonna go stage further again because there's a completely relevant question in here. When somebody takes over a role in a long running musical, do they have to make exactly the same sounds? I wish I could say never. No. The answer is that. The complicated answer is that it depends. It depends on the show that they're going into. It depends on how much of a behemoth it is, how much of a a machinery they're entering into. But even then, when I work with my Elphabas when I work with folks in Hamilton, the emphasis for me, there's so much, at the Gershwin, there's and on tour, there's so much discussion of we need exactly the sound or we need it to sound precisely like this, that I like this space to be a place where we make that space as expansive as possible. So obviously we need to make the MD happy. We need to make the resident director happy. We have to tick those boxes. And yet within that realm, showing them how much play is really possible, how much personality and organicness we can find for them, how much of their own. Interpretation, can we bring to the page within those parameters? and I talk about envelopes. So, a arou a roll or a piece or a, an aria or a song has an envelope in which you can do all sorts of things, and as long as it stays within that envelope, there are lots of corners that you can add. There's lots of you that you can bring to that. And then of course, Oh my, my apologies. I'd loved your discussion with Claire Because she is in that enviable position with cabaret, where the sky's the limit. It's every new artist who comes in is embraced to bring themselves entirely within the constructs of the piece. And that's the dream. That's the dream. And that is often the case, fortunately. And sometimes there are far more constraints on what we are being asked to do with that singer and what sounds are required. But I quite agree an envelope is a perfect way to put it. Very interesting. I think, it's a, it's a challenging topic because I don't know if you find the same sort of discussions happening your side of the pond within the training industry, musical theater education about industry sounds, and we must get people industry ready and that has to be done to get bums on seats for the next, next year intake of students. And then the students become obsessed with making these kinds of sounds. And sometimes when you work with them, you're thinking. Well, I actually want to hear your version of this. I want to hear your story about this because they are producing these sounds and somehow they then don't ring true, and I think it's tough on them actually And you bring up another interesting topic, which is I could not agree more with that. And it led me to this idea that when Vocal training becomes fully about a collection of sounds, when it becomes what are all of the different sounds on your palette that aren't connected to the actor's need, they are simply a collection of coordinations that you have trained your voice to make. Not only do we lack authenticity, but I find as a singing voice specialist who works with rehabilitation, that's also when we start to open the door for injury because our body, our neurologists, are not built for sound production right now. I'm speaking to you and no part of my brain is going. Do I like the sound I'm making? Is it the right marketable sound for Gillyanne and Jeremy? Is it going to be appropriate? No part of my brain is engaged in that, that is putting a middleman into the complexity of the process of communication that we really don't want to have in there or we want to have in there as little as possible. And so I do find that when I work with people who are coming back from injury, often there is a common theme where, well, I was told this was the sound that had to happen, or I told myself I have to be if I'm doing this correctly, I sound like Jeremy Jordan or I sound like Jessica Vosk or whoever it may be. And that's where the real imbalance began for them. I'm gonna say one more thing, and again, I'm going to split this up because I think it's such an interesting topic. You have people who are making, who are led even to make specific sounds. And they make them extremely well, but it's not necessarily their version of that sound on their own voice. It's their version of that sound on someone else's voice. And so they're copying something that isn't, I'm not gonna say innate, because a lot of it is trained, but they're not making the sound that is their version. And this is another envelope thing where, we talk about belt, but belt has a massive range of potential within it that, lots of things fit in there. So for me it's about. I'm fine with you making all the noises, but can we make your version please? We have this saying that belt is contextual. Yeah. It's contextual to the singer. It's contextual to the song. And it's also contextual to the genre. So, my belt isn't necessarily the same as your belt, and to be honest, if the audience perceives it as a belted note, the job is done. Yes. Oh, I am enjoying this incredibly, it's like I have found my kindred spirits from across the pond. I'm just in heaven right now. This is wonderful. I couldn't agree more. And I think, again, to go that step further, you can step onto TikTok. You can step onto Instagram, and you will find many examples of people making sounds that I think would thrill casting directors would thrill a number of audience members. But there's something that leaves you a bit hollow. And as a Vocal trainer, there's something that concerns you because it is possible to make a marketable and a quote unquote good sound that is actually quite unstable. And I don't wanna go so far as say unhealthy, but it can go down that road. When we are not connected to a need, when we're not connected to when it's simply my voice is making a sound and I've learned to make this sound over time, I find that the effort starts to creep up on that Yeah. Yeah. And so then it becomes unsustainable Yes. For that particular vocalist? Well, not only that and there are people who have varying abilities with this. It is if you are in a long running musical, if you are doing a gig tour, you have 40 dates and you are producing a sound that is commercially marketable or castable, but it isn't really you. The more you do it, the more you get divorced from your own voice. And actually, the more likely I think that mental health is going to suffer. Yep. Because you are not actually, you are not displaying, it's not who you are, but you're not displaying something that is, is actually truthful to you. And we could talk about authenticity for a long time. Oh my goodness. The thing that has been on my, and this may be slightly tangential, but the thing that has been on my radar lately with the advent of social media and performing, I think particularly high level roles we can find ourselves, hopefully not, but I think often many performers are quite isolated during the day. They're trying to speak less, they're trying to use their voice less, even if they have families, they're trying to do less. They're going out for drinks with their friends less and all of this. And so a lot of them have taken to social media and are almost vlogging their days sharing a lot of, which is wonderful. They're sharing so much insight into what the life of a performer looks like. One of the things, the downsides that, that I've begun to see however, is, and I'm curious to know if this is something that that's. You've begun to see on your side the Atlantic, but we've begun to see a bit of the fetishization of Vocal hygiene. And what I mean by that is you're not gonna believe the lengths to which I go to be ready for my Broadway show every night. Eight. I get up at eight, I steam for two hours, then I, I'm sipping water throughout the day. I am, do I have to do my yoga? I have to. They create a ritual and it all has to be done every single day. And on the face of it, no one loves Vocal hygiene more than me. I am thrilled that we're getting the message out there about cool cooling down, warming up steaming nebulizing. These are all wonderful tools, but I've begun to see a one upsmanship of no. If you think your regime regimen is crazy. Look at how elongated and extreme minus is. And so, and the, you made me think of it in terms of mental health. I think this is really a problem because the more I'm sure you guys find this, I'm curious to hear if you find this, the more I see a performer fixating single-mindedly on their Vocal health. The more their Vocal and mental health begins to deteriorate. And it's really interesting. This is performative. When you are dealing with social media, there's an element of performative about it. And if you ramp up the performative because you get more views, again, we're coming away from a level of authenticity. That means you are stretching. And unfortunately with social media, because it's there forever, unless you take it down and even then sometimes not you, you are then stuck in that this is the way I live. This is the way I do everything, and I must live up to that. And you end up not living a truthful life at all because you're trying to live up to something that you built. Yes. I'm just wondering how much it is. Based on a fear of what if something happens to my voice in the show tonight. Not only are you gonna be disappointed with that particular show because something went wrong, but it's gonna be all over everywhere because somebody is gonna be in there filming it, Yes, and that puts an enormous pressure on an artist, I think a pressure that we didn't used to have. Do you think that's part of it? I absolutely, I think that is a very valid take on the situation because I think it, it's also perhaps what we're seeing is an artist's desire to go, if you saw me on a bad night, just know that I'm doing A through Z to be in the very best peak condition that I can be in. Which is not necessarily, certainly being best condition, can something something we owe our audiences, but the knowledge of what we're doing is not necessarily something we owe our audiences. But yeah, I do think that is very much part of the, part of what we're seeing, and I think it does tend to be fear-based for both the performer It's a tricky one, isn't it? Because you've got, the people who are really grounded the artists that I've worked with who are really grounded, are going, yeah, it was a bad day. Complete acceptance that it was a bad day. And also complete acceptance. That is not the norm. Yes. So if somebody on online wants to pick up the, you cracked that note or that phrase didn't work, or you breathed in the wrong place, or whatever it is then the artist goes, yeah, I did. And it's like, and come back and see the show when I'm on a better day. It's like. This is the temporal nature of ours, Yeah, there is the art that we do. This is the thing, is that because everything is being recorded. When the recording industry even started, it was like this is a snapshot of any recording, any book, any movie, any, anything is a snapshot of where you are right then. Yes. Actually, if you're in a show, it's a snapshot of you live, if you're in a film, it's a snapshot of you a year ago because they spent a year editing it. But it's really interesting that it's a snapshot of where you are doing what you do. And I don't know anyone who looks back on their work 10 years ago and goes, oh, I was so much better then. No, you develop as an artist. And I think there's a mentality and I think it's a mentality that can be trained that says, yeah, I fucked up. It's fine. So in, because I think particularly in the musical theater industry, the way that we train people or certainly have trained them in the past, you must be giving a hundred percent every night. And I'm having to say, please don't, to my performers, so long as you are lowest common denominator is good enough. That's got to be your benchmark. Let's get your lowest common. Oh, lowest. Dare I say, use the word lowest. And yes, some days you will absolutely fly, and other days you will be doing a good enough job. And I know Claire Underwood talked about this, didn't she? We have to allow ourselves to be good enough. Yes. I'm always greatly concerned for my performers who do not seem to have grace for themselves. That is deeply concerning. Because what we do, I think there has to be an inherent level of grace there. And I'm trying to remember, maybe you can tell me if it was Marilyn Horne or Beverly Sills who said, in my entire career, I only performed three times exactly as I intended to. I can't remember who it was. Love it. was one of those two ladies. Yes. And the great news is, I was saying this to an artist yesterday, I was saying you had a, what you considered to be a not great show yesterday. I think they, they labeled it a c plus show, which for them felt deeply shameful. Right. For an audience, when we get to this level, this tier of performing when you are at 70%, it is still far above expectations. When we're dealing at this level you are still very capable of telling the story. You are still very capable of delivering to the audience something that makes them extremely happy. And so it's understanding that every day is not going to be in that upper 10 percentile or even the upper five. Yep. Yep. I'm just wondering, because we've been talking about Vocal and psychological health, How often, without putting you in a difficult position, how often have you been in a situation where you are working with a singer an artist who has been vocally miscast, cast? It, how do you handle that? That is a great question. Fortunately, trying to think of examples, fortunately, very infrequently, but it does happen. And the way forward for me is that if I feel that, in, in opera we have the fach system. Yes. So, you're not going to be singing Lady Macbeth if you are a coloratura. Absolutely. You might later in life but you're not going to as your core repertoire, right. And so we don't have that fach system and I know a lot of voice teachers have begun to argue for something like that in the world of music theater because I could certainly point to a certain kind of voice that fares better with Elphaba than another. I could certainly point to that. it's part of my PhD. Yeah. There we go. Absolutely. And I have worked with those women who had quite a. Thick fold, heavy, thrilling belt coordination, but Elphaba was on the higher side of that for them and forced them to live in a tessitura that is, would not be my choice for their voice, right? Would not be my first choice for their voice. So what do we do then? The answer to really get to your question would be that we really, that's when we have to embrace a different model for that character and say, what does this really look like? Not for that person who you idolize in the role, but really what does it look like for you? And my job weirdly, becomes about helping them to fall in love lesson by lesson with who they are potentially in the role. Love that. And that can be a very easy journey. It can be a very long and arduous one, depending on how firmly they have, again, that auditory target in mind of, I'm going to sing it like X, Y, Z. Because I do find a number of, particularly younger singers, they feel like if I cannot make the sound that person is making who everyone loves, that is somehow a failure on my part. I have, my technique is not good enough yet to Absolutely, drop into that coordination and produce the same effect. oh, let's talk about that. My technique is not good enough too. I love that as a sentence, because it's so easy to knock down. it isn't it? really interesting. If you think your technique is not good enough to produce someone else's sound, then maybe you should have training as a, an impressionist. Because really that's what you are asking yourself to do is to impersonate someone else. And I'm absolutely solid on this. I want to hear your voice because you as a person are different to that person. You have an entire history that you come in with. You have a life that you come in with, you have a life experience that you come in with, all of which is reflected in your instrument. All of it. And I want to hear that. I don't want to hear your impression of someone else. I'll get that other person in. Thank you very much. Unless you are phenomenal. In which case, do yourself a one man show. Indeed. I'll tell you a story that I think is I still come back to this quite often in the Voice Studio when we were when I was living my parallel life as an MD on Broadway doing this show right here, gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder which has yet to make it to the West End. I cannot put that together in my, it is the most quintessentially British show. It's, why it has not made, I cannot explain. Anyway side note when we were casting it, we were looking for the role of Ella and we were all discussing this fact that she's the sex kitten. If the show had been written 20 years earlier, it would've been Bernadette Peters. It would've been any number of women in that. And we kept bringing ladies in and we kept auditioning and we kept auditioning. And finally I remember God rest his soul. Jay Bender turns to all of us at the table and he said, I really don't know. I can't explain why we cannot find this unique woman. Like, why all everybody's coming in and we're getting homogeneity. We're just getting the same thing over and over. I cannot explain that. And I said, having, I I put my hand out there and I said, having just come out of the academic setting, I can, it is that we are training for homogeneity. We don't want, we're not thinking we're doing it, but we are often training for homogeneity. And so I often think if somebody if Bernadette Peters had been coming up in her career to use her in as example, and she had felt that she had to make the same sound as Barbara Streisand, she had to make this sound as x, y, Z, the loss to our craft, the loss to our to our industry, that would've been, don't stifle. I have literally written right here on the wall, see if I can turn my camera here. This glorious Martha gr I think I spotted it we Martha Graham quote. Do you see that there it's backwards from your view, but what it says is there is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action. And because there's only one of you in all the time, this expression is unique and if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and will be lost. And I feel like if that doesn't say it all. That's beautiful. That's really lovely. And actually I love the way, 'cause you've got this on your website. I love the way that you talk about not homogenizing the voices of the singers you work with. There isn't a Mike Ruckles studio sound. Oh, I hope not. I very much hope not. I think that's really important. yeah, it's an interesting topic as we think about. I remember when I was writing my thesis on the Belt voice, I was fortunate enough to interview Patti Lupone at that time. And I remember asking her, one of the questions was, do you feel that the Broadway voice is becoming increasingly homogenous? And her answer that had a lot of expletives in it was, yes, I do. And, And Isn't it boring? She said, and now, I'm of two minds and I'm curious to hear your thoughts on this because I think some of that homogeneity that we might be picking up on or feeling like there's a cookie cutter quality coming out of the BFA programs here in the United States, does it come from a necessarily bad place? It comes from a study of what kind of voices do we hear fairing very well eight shows a week, what kinds of voices, what kind of resonance qualities and strategies do we hear aging well and dominating on the great White way or the West end. And so I think there's something to be said for that. I think there's something to be said for looking at trends as well as sustainability. best practice. Best practice. Absolutely. That would be the best way to put it. And so there's something to be said for that. That being said, I think we can honor all of the above and find the organic unique juice of who you are. And that's the bit that I think often happens when you've finished your MFA program or your, your masters in the uk, for example, or your BA in Performing Arts, Well, I don't know about the universities in England, but I will say that there is enormous pressure having taught at the academic level in a BFA program. There's enormous pressure to turn out every senior as a sparkling marketable package, and they have to be serving up to the casting director. This is who I am. I'm walking in Aaron Tveit's footsteps. I'm walking in Josh Gad's footsteps. I'm a this, I'm a, that. Here's the label you can put on me. It's very Okay. Okay. That's good to hear. Let's talk about employability, because I think this is a really fascinating topic. So much of training is geared towards a very narrow area of employability. So it's like this entire 28 students in this year all have to end up on Broadway. And I'm going, first of all, what are the chances of that? Yeah. Because the numbers just aren't there. But also. Why are you not finding what people are capable of? Where their interests lie? What somebody might have something that's quirky, that might fit into a different genre, it might fit into a different mode of communication. It might fit into a different space. Excuse me. I have forged my career from start to finish by myself. Thank you. So I am speaking from experience where I've never really fitted anywhere. And so you have to create your own stuff or you look for stuff that are in corners or whatever. And I think that's the difficulty is that a lot of courses are geared to a very narrow employability. Yeah. Thing instead of giving you transferable skills. And some courses do that, and show you how to perhaps have more. What's the what's the buzz term about having a multifaceted career portfolio? Portfolio career? Yeah. Helping people build portfolio careers, which to be honest, is what most people are gonna need if they're gonna make a living. Because they're not all gonna become Broadway stars. So I dunno how much that's, like the colleges giving people the impression they're gonna get that or if it's out there in the culture and therefore the young performers are coming in with that, that big starry-eyed thing. I want to be this. And the fascinating thing is on the other side of the table, these casting directors who and agents who are coming to the showcases and seeing what's being turned out. I'm talking with them every day. The people they're talking to me about the graduates that are exciting them and lighting them up are the ones who are not fitting into Yeah. That's who they want to talk about. They don't want to talk about, oh this girl is such a great Sutton Foster. She's just like, she can cover Sutton and they want to talk about there's nobody like this girl, or there's nobody like this guy. And they're so unique in their skillset and they offer something I haven't seen before. Because we all offer something no one's seen before, Correct? but we have to be given that opportunity Yeah. And to let it flourish. therefore it has to be within the training programs. And I think it's fair to say that often it isn't or it isn't enough, and it's something that. Well, certainly when we did the musical Theater Educators conference, which was in last July in the uk this, and obviously most of the attendees were American. They were talking about this and they were feeling really passionate, that they wanted to develop the individual artist and that there was this dichotomy that they would, they were going through as trainers, which is. We've got to, produce this finished product at the end that is marketable. But in fact, in terms of duty of care and really developing the artist within, what we really want is the opportunity to take people in a different direction. And that's hard for them as trainers too, because of course they need to keep their jobs. Well, Mike, you've been on both sides of this because you've been involved in training programs in universities and also you are a freelance trainer yourself. And so those, to me, those are two entirely different sides. How do you deal with that? Well, I have enormous respect and empathy for those who are in these BFA programs because I remember the pressures very well. There's enormous pressure to raise the national standing of your program as there should be. We all want to be in a program of excellence. Nobody goes into this to, to try to be in a subpar music theater, BFA program teaching there, right? We all want, and we want the best for our students. We want the training level to rise and all of this. And yet what often comes along with that is a mistake. And I hope that it is beginning to change having not been in the academic setting for over a decade now, it's possible that we've really seen a swing towards some new ways of thinking about training. But I do have empathy because I remember those pressures very well. My job on the other side now of that BFA is that I, on the daily I'm seeing people who have just graduated just come through that showcase and they wanna show me. The marketable thing that they've just been, shot out into the world to do. And I want to validate that while also opening their horizons. There are so many questions that we have for you and we've already asked so many, but we know that we've gotta stop. So we're gonna invite you back next week. Will you come back? Of course. So we'll see you next time. Bye. Bye. This is a voice, a podcast with Dr. Gillyanne Kayes and Jeremy Fisher.