Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Jazz Sunpanich. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Jazz , looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. It’s always helpful to hear about times when someone’s had to take a risk – how did they think through the decision, why did they take the risk, and what ended up happening. We’d love to hear about a risk you’ve taken.

When I was growing up in Thailand, I knew I only wanted to be on the stage, but my generation didn’t have any resources to get there. I didn’t know that I had a choice to leave Thailand and study intensively for Musical Theatre in America. I wasn’t at all prepared to even have a chance to compete to get in. Instead, I went to Silpakorn University for a Bachelor in Music where I spent my 4 years crafting my classical singing skills. Even though I gained very strong knowledge in music and classical singing, I realized that if I wanted to succeed in musical theatre, I had to leave Thailand.

A lot of people with good intentions told me that it would not be easy, which is true. No one believed I could do it. I wasn’t ready and I wasn’t even sure if I could do it but that’s the risk I needed to take. I moved to America even though I wasn’t ready skill wise and money wise. My dad couldn’t afford to send me to graduate school so I went to American River College, a community college in a small town in California. I did everything I could to get myself to where I wanted to be.

I got a lot of opportunities at ARC to work on my craft and to learn even more about musical theatre, but to pursue my dream, I needed to get out and fight for it. Suddenly, in my last semester at ARC, I got accepted to the Open Jar Institute Broadway intensive program in NYC. I took another risk by moving from Sacramento to New York even though, again, I wasn’t ready.

I realize now that it has been my pattern: to take risks whether I’m ready or not. You really can’t wait until you’re ready because you will never be. By taking these risks, I had no choice but to be better. Now I can say that I’m finally competitive and ready but there is still much more to learn. I’m willing to take more risks if that means I will continue moving forward.

Jazz , love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

My name is Jazz Sunpanich and I am a New York actor from Thailand. That’s been my spiel! My acting career started when I bought a one way ticket to America. Since then, I’ve been working nonstop to make my Broadway dream come true.

The challenge that I’ve faced a lot is being a non-native speaker in the American Theatre industry. I had to hide my own accent in order for the casting directors to even consider me for roles. Lately, the industry has been more open and diverse so I am very excited for the future. And funny enough, when I started to embrace who I am, the doors started to open!

At this point, I have 3 versions of myself when it comes to my acting career. The first version is the Americanized version of Jazz. This version is very useful to try to get any roles in which the characters are not from Thailand. The second version is the Americanized version of whatever the industry expects that Thai people would look or sound like. Or being a Thai actor who has small accent to none. The third version is the organic Thai actor when the team needs a real and authentic Thai woman. I’m very proud of how flexible and adaptive I am in order to find my place in the industry, especially in the beginning. I really hope that one day, the industry will see who I am and how I can perfectly fit to tell their story!

The proudest moment I had this year was when I got invited to join the Tony award winner, Baayork Lee’s NAAP (National Asian Artists Project) Broadway community chorus. I was trying to join NAAP since I moved to NYC and after attending their Open Call this year, I’m finally in!

I want to be the first first-generation Thai actor on Broadway. I also saw a lot of Talented young actors from Thailand are coming to pursue their dreams here as well. So at this point, as long as we have a Thai actor representing us on Broadway stage, I’d be very happy.

Are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?

I wish the internet could have provided this much information about the musical theatre industry before I decided to choose a university. I blindly crawled into the industry without knowing exactly what or how to prepare. At that time, I thought that classical singing could help significantly with my Broadway dream only to find out that my technique that I had 4 years of training in doesn’t work for the musical theatre style of singing.

I had to find a teacher who could help me adjust my voice. And once I got my voice to where it’s supposed to sound, I found out that I needed to learn how to belt. If only I had these resources since I was a kid, I would be even further than where I am right now.

Do you think there is something that non-creatives might struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can shed some light?

I think non-creatives might not have a clear understanding about how we measure our success. The Broadway dream is such a long term goal that you have to keep track of your small successes on the way. You see a lot of actors finally making their breakthrough overnight but you don’t see how many hours, months, years or tears it took to get them there.

Lately, you’ve started to see the actor community helping each other celebrate each other’s small wins because we know it’s not healthy or helpful to only give value to ourselves when we book a job. It also relates to every jobs even the non-creative ones. We are so focused on our big accomplishments that we forget to enjoy small successes that happen in our everyday life.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://jazzsunpanich.com
• Instagram: Jazzssmusical
• Facebook: Jazzssmusical
• Youtube: Jazzssmusicalsvlogs

Image Credits

Michael Kushner
Infernal the Musical
Luke and Emma Imdb
ARC Productions
EMH Productions