Interview with guest artist Deonna Marie
Deonna Marie gives her Whitney Houston performance with Adèle Wolf Productions. Photo by Diana Bittle at DSB Photos.
Deonna Marie is unstoppable. As a classically trained singer with three degrees in vocal performance who has the rare ability to sing all genres, from Mozart to Aretha Franklin, Deonna Marie has blossomed into one of the world’s most powerhouse performers. Her one-woman show, “The Deonna Marie Experience: From the Crack House to the Opera House” premieres at Factory Obscura on August 10, running through August 27.
Deonna has been touring with NPR’s “The Moth” and has now performed multiple times on The Moth MainStage around the country.
Jennifer Hixson, Senior Director of NPR's "The Moth" says: “Something out of this world chose Deonna as an instrument! Deonna electrifies any room she enters...Her stories are a testimony to the power of music, light, laughter and saucy jokes and sage-like wisdom. She’s a beam of light, a bolt of lightning and her songs open like a huge umbrella, sheltering us all from the storm.”
We are so thankful to Deonna for taking the time to have a vulnerable and truthful conversation with us about her show, life, and getting out of the quicksand.
Factory Obscura: Hi Deonna! When did you move to OKC?
Deonna Marie: I moved to Oklahoma City in 2008, and what brought me here is I got a partial voice scholarship to Oklahoma City University. I got accepted into the school, but it schooled me and I was tripping out. I was really tripping out about it. First of all, I didn't think that I could ever do that, like, I was smart enough, I was good enough. And so to be accepted and then to be here, it was almost like an out-of-body experience because I didn't know how I got here, you know?
What made you apply or even think it could be a possibility?
That's a really great question. Scott Bosher came to Grand Rapids Community College as a new adjunct teacher, and he heard my voice for the first time in masterclass and said, “Oh my God! You need to go to OCU and you need to find Florence Burwell. She's really famous and it's gonna be very hard to get in her studio, but she's the person for you.” And I'm like, who is that? Who are you? (Laughs)
I didn't think I could do it because I had taken music classes there for four years. When you come into junior college, you of course hope to get out in two years, while I was taking the same classes still two years later, because I just didn't get it. I didn't understand music. But I stayed and stayed and stayed until I started getting it, you know? And then Scott Bocher comes along and tells me to level up. “No, no,” I’m thinking, “I'm fine at this level. I'm just now getting this level!” But, I auditioned and I got in.
What kind of music did you hear throughout your childhood?
There wasn't a lot of music in my household growing up. My mom liked George Michael, and she liked Anita Baker here and there. She liked gambling cards and card parties. That was the primary music in the background of my life.
It wasn't until I got into my first foster home, that my foster mom really said, “You have something really special.” She had me singing all the time and everywhere in front of everybody. “Dede sing for the mailman, sing for the grocery store clerk,” you know, just all the time. And so I think I started believing that maybe something was a little bit different, but that the household that I remember the most music from, was my foster mom. And it was mostly R&B. Some gospel music. I lived with my aunt as well when my mom went away. You'll know about that in the show. Only gospel music in her house. You could not sing worldly music in her house.
What does having three degrees in vocal performance mean?
For me, it means doing something that I thought I never could do. Something that I was told I could never do, that I would never attain. For me, it is 15 years of hard work and concentration on something that I thought I never could do or I ever would do. It means experiences in music that have unfolded for me, through me. It means I can do anything I want to do as a vocalist.
The world premiere of your one-woman show, “The Deonna Marie Experience: From the Crack House to the Opera House” begins August 10th at Factory Obscura. What is the show about?
My life story. My truth. Part of what it looks like to love and accept yourself, where you are, where you've come from. They will see, I think, a rawness that I've never expressed. And I think it's very important for me to be vulnerable. Living your truth and to stand in your truth is really important. But I think a lot of people, for some reason, tend to hide from it. We tend to not want people to know that I used to do this or I used to do that. And so we kind of cover it up. But then we bury it, we bury it even from ourselves. I'm hoping this gives people permission to be themselves and to let go and be free, and to look at everything that has happened to them in their life as a gift.
How will you keep your energy up for multiple performances each night?
This is not for me. This is a gift for others. You know what I mean? I've done all the work to heal already. I've done the work to know that this is a gift I can give. And it's gonna be hard for some people. It's gonna be very emotional, I think, for some people. However, I wouldn't change my life for anything because every single thing that I've gone through has been not only a gift for me, but for the world at large. And I know that.
Do you know that you have very contagious, positive, beautiful energy? Are you aware of that?
First of all, it feels so rewarding to hear that. I've worked my ass off to do that. It's going through the grit. I had to learn how to walk through quicksand and smile because guess what? I made it to the other side. You know, when we go through different times in life and meet different types in life, and they beckon us to be different than who we are. When it feels like toxic things are being poured on you, it helps you to just melt down. But you, you're not really that, you become that by accident. And I did become that by accident for a time, or whatever it was. Maybe it was supposed to be that way. So I would be able to bloom through brokenness, you know?
How do people get out of quicksand? Of feeling stuck?
First, we have to stop comparing ourselves to others. We have our own unique journey and our own unique path. And nobody knows all the answers. Everybody's still trying to figure it out, you know?
It's really important to look at yourself literally in the mirror. Your words are very powerful, but you must believe in them. You look at yourself in the mirror and you tell yourself, “Nah, this isn't it for me. This will not break me. Oh, you tried it!” So when things happen to me, I'm like, you tried to set me!” (Laughter) I knew that my story was important and significant to help raise the consciousness of humanity. This I always knew. I just didn't know how. And as I grew and I was able to anchor myself, more information came, you know, and then more doors just started opening. Things literally just fell into place.
What has the collaboration process been like for you to do a one-woman show?
They say it takes a village. It really does. I feel that I've had the best people come into my life and in my circle during this time. It's just perfect. Collaboration has revealed the minds of other people to me, how other people work. It's helped me to stretch myself and helped me to grow. It's allowed me a close knit group of people that I can rely on and kind of relax.
I haven't been able to do that a lot in my life. And it feels so good. And if it wasn't for everybody that I was collaborating with, I don't know if I would've experienced that. Do you see what I mean? So, the show is great. I'm really happy about all the things, but I got a gift out of that that I will not miss. I can fall back and I know that I'm caught and I'm supported genuinely. And that right there is everything to me. It's already done.
I would love to be able to actually be myself and feel more authentic naturally.
Deonna Marie gives her performance ofI Put a Spell on You with Adèle Wolf Productions. Photo by Diana Bittle at DSB Photos.
Oh no. See, this is what makes me me. This is what's different. This is the secret. I don't tell everybody this is the secret! It's I'm myself all the time. This is who you get all the time. It doesn't matter what room I'm in, who I'm meeting. I don't care what you've accomplished, how much money you have, none of that. I'm always me.
I'm not asking permission to be myself. If more people just were just unapologetically themselves, then you think, “What's the root?” For a long time, I didn't want people to see my past and judge me. I didn't want people to look at me differently because I'm different. So, for a long time, I put myself in a spiritual corset, and it was so uncomfortable. Who wants to do that?
I lived most of my life very uncomfortable. And then I realized it was for other people and it wasn't for me. So now I’m myself all the time, and a lot of people feel very free around me, and that makes me so happy. I'm like, yeah, let it out, girl! That's another thing that I'm hoping people feel at my show: free! Take off their look, take off your bra, your hair! If you want to take your shoes off and just be who you are, do it. This is not a stuffy space.
Your voice is such an instrument! You can sing Mozart, Aretha Franklin. That seems so rare and unbelievable. That's wild. I don't even know if there's a question. It's just like, how do you get to the point where you can sing?
I couldn't sing anything else but classical music for probably three or four years, which was very difficult for me to do. I couldn't transfer jazz, gospel, and R&B to classical until I mastered the classical fully.
I was really, really big in church at the time. I had to like, stop going to church because I was singing with the choir all the time, you see? So I couldn't go out to different things. I had to just isolate. And that was really difficult to do, but it was worth it, you know? This also goes back to what we're saying because, even in going to school for classical music, they tried to put you in a box. If you sing classical music, we only want you to sing classical music.
And we only want you to sing soprano, Metso soprano. You know, it's all different kinds. But I could sing all of it, you know? And I didn't like being put in a box. So every school that I've ever gone to, they tried to put me in one, because that's kind of what you do. You master this. I'm like, but I've mastered all of it…You know what I mean?
In the classical world, it might be frowned on a little bit, but this is me being who I want to be. I love all the music, and I can do it all, and it all moves me. You know what I mean?
What is your favorite?
That’s hard! But I love classical music. Nothing moves me like that.
Do you miss the communal aspects of singing with others that church brings?
Yes. It was a big part. When I went to live with my aunt, we went to church I think five days a week. I was tired of church. I didn't wanna see anybody's church. Nobody wants to go to church that much! But we were there. So it depends.
I’ve lived with different people in different homes, so it depended on what home I was at. But I was really kind of anchored in church a lot because that was all I had. That was the only stability that I had throughout my life.
Deonna Marie tells her story on The Moth MainStage in New York City, June 2023. Photo courtesy The Moth and Peter Cooper.
How did you get started performing for The Moth, then touring with them, and now performing multiple times on The Moth MainStage?
Last year before I started really writing the show, a friend of mine said, “You should workshop some of your stories. And I got this perfect place!”
I had never told live stories before anywhere. It started at OKC Improv. And they wanted a story, and they wanted to make an improv out of the story. So I did my jailhouse celebrity story there, and they just had eight people improvising this story out after I said it. It wasn't funny the first way we wrote it, but then, with Elizabeth, she was like, “Let's make it a comedy.” Right? So we did that.
The Moth was in Tulsa doing a porch tour and it was suggested I should come to audition and see what happens. So I go to Tulsa and I told one of my stories. But not the Celebrity Jail House story. I'm getting ready to leave and my coach, Michelle, asks if I have any other stories. I'm like, yeah, I got this one story, girl. I went to jail!
And so I started telling her right then. And she was like, “Oh, yeah, we want that!” I didn't know what that meant. I didn't know what she was talking about.
The next thing I know, I get a call to do one of the main stages. It kind of snowballed from there. I've been asked to tell my same story, which, parts of it will be in the show, and I'm really excited about that. I've been to four different places now, and I've just been asked to go to Canada in September, and then I'll be doing it again in Tulsa in November.
That seems like a life-changing moment. How did that experience help you grow as an artist?
The Moth has helped me tremendously. As an artist, I'm used to performing. I'm used to giving a show. The Moth beckons you only to be yourself. That's it.
That was hard for me because I wanted to like, hype it up and just make people laugh. They don't want you to do any of that. They just want you to be you. And that was a big help. They gave me permission and encouraged me to be real.
That's not even what people need. Okay. Let's just be real. Okay. And so, The Moth has given me permission to just do that. Every time that I perform it, and I'm only singing one line, helps me understand it’s not just about my voice.
It's about me. It's about my story. And I'm not used to that. I wasn't used to that! I was used to people wanting a song, or for me to act or do something else. To just be me, and understand that’s what it’s about, that was trippy.
Do you have an affirmation that you love?
One of the songs in the show is called “I Am” and it's an affirmation song. I say it a lot: I am worthy, I am enough, I am unstoppable. I use different affirmations every day, and today it's, I am unstoppable.
You are unstoppable! I think we all feel more unstoppable after this conversation. Thank you, Deonna!
