#49 - Alex Matteo: The Saturn Return

According to Alex, a multi-hyphenate is someone who sees the world
and wants to offer their own prism.  All her friends think
she’s crazy -- with her crystals adorning her dressing room at the
Stephen Sondheim Theatre on Broadway. But Alex brings up The Saturn
Return, which is a personal change that happens in a human’s life
around every 30 years. Connecting it to the theatre, she looks at
it like the three acts of a person's life.  Alex was fortunate
when she graduated from The Boston Conservatory in 2011. She was
asked by a professor what her dream was -- and she responded with
“paying bills as an actor.” But Alex realized after graduation,
when she booked the national tour of The Addams Family, that she
could not make her living touring on the road. She began to set new
goals and boundaries on herself, but still risking burn out and
approval from the rooms she was auditioning in. “Around the Saturn
Return time, I started to realize how much of that creative power I
was giving away to other people,” Matteo says.  If you’re an
artist, we check how the industry is perceived in the media and how
it negatively and positively affects the expectations of young
artists. This episode is chock full of inspirational information
for starting a new project, establishing new goals and boundaries,
self worth and productivity, being a Slave to the Muse, and
unpacking the moments where we say, “There has to be more.” 
“Your profession can’t be your everything,” continues Matteo. “You
have to have other things that spark creativity within you. We are
all creative beings and we all have this thread of creativity that
runs within us, and I think that the people who are really
successful, regardless of what you do, are people who have tapped
into that creative energy and figured out how to work with it, as
opposed to fight it.”  Alex Matteo - Broadway: Mrs. Doubtfire,
A Bronx Tale, Annie (u/s Lily, Grace, Star to be) National Tours:
Dirty Dancing (u/s Baby, Lisa, Elizabeth), Anything Goes, Addams
Family (u/s Wednesday) Select Regional: 5th Avenue (doubtfire),
Walnut Street/Riverside (Stephanie Mangano - Saturday Night Fever),
MSMT (Stephanie Mangano - Saturday Night Fever), Goodspeed (A Sign
of the Times), DTC (A Sign of the Times, u/s for Chilina Kennedy).
Alex is a Broadway actor/woo woo enthusiast walking that fine line
between surviving and thriving all while trying to give her dog
Millie the life she deserves. After nearly a decade on Broadway
Alex realized, true creativity stems from seeing the world that's
handed to us and offering back something more beautiful. Whether on
stage, in the kitchen or at home, Alex is fueled by the belief that
our unique creative lens is what brings people together. She is an
avid supporter of crop tops, and it is said she can assemble the
most impressive charcuterie board this side of the Mississippi. She
is also the creator and host of the Pull It Together Podcast. Pull
It Together pulls back the curtain on life as a creative. Each week
Broadway actor, Alex Matteo sits down with multi-passionate
creatives who are breaking the mold debunking myths of creativity.
Whether through food, design, art or entertaining Pull It Together
is your destination for creativity with an emphasis on finding
beauty in the everyday. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit
megaphone.fm/adchoices