We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Jennie Fahn. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Jennie below.
Jennie, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Did you always know you wanted to pursue a creative or artistic career? When did you first know?
I was eight years old, sitting in the mezzanine of the Majestic Theater when I saw her – Stephanie Mills – playing Dorothy in ‘The Wiz.’ I don’t think my back touched the cushion of the seat the whole time. I remember leaning over so hard to just want to be closer to her. The next day, I went home and typed up a version of an-exact-word-for-word-duplication of the script (as best as my eight year old brain could remember), and me and my best friend and her brothers put on some kind of really terrible living room version of ‘The Wiz’ for our parents. I was definitely hooked. In my pre-show warm-up to my one-woman show, I listen to Stephanie Mills singing ‘Home.’ Sometimes, I can only listen to it about halfway through, because it’s a little too much.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
I have been an actor in all the various mediums for many years, and as I like to say, if you watch TV without blinking, you have likely seen me somewhere (perhaps when I played the Polish deli owner on I’M DYING UP HERE on Showtime or as a cleaning lady on THE MIDDLE.) There’s a lot of other things, you can look me up on IMDb. I’ve done a lot of theatre, and I did a one-woman show called YOU MUTHA! A One-Mother Show, that featured my mom as a character. She became the star of that show, and people clamored for a sequel. But over the years, my mom’s health faded, and she ultimately passed – as many older parents do – and I wondered if people really wanted to hear that story. I tested a monologue in front of a workshop, and it turned out people really did want to hear that story. That turned into a show called UNDER THE JELLO MOLD, which premiered at the Hollywood Fringe Festival in 2017, and actually won Best Solo Performance, Pick of the Fringe, and an Encore Award.
I have been doing the show since, in Los Angeles and beyond, and audiences are so appreciative of the show. It’s the true story of the end of my mom’s life. The title refers to where she kept her end-of-life instructions, but it turned out she was also hiding a secret. The beauty of the show is that it’s all true, and it’s all very honest. It doesn’t pull any punches. My mom is revealed to be a difficult, but loving person. I think we all have people like that in our lives, and that is what makes it so relateable. I love that people feel like they’ve met my mom after they’ve seen it. It’s a wonderful way to pay tribute to her, and to make people laugh at the same time. People see it and they want to come back and see it again. Laughter is cathartic. It’s a joy to spread it around.
Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?
As a member of the ‘sandwich’ generation, I had to take time off from my career to truly focus on taking care of my kids and my parents at the same time. It was a hard decision, but I when I found myself on the phone with my agent saying no to a callback because I was at the emergency room with my mom, I realized, something has to give. And I decided that family comes first. I took a solid six years away from the business. And not to seem sexist, but generally, this duty tends to fall to the females in the family. No, wait. I’m apologizing. That’s so female. See? I’m being unintentionally sexist. This is why therapy is great.
Any resources you can share with us that might be helpful to other creatives?
I really wish I had learned the value of networking. Everything you do stems from who you know. And I don’t mean that in a negative way. It’s a positive thing. You have to go out, meet people, find out what they do, how you can help each other, support each other, get into a community of supportive people, learn from others, and just get to know a lot of people who are doing the things that relate to what you want to do. Spielberg is not going to take my calls, no matter how many times my mother told me, “You should call Spielberg!”
Contact Info:
- Website: www.UnderTheJelloMold.com
- Instagram: @jenniefahn
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jenniefahnactor
- Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/jennie-fahn
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@jenniefahn8591
Image Credits
Photos by Tom Cavanaugh and David Beatty