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Podcast

Off-Leash Arts: Conversations About Creativity is a podcast in which host Tanya Shaffer talks with artists from a range of disciplines about the creative process.

Singer-Songwriter-Climate Change Activist Vienna Teng: Following A Spirit's Whisper

Vienna Teng is a powerhouse. Her 2013 album AIMS received four independent music awards, including best adult contemporary album, the most any artist has ever received in a given year. Throughout her twenty-year career, she has released five studio albums and two live albums. She also collaborated with Off-Leash Arts host Tanya Shaffer on the musical The Fourth Messenger and sang the role of Mama Sid on the album. During that period, she also received an MB/MS from the Erb Institute for Global Sustainable Enterprise at the University of Michigan and went on to work as Global Director for Sustainable Communities at McKinsey.org. She’s also a new mom. In this episode, host Tanya and Vienna don’t just talk about creativity, they dive into it when Tanya asks Vienna to play around with setting a poem created by the participants in one of her writing workshops to music.

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Writer-Actor-Director-Activist Michael Gene Sullivan: Never Shoot For Compromise

Michael Gene Sullivan is a man of many hats. In this episode of Off-Leash Arts, the prolific playwright-blogger-actor-director-teacher-rabble rouser talks with host Tanya Shaffer about his unusual writing process, his work with the Tony Award-Winning San Francisco Mime Troupe (“always outspoken; never silent”), the concept of the tragic farce, and why you should never shoot for compromise.

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