Arts Entrepreneurship Podcast: Making Art Work
Arts Entrepreneurship Podcast: Making Art Work
#298: Jerrilyn Duckworth (Founder of Bridging the Gap) (pt. 1 of 2)
Today we released part one of our interview with Jerrilyn Duckworth. She founded Bridging the Gap in 2019. It’s a company that focuses on hair & makeup issues that plague BIPOC students and performers in the theatre industry. Jerrilyn dives into the history of hair & makeup, wig prep on natural hair textures, correct language, products, and practical applications that would set any performer or creative artist up for success. Her goal is to create an inclusive environment for all performers.
Her designs have been on the stage at venues such as the Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival, Indiana Repertory Theatre, Ensemble Theatre in Cincinnati, and the Oklahoma Shakespearean Festival. We hope you'll tune in to hear Jerrilyn share her wisdom on a variety of theatrical topics! https://bridgingthegapintheatre.com/
Welcome to the Arts Entrepreneurship Podcast. Making art work. We highlight how entrepreneurs align their artistry, passion and vision to create and pursue opportunities to capture value in the arts. The views expressed by guests on the Arts Entrepreneurship Podcast are solely their own and do not necessarily represent the views of the podcast or its hosts. The appearance of a guest on the podcast, the venture they represent or reference to any product or service does not imply an endorsement or recommendation by the podcast or its hosts. The content provided is for entertainment and informational purposes only and does not constitute business advice. Here are your hosts Andy Heiss and Nick Petrella.
Andy Heise:Hi Arts Entrepreneurship Podcast listeners. My name is Andy Heiss and I'm Nick Petrella.
Nick Petrella:Jerrilyn Duckworth is on the podcast today. She founded Bridging the Gap in 2019. It's a company that focuses on hair and makeup issues that plague BIPOC students and performers in the theater industry. Jerrilyn dives into the history of hair and makeup wig prep on natural hair textures, correct language products and practical applications that would set any performer or creative artist up for success. Her goal is to create an inclusive environment for all performers. Jerrilyn's designs have been on stage at venues such as the Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival, indiana Repertory Theater, ensemble Theater in Cincinnati and the Oklahoma Shakespearean Festival. We'll have Jerrilyn's website in the show notes so you can read more about her and her activities. Thanks for coming on the podcast, Jerrilyn.
Jerrilyn Duckworth:I'm super excited to be here today. Thank you.
Nick Petrella:Why don't you give the listeners a brief biographical sketch and give us an overview of your business and when you realize an opportunity to create Bridging the Gap?
Jerrilyn Duckworth:So I'll start off by saying that I have my MFA in costume design and production from the University of Alabama. I have a BA in general theater from the University of Southern Mississippi at Hattiesburg, and from that I only wanted to do costumes. This was something that was not in my scope or realm of anything that I had thought I wanted to do. Fast forward to fall of 2018, my alma mater had me back to give a workshop in conjunction with seven guitars, which was primarily an african-american cast. No one knew what to do with hair or makeup, so they had me come in and, you know, put a workshop together to help the folks that were going to be working on the show. Uh, post that workshop, there were so many folks that still had questions, and while I was in school, I always wanted to.
Jerrilyn Duckworth:I love research. To me, as I said, in my next life I want to be a museum curator to look at old photos, and so the research was at the helm of, you know, showing pictures what do you hand to performers and different things like that and so that got my wheels to turning and my thought process was I'm going to put it out on Facebook. That was the popular method of information for public consumption. I always say and so I was like, oh, I'm going to start a Facebook page, what do I name it? And it was pretty straightforward as to what I wanted to name it. So January 2nd of the following year, it goes live by February 1st. I was overwhelmed by the response. Wow. I always say I didn't know that I was opening up a good Pandora's box.
Nick Petrella:I didn't know that I was opening up a good Pandora's box. So your main focus has it always been behind the stage, so not on the stage. So you don't do any acting or directing. You were just focused on the technical side.
Jerrilyn Duckworth:God. No, I am someone who is built for backstage, like I never wanted to be seen. I'm the kid that cried through public speaking in high school, so in college, so it's, it's a novelty to me. I actually reached out to my old college professor to say, like everything you've taught me, guess what? I'm using it now. Um, that's great, that's awesome.
Jerrilyn Duckworth:And so, after the page launched, march of that same year, I was asked to come speak in person. Because it's. I was like what do you mean? Like nobody was supposed to see my face, like I was supposed to just be able to write for Facebook, put the information out there, hope that it makes a difference. And they're like no, we want you to come in person and talk to the students and educate the staff. And that year it trailed on as me like I found my first PowerPoint actually, and I was like, oh my God, thank God for growth. Because, good Lord. But I was just so excited to get there, talk to the students, make them feel seen and heard, and to put the information out into the sphere, to make the world of theater better.
Andy Heise:Yeah, that's great. So those initial posts were just information. You were doing some research. You just put out some general information about what was the subject of matter of some of those initial posts so a little bit about how I decided to format the page.
Jerrilyn Duckworth:Um, mondays, I was going to post about makeup. Um, I get got a million questions in about, like foundation matching, how do I do it? What brands are great? Uh, wednesdays was my open floor topics um, and you can find anything on a Wednesday. If it's like a cool designer, if it's places to buy fabric you could color match, like you can look on a Wednesday and find anything. Don't look at it right now because it needs to be updated. I'm just in the air 24-7. To be updated I'm just in the air 24-7.
Jerrilyn Duckworth:Research Fridays was my latest edition in the realm of adding to the page and you can find photos of any and everything on a Friday. And then Playwright Sundays was the absolute last day. I said that I would have time to post. I posted about Lorraine Hansberry and A Raisin in the Sun. The sheer amount of emails I got about folks not knowing who she was, not knowing what A Raisin in the Sun means to the canon of Black American theater. I was like, ok, so now I need to read more plays and post them. And it's always great to get the emails and say, you know, I never knew this play existed. We added it in our season, or you know, and that just creates opportunities for BIPOC performers to have these roles. So I would love to post more days a week, but between freelance design and doing workshops there.
Nick Petrella:I work 26 hours in a 24 hour day and I just have a quick follow-up question. So you're, you do design and the workshop, so most of your time. How would you say your time split up? It's more designs, more workshop. Is it cyclical?
Andy Heise:Well, I hate to interrupt here, but that's kind of. My next question was like what, what are what of bridging no, no, no, it's all great, it's, it's all good, Brid, bridging the gap, uh, in theater? Um, so, you, you obviously do workshops, uh, where you're traveling to locations and and providing information and hands-on trainings and that sort of thing. Are there other activities that you do in the business, um, beyond that?
Jerrilyn Duckworth:Yes, so, um, like I said, by trade I am a freelance costume designer. I would say I moonlight and wigs and makeup too. Most of the time when I'm hired and they'll hire me in to do both, I charge for both. Now that's something that I've learned how to price myself over the years, because it's like, oh, we're going to hire you, oh, but you can do hair too. We're just going to shove it all under costumes and I'm like, no, no, and um, my mentor said you should be paid respectfully for both Um and so um.
Jerrilyn Duckworth:And then also, when I'm home, um, I do photography as well, Um, and so I morphed that into doing headshots. I've been to high schools to give in kind of the lower income areas where you know a good headshot. You know three headshots will run you five or six hundred dollars, and so sometimes I will donate my time to do headshots for performers that are wanting to audition and different things like that. I was leveling my assistant, whatever. Wherever I'm working, I'm like do you have a headshot? You need it for the playbill, and so I will shoot a headshot for them. So half camera will travel and I, like I said, the costume wigs, and then I do workshops too. So I will say, my time is split many different ways.
Nick Petrella:Sure, so big portfolio career.
Jerrilyn Duckworth:It's a lot of updating it is a lot of updating.
Nick Petrella:Do you have photography on your site, because I don't remember seeing that there.
Jerrilyn Duckworth:It's a separate website. So I literally have a design website, I have the bridge in the gap website and I have a photography one, just because when I first started out I was like I can't put all this in one website. People are going to be confused so I literally have to run an update three sites.
Andy Heise:Wow, yeah, well, that's interesting, I have that. I have that same conversation with a lot of my like graphic design students who maybe they want a portfolio, but they also designed some prints or some products that they want to sell, um, and so the and maybe they, you know, they're open to commissions or whatever too, and and I have that same conversation with them and it sounds like, sounds like you've decided, you decided early on that you want to keep those things kind of separate and distinct.
Nick Petrella:Yes, yes, now are they set up in separate businesses.
Jerrilyn Duckworth:Yes, they're all set up separately and I think my brain compartmentalizes stuff and so having them mushed together would just add to further chaos and confusion on my end. So I have separate emails for them, separate sites for them, so people contact me when they want a specific thing.
Nick Petrella:Yeah, that makes sense. Do you want us to include all of them in the show notes?
Jerrilyn Duckworth:Yeah, I can definitely email you the photography one as well.
Nick Petrella:Perfect, that'd be great. So, gerilyn, you do a lot of traveling for speaking engagements and workshops. How are those arranged, and are there many people doing what you?
Jerrilyn Duckworth:do when it comes to these things. Now, just because I tell people all the time, if you're depending on me to remember to book a flight, a hotel room or anything like that, I just have so many moving parts and it's just me I will forget, and so the colleges will. I love the secretaries. I will send a big shout out to them all the time because they keep me in line.
Jerrilyn Duckworth:They're like hey sign this, hey, sign that. And so I either leave a thank you card with them just saying thank you for arranging my travel and lodging I made it safely, enjoyed my stay. You are greatly appreciated because they are the unsung heroes of any department, um, and so theaters do the same, um, they'll have someone that's dedicated to like teaching artists that are coming in, or speakers, and they'll book all of that stuff. Um, uh, for me, um, and as far as people doing what I'm doing, there are, um, a couple of uh, bipococ creatives that are working to diversify the theater space.
Jerrilyn Duckworth:Nakia Mathis is someone who comes to mind. She's on Broadway. She just did Zsa Zsa's hair braiding, and so she's really taken on the mission of diversifying Broadway. And so for me, it was starting at the college level, because that's where the training of the next artisans are coming in, and so, on college wise, it's me, and then you work up to like regional theater and Broadway. There are some great groups that are helping and being more inclusive within the working spaces and being more inclusive within the working spaces.
Nick Petrella:So it sounds like your established people, these schools, they're contacting you at this point, but did you probably wasn't always like that? Did you have to pound the pavement when you first started, and how did you do that?
Jerrilyn Duckworth:Believe it or not, I tell people all the time my start is not conventional. It came from the Facebook page and so when I did the first speaking engagement, I posted about it, saying you know, thank you so much for having me. I'll post pictures, and then that leads to the next person that reaches out to me. So I've never advertised, I've never done any of that. It was one of those things where.
Jerrilyn Duckworth:I just started doing it and so I have. Bridging the Gap has opened up the space for me to get into places to design that I wouldn't have given me a second look if I hadn't had, like, a platform that looks like, because a lot of the theaters that I've done workshops with they've been turned turned around and hired me to design shows and so that's gotten my foot at the door on the regional theater level to kind of work my my way up that way too yeah, it's great, that's awesome.
Andy Heise:It's testament to not only the need for what you're providing, but also your expertise. I mean, you're obviously very good at what you do.
Jerrilyn Duckworth:I would say people give me too much credit. Again, my goal was to never be in the public speaking realm, and so I've learned a lot and made friends with colleagues that have been doing this 15, 20 years, and they've been so gracious to kind of like take me under their wing and say oh well, what about this? Or you should do this, or you know. So it's been a wild ride.
Nick Petrella:You do know that the more successful you become, the more speaking engagements you're going to receive.
Jerrilyn Duckworth:I do, and especially I'm working on a book. So I can only imagine, once I sit down long enough to get pages written and I get a book out, I have a feeling I will be doing this for a while.
Andy Heise:Yeah, for sure. Is it like a technical book, like a technical training type of book, or is it more contextual, historical?
Jerrilyn Duckworth:The first book will kind of that everything in a book how to research, how to have the tough conversations and what that looks like will be in book form. And then my hope is to do another book, a costume history book through the lens of African American dress, so I can see that kind of being my thing I'll work on for years to come because there is so much information. I've been going to museums and different things like that, so it's all a work in progress.
Andy Heise:Sure, sure, well, and sort of. Your launch reminds me of another example that I use in some of my classes. Another example that I use in some of my classes. But what you did is you established yourself as a subject matter expert in an area that people were looking for expertise right, and then from that, that's your platform to launch. The example that I use in my class is this person who started an ink business. They were making inks for printing, and what they discovered was the hard part was actually shipping and receiving like the logistics part of that, and so they learned all about that aspect of small business. And then other small businesses started coming to her and saying, can you help me with my shipping needs problems? And then she actually launched a business out of that that was eventually purchased by Navar, which is one of the largest logistics companies in the world. So the point is that subject matter expert in the right place at the right time can certainly be an amazing platform.
Jerrilyn Duckworth:I would say it was a happy accident. It really was.
Andy Heise:Well, yeah, sure.
Nick Petrella:It was a happy accident. Yeah, no, it sounds like you were on the vanguard of that right. You were on the front end of that.
Jerrilyn Duckworth:Yep.
Andy Heise:And so, through your work, have you formed any partnerships or collaborations that help you continue to grow your business or get those workshops, or or you know the design jobs?
Jerrilyn Duckworth:So if you look on my Bridge to the Gap website, a lot of those schools that I've traveled to they're now repeat folks and so when they have a new class that comes in, they'll have me come in and give a workshop with demos to kind of set.
Jerrilyn Duckworth:If it's a new master's class that's coming in, I'll come in like that first month of their first year and kind of give them the tools that they can build upon for their three years. If it's a new four year group, I do the exact same thing. So a lot of folks are repeats and then I get recommended word of mouth a lot too, and so that's kind of how I work. And so I usually still book like four to six months ahead of time, which is an excellent problem to have, is an excellent problem to have. It's just hard when designing shows and sometimes I get a cool offer and I'm like, oh, but I have this, this and this and I can't do this and but that's kind of partnership wise. That's kind of how how I've worked just through the different theaters and universities, just rebooking me.
Andy Heise:Yeah, I didn't know if there was opportunities for you know product lines or brands or something like that. Makeup, specifically Makeup brands. Yeah.
Jerrilyn Duckworth:So I do get like samples in. When I go to like the theater conferences, folks will give me samples of like their medium deep lines. I actually have like a few reviews to do to get up on Bridging the. Gap, and so they'll say, hey, this is what we've redone. Can you send us notes? And what do I think? So, yeah, from that end of life, yes, I do get those in.
Nick Petrella:Sure, Gerilyn, if there are any young actors or people starting in the theater, or maybe a community theater with a small budget. What are some of the issues BIPOC performers face and what could they do, short of bringing you in which would be the best right? What can they do to address those issues?
Jerrilyn Duckworth:Talk to the performers. So many times BIPOC performers are kind of glazed over and not talked to directly. One of my models is bringing the performers in on the process but not making them do the work. So many times they're left to their own devices. Well, what do you think your hair can do, or how can you style your hair? And so it's one of those things I bring them in. I ask them about products, I ask them if there are any hangups on the last job that they've had, so I know not to make those same mistakes. Foundation matching is another thing. Many stock closets aren't accommodating to performance of color and so when I talk to shop managers and different things like that and if they do have a closet, you know what's in your closet could there be products that everybody could use. So if someone forgot a brush or a comb or hairspray at home, can they go in your closet and find something that can tie them over to. They can get to an Ulta or a CVS.
Nick Petrella:So, as a percussionist right, I bring the implements that I need for the gig. Sometimes you need a lot, sometimes you need little, so do you have a case of different foundations, specific brushes, combs that you just travel with?
Jerrilyn Duckworth:specific brushes, combs that you just travel with. So my travel bag in TSA is always a time is always had, let me tell you. So, depending on the job, I ask for a ton of like. I ask for the headshots, so I know kind of how to pack my bag, foundation wise, so that'll inform me as to what I need to bring. I've got full like magnetized like where my foundation sits, so it'll fly flat. So, and then I have specific products that I'll fly with edge controls, hairsprays and different things like that. Do I always have to run out to a CVS because I've forgotten something? Yes, but my bag has a little bit of everything. You can find toupee tape, you can find mic tape and band-aids in different colors. It's a multitude of things that I travel with.
Nick Petrella:Yeah, I wouldn't even think of that. I guess if I was in it I would.
Andy Heise:Don't get behind a makeup artist in the security line.
Jerrilyn Duckworth:Oh my gosh. They have so many questions Like what's this?
Andy Heise:I can only imagine, why are?
Jerrilyn Duckworth:you flying with this? Is this sharp? And I'm just like, listen, I'm just trying to get through TSA and I have pre-checked, so it's a little better. Um, and I, I fly a lot through my home airport so they they know where I'm going and what I'm coming with. So it's one of those things are oh, you're flying for a job gotcha, like, just as long as it meets the requirements of like liquids and all so things you think about, yeah yeah sure thanks for listening.
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