Interview With Cherish Evans

I went to school at UNC University of Northern Colorado and Greeley for musical theater. So I’ve been doing theater for a really really long time.  theater is my absolute passion. I would die without it and I always say how amazing that I feel that I have the opportunity to present who Humanity to individuals in the audience and that they’re able to see different relationships and connections and emotions and live theater is amazing. There’s nothing like it on in this world.

how did you get connected to theater?

I’ve always had such a bright personality. So my parents just kind of threw me into voice lessons and then I had a vocal teacher who also taught drama and then I kind of just knew after that. That was something I really wanted to do.

what are the things you’ve been learning on the business side? 

you have to be yourself.  There’s a lot of hard work that goes into it from physically taking care of yourself making sure you go to the gym regularly, doing voice lessons and staying hydrated. you’re constantly looking up or working on new music or choreography. I am nobody’s dancer, choreo can be really difficult for me. So I take a lot of dance classes so that I can try and work on my craft as much as possible

Audition audition audition. There’s going to be a million no’s but there will always be one Yes. The more shows you do in the community, The more people will hear about you and you’ll be able to get to a point where you have a collection of opportunities and you get to pick and choose] what you like the best.   Make sure your resume is updated and make sure you’re always ready. I have a workbook in my car with sheet music and a monologue at all times because I never know when the opportunity will happen. My parents did not let me pass an opportunity. if they told me to sing in front of somebody I better open my mouth.

what is your biggest challenge when it comes to growing in theater career? 

The biggest challenge is one accepting that you’re gonna have to do some free work, which is tough when you put so much into your craft. And unfortunately, the Arts is one of the most underfunded things that we have in our community. We just don’t have a ton of funding when it comes to Community Theater. So you do do a lot of work for free and that can be really discouraging sometimes. I don’t know if that’s one of the biggest things in the and the other thing is being a black female and asking a director ] to take a chance on me and knowing that it is a risk. It’s a chance some of these traditional musicals don’t have any black women in their caste or any black men in their tasks. So when you go for an audition and it’s normally this blond woman with white Skin and blue eyes and you’re like, I want you to consider me. It’s a risk. It’s a challenge. It’s super scary. But you have to do it.   it’s very challenging when there are not a lot of roles that are built for me or for my type.

Anything you would like to share to encourage 

I would say just continue to believe in yourself.I would encourage the black community to really be involved in the theater. It’s really frustrating  as an artist when you look into the crowd. And the first thing we do as black actors is we count how many black faces we see. even that one face makes me so happy and so excited to know that they’re experiencing theater ,  makes me want to work and give my absolute all so that they come back