Over fifty ferociously imaginative emerging artists are working together to bring our world premiere of Folk Wandering roaring into reality. Throughout the run of the show (until March 25!), we’ll be sharing interviews with each of these artists. These conversations will bring you inside this show’s very unique process of creation, and bring you a bit closer to this brilliant and wild group of emerging artists. Today, we are pleased to bring you a spotlight on our cellist, Sydney Torin Shepherd.
Read the full interview below and get your tickets to performances February 23 – March 25 today!
Pipeline Theatre Company: What first attracted you to Folk Wandering? What made you want to work on this project?
Sydney Torin Shepherd: The show was in need of a cellist and my bandmate/partner Adrian Enscoe plays Bobby Lombardi and connected me with the folks from the project. I was so thrilled to be on board because I’d fallen in love with the songs while hearing Adrian work on them! And now seeing how they are woven into the story is so compelling.
PTC: What aspect of the Folk Wandering story do you most relate to?
STS: The character of Rosaelia reminds me so much of myself as a young teenager: curious, inventive, and headstrong, always creating (even if it meant embellishing the truth) and living her life inside of her future dreams.
PTC: If you were to write a tagline for Folk Wandering, what would it be?
STS: What we dreamed. What we found. What we left behind.
PTC: What first attracted you to the cello?
STS: When I was a tiny kid I had a My First Orchestra book, and I became fixated on the description it gave for the cello: “The sound of a cello reminds you of the color purple and stormy nights”. And I was like “That’s totally me!” I asked my mom to help me pick out the sound of the cello from the music we’d listen to and we both made a game of finding the cello in songs. After years of insisting to my parents that I needed cello lessons I started at age 7. I love that I knew at such a young age that it would become a huge part of my life.
PTC: What big dreams have you been chasing recently (or would you like to chase)?
STS: My band Bandits On The Run has been jonesin’ to go to Europe and we are finally making that dream happen! We won a songwriting competition and will be flown to London right after the run of Folk Wandering to record our song and embark on a little tour. I think the big dream is that we’ll capture every heart in Europe and then come back and conquer the US 🙂
PTC: Two truths and a lie, go:
STS: I’m a champion 4-leaf clover finder and have a collection of them stashed in a Shakespeare Anthology. I spent a summer as a professional clown in a hippie mountain town in North Carolina. I once played in a My Chemical Romance cover band.
Folk Wandering is just opened and is running through March 25. Tickets are now available to all performances. Get your tickets today!
