Today we’d like to introduce you to Lanessa Long.
So, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
I was born in Tillamook, Oregon, into the party that is being that youngest of seven. I would sit at the piano and bounce at the bench and play anything I felt. Then, for my birthday, I was gifted piano lessons. I think I have always experienced the most joy from inhibition and discovered I felt the most free very early on through music and singing and laughter. Growing up as the youngest of seven gave me so much to observe. It was chaotic and hilarious and beautiful. Watching all my other siblings grow up and go through things I wouldn’t have to for a long time, trying to sneak in to watch movies I wasn’t old enough to, becoming an aunt at 11, hearing talk of marriage and student-loans and R-rated films. In some ways, I have been a comedian my whole life but didn’t discover that was the name for it until it was so shockingly evident how severely it is a part of my identity.
My brother Jeremy is a musician, and naturally, he was a huge part of the inspiration in getting me into music. We’ve sung together since I can remember and he produced my first EP. I went to school for music at California Institute of the Arts and graduated in 2018. While there, I started taking classes at the Upright Citizens Brigade. For my graduation recital from CalArts, I wrote a one-woman musical comedy called “Nobody’s Really Helped Me.” I didn’t know it was that when writing it, I just knew I just wanted to make something that would make people laugh. It went through dozens of drafts that I would send and read aloud to my brother and artistic companion, Joseph. But, it wasn’t until the week off, in which he said to me something like, “make this simple for yourself, these are songs and stories.” So, I sang my songs, and I told my stories. Ones about the melodramas of figuring out what to do or at least what to do next, being 22, and on the brink of many unknowns. It was the scariest and most honest thing I’ve ever given in a performance.
I think most of the time we already have all the answers within ourselves on what we need to do and how we need to give, and most of the writing is figuring out ways to access those within ourselves with what is already there. My mindset is: first-instinct, go-with-your-gut, your-intuition-is-never-wrong.
After this, I kept doing the show, re-working it, shaping it, extending it. Doing it in the Hollywood Fringe, The Curious Comedy Theatre in Portland, The Edinburgh Fringe, the LA Women’s Theatre Festival, and in New York at the largest solo theatre festival in the world, The United Solo Theatre Festival, where I won the award for Best Improv. I was also selected as one of the best shows in the first ten years of that festival and asked to come back and do it again in 2019.
While in Edinburgh, there was a show after me that didn’t show up, because they were having a hard time drawing an audience. But, after my show, an audience showed up for them and wondered why I was packing up. They saw my friend who watched me perform and was waiting for me to pack up, who was fully dressed in drag and thought they must be performing next. We started to leave, but then they asked, “isn’t there a show?” So, I said, “oh, there will be a show.” So, I unpacked my keyboard and everything, and I and that friend gave a fully improvised musical-improv-drag show. It went better than my actual show! That adrenaline of not knowing what comes next was so vital in giving me the freedom to improvise. Then, putting that mindset into my show – knowing my material and script so well that I know exactly how to stray from it, and then come back.
Throughout the course of doing this show, I realized what a beautiful thing it is to be comfortable messing up, and moving on. I have performed for full rooms of very active audiences and bars with two people in them. I hold each performance in a very dear place in my heart, the ones that electrify me, the ones where I have ended and gone and cried on a curb outside. When you’re performing enough, you’re giving that piece the power to change your time and time again, but you never know quite how.
I am now working on music, comedy, and music-comedy. It’s been important for me to realize when these pools interact and giving them the freedom to be their own entities, too. I realize I am strongest developing all the parts of myself and can be everything, even though sometimes I am some parts, more. Music is how I process the world. Comedy is how I interact with it.
Right now, I am writing another show, doing stand-up, getting an entire music set together. When I was little, I remember sitting in the car with my mom and saying, “I love to laugh!” Though that hasn’t changed, I think it has expanded. I realize now, it’s that, of course, I love to make you laugh, but more than that, I hope to help you feel whatever you need to.
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
I don’t think anyone will tell you it’s a smooth journey, so eliminate the need to feel it will be and embrace all the lows you’ll hit. You’ll figure out so much about yourself in those places. But, don’t be afraid to experience joy along the way, too. It’s easy to get caught up in the “I need to get headshots and have more monologues on hand and network, oh God, I need to NETWORK.” But also, just be who you are. USE who YOU are. Cause the world needs that. Just start there, and when you’re lost, come back to that.
I’ve started saying, “what am I doing now?” instead of “what am I doing next?” Give yourself permission to mess up, because you will. Give yourself permission to thrive, because you will. There is no failing when you are giving with who you are. Having that intention is the start of everything pure, and there are no wrong choices when you’re making them with all you are.
Most of the turbulence along this journey so far has come from bad performances and letting them mean too much to me when in reality is, sometimes you just have bad shows! I remember when I first arrived in Edinburgh, walking my keyboard up until the cobblestone hill to the hostel I would be staying at in a 14 bunk bedroom. The street that was lined with hundreds of posters of shows that would be happening during the festival and thinking to myself, “what have I gotten myself into?” But I think it’s important to really feel that. To feel the weight of a keyboard on Scotland’s hottest summer day on your way to a festival you’re not really sure how you’ll fit into.
So, here’s five pieces of advice for women doing their thing:
Yes, you’re a woman. You’re a magical creature who is not of this universe and yet here you are. Let yourself be a woman, but let yourself be whatever else you want to be, first. Being a woman is knowing it is your freedom to choose what you are before you’re a woman, too.
Mess up, fail, repeat. It means you’re trying. Put yourself out there without knowing what will happen with it. You might be afraid, and probably should be because it’s scary. But still, go for it. You’re more than your worst thoughts of yourself. Don’t adapt yourself to a new setting, be yourself in that setting.
Say things out loud to be held accountable, but keep your circle of people’s opinions who matter to you small. If you’re making something, everyone will think something about it. People will love it. People might not. Tell yourself beforehand, and find one or two people whose opinions you value. Let those ones be the only ones who can change what you give.
GO WITH YOUR GUT. Your intuition isn’t wrong. Ever. Female intuition is so strong it literally syncs our periods to each other when we spend time with each other. I applied to the Edinburgh Fringe late. I was put on a waiting list. But, I knew I would be going. I felt it. I told everyone who asked what I’d be doing in August, that I would be performing in Scotland. Then, sure enough, in June, a show dropped out and I was in. I knew all along. It’s all about gut.
Support other people. Support other artists. And, share their joy, their support, their happiness. Allow yourself to be happy for other people without comparing yourself to their timeline or their success. Trust your timeline. Trust that you already are successful, for showing up and giving how you do. You are where you are meant to be when you are giving in a way that is with who you are.
Please tell us more about your work, what you are currently focused on and most proud of.
I am a musician, a writer, a songstress, a comedian. I am most proud of the moments in which I feel a whole room laughing or feeling together, because of something I sang or said. It is a beautiful thing to feel in a community, and I believe those are the moments that have the power to carry us through to the next ones. I am not so concerned with being set apart from others, when there are so many others doing beautiful things, too. I believe when we are all giving with who we are, we are automatically set apart. So, I hope that my personhood is as much my art as anything else.
So much of the media coverage is focused on the challenges facing women today, but what about the opportunities? Do you feel there are any opportunities that women are particularly well positioned for?
I am so much more “musician” than “woman musician.” I love being a part of women’s communities, but it is also hard to not feel like there’s just been a place made for us, that we should get comfortable in. I think we are moving toward a world in which there are spaces made more evidently in festivals and venues, that don’t have to be “women’s” only spaces or events. And I think the best way to be prepared for those opportunities is to support each other along the way. To highlight all kinds of artists, all the time, so that we are not perpetuating the notion that one gender or one type of performer is the standard in which we stray from.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.lanessalong.com
- Phone: 5035221167
- Email: [email protected]
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lanessacherielong/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lanessalong
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/lanessalong
Image Credit:
Jonny Long, Joseph Long
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