We were lucky to catch up with Joanie Sigal recently and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, Joanie thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Can you talk to us about a project that’s meant a lot to you?
I grew up singing in church and learning the early Broadway musicals. To this day, Broadway musical music is my favorite to perform. There is a publishing company in Los Angeles that publishes the fiction works of L. Ron Hubbard from the 1930s and 1940s called Galaxy Press. Galaxy Press was coming to Clearwater to do a big event and feature one Mr. Hubbard’s science fiction short stories – The Planet Makers. The producer of the show asked if I would sing the operatic number from the movie with Bruce Willis – The Fifth Element. In the movie, the song is sung by a beautiful but alien lady. I spent many hours perfecting the song – even though I cannot hit the high notes, so had to change the tune a bit. It turned out pretty nice. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7NTtMVemsk One of my proudest achievements as a singer. I have never sung opera before or since.
Joanie, 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?
I began singing as a little girl and everyone around me thought I was super cute, so I grew up singing. At first I sang in the church choir. When I was in my early 20s, my dad got me a gig singing for the Rotary Club in Honolulu. From there I branched out to doing stage musicals. I didn’t get paid to do it with one big exception. In 1973, a production company from Los Angeles came to Honolulu to do a big night club type show called Paradise Found at the Hilton Hawaiian Village Dome. I met the costumer and while I told him that I’m not Polynesian (figuring they would need that), he said that there was room for a few haoules (white people) and so I was cast. I performed in the show for a year and a half and made nice money while doing that. I thoroughly enjoyed it but the show eventually ran its course and closed. Since then, I got married and had two boys. From there on, I mainly did community theater until the early 2000s when I teamed up with a talented singer – Tom Godfrey – and we did paid gigs in south Florida for a few years. During much of this time I worked with my husband in our marketing business. In 2017, we discovered the medium of podcasting and we started a podcast about drug and alcohol addiction. We have been doing interviews weekly in this area including law enforcement, government, former addicts, families who have lost people to addiction and many more. We have over 700K cumulative downloads and continue to do that. While doing this, I sang locally mostly using back up tracks but in November 2022, I met Caroline Veach – a fantastic accompanist and now we perform together – mostly Broadway music. Those two activites and creating a vibrant online community of ladies over 50 AND 4 grandchildren take up all of my time.
Is there mission driving your creative journey?
I would say that my goal or mission is to make people happy. I am very happy when I sing and I am always delighted when I can create a positive emotional impact on those who listen. Similarly, when I interview on the podcast, I want the person to know that I truly care about the struggles they have or are experiencing.
What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?
Making people happy.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://theaddictionpodcast.com
- Other: https://silverhairsisterhood.com