Jane Jourdan, the creative mind behind Fit For Broadway talks theatre, fitness and finding community

Jane Jourdan loves Broadway. She also loves staying fit and being health conscious. Thus, Fit For Broadway was born and she has been featuring some of Broadway’s best and helping share tips, recipes and the workout regimens of the stars of the Great White Way.

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Where did your love of theatre come from?

I grew up singing and became really interested in the lyric soprano roles. I went to college for classical voice and opera. After I graduated, it didn’t feel like that was the path I was supposed to be on so with the help of a mentor, I made the transition back to musical theatre. I finally felt like I could sit in a good place with my voice and my passion at that point.

So from there, how did the blog come about?

Two years ago I had this idea of starting a blog. I had always been interested in food and fashion blogs, but I couldn’t really find a blog that was about singing and performing. So I thought about starting ‘A Singer’s Guide to Wellness’ and that became the beginning. Health and fitness has always been a huge part of my life. I had seen the correlation of fitness and being a performer and many of the fitness instructors I knew were also performers so, I thought that was an interesting correlation.

How did you find your focus on what you’d write about?

Originally, Fit For Broadway was going to be just my journey, and it still is intertwined in there, but I started interviewing Broadway performers because I knew they could offer such different advice than I could. From there, it snowballed. Over the past year and a half, I’ve been able to weave in my own story which has been exciting.

What keeps you going?

Another reason I started the blog was that when I moved to New York, I had a hard time finding community. I didn’t really feel like I was settling into any group. I knew there were people who had things in common with me and shared my passions so what keeps it exciting is the community it’s building. Whether that’s other performers or readers in New York or readers who don’t live here. I love getting emails from readers who tell me it’s helping their journey as performers. It keeps it alive for me.

How does it feel to be a part of the Broadway community?

In the beginning, there was a lot of tension within myself that maybe I was neglecting my talents and the drive that was within myself. But really in the last six months, it’s settled in me that I’m doing exactly what I’m supposed to be doing right now. There’s couldn’t be more clear signs. I love singing and performing is my core, but for now, this feels very natural to be doing this. It’s fun to be a part of the community in this way because I get to see a different perspective.

What are you going to do in 2016 that you didn’t do in 2015?

I don’t have huge grand plans of something brand new. The things that have come about through the blog like the apparel line, the ebook and the events have all been really random things that have just fallen into place. Some of them started as dreams but through connections and fate, they fell into place. Having more events and being able to take events outside of New York are things I really want to do more of next year. It’s inspiring to feel like we aren’t separate. When we bring things down to Earth, we can see that we can hang out in a room and performers aren’t so different from the rest of us.

Don’t just sit there! Check out http://www.fitforbroadway.com!

Photography by Jacob Smith