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Exclusive: Konversations with Keeme: A Chat with Randye Kaye
7K views
Oct 30, 2022
Fourteen year old Ajibola Tajudeen, better known as Keeme, is the host of New Paradigm Theatre's web series now in it's third season here on BroadwayWorld. 'Konversations with Keeme' is show where Keeme interviews seasoned television and film professionals like Tamara Tunie of Law and Order: Special Victims Unit and Renee Lawless of Tyler Perry's The Have and the Have Nots, as well as Broadway veterans such as Emmy and Grammy winner, Paul Bogaev, and Broadway pros Christine Dwyer, Kelly Grant, Juwan Crawley and more.
View Video Transcript
0:00
Hello, my name is Aja Vola, Tajidina, but you can call me Kimi
0:13
And today, watching Conversations with Kimi, a show we ask stuff and we make stuff
0:18
Today, to go with our rock star theme on Bye Bye Birdie, which is August 16th and 17th at the Black Rock Church
0:24
we are going to be painting rocks and decorating them with an amazing guest today, whose name is Raymond
0:30
She is an actress, a singer, a radio host, an author, a speaker, and a coach
0:35
And she's playing May, correct? I am playing May. Can you name some of your other credits for us
0:39
Sure. I spend quite a lot of time playing Sister Robert Ann in Nonsense, directed by Danny Coggin
0:46
In seven, Nonsense 1 and Nonsense 3. And I think Nunk crackers, I'm not sure
0:53
I played Nancy and Oliver twice. I have played Lucy and Charlie Brown twice
1:00
I have played some straight roles as well. Being a talk show host myself, I know it can be hard sometimes
1:08
You're the host of a radio show. I am. Called the Life Talk Show
1:12
What is that like? And what do you talk about? Well, actually what we envision this as kind of like the view
1:17
which is a bunch of female panelists, but on the radio. So there are three of us, and I work the board and do all the..
1:24
Who are the other two? The other two are Nicky Tumble Ladies, who is a friend of mine who runs out of a house
1:29
who runs a house cleaning company and our friend Diana Hall who was a middle school teacher
1:35
and is now an interior designer So if he is kind of a loose cannon loud mouth Greek girl and I am the voice of a reason and the person who runs the board And Diana is the nice blonde former school teacher who now a classy interior decorator
1:52
So we, like you, we have a conversation with our guests and our mission is conversations to enrich and empower your life
2:00
So from what I've heard about you, you do voiceovers? I do. That is my main gig
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That's how I make most of my union money. What are some of your credits from voiceovers
2:12
I currently have a public service announcement running for the Aquarian Water Company
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I was watching HGTV the other day and I went, oh, there's my commercial. I had done quite a lot of radio commercials
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I was the voice of the price-line phone system for about 14 years
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And just recently they went a little more millennial with the voice, and that happens
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I have voiced at least 110 audiobooks. You know that you made your own book called Ben Behind His Voices
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What is that about? And what was it like writing it? Wow, that is a memoir
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One of my agents called it a prescriptive memoir. A memoir about my family's experience with my son's mental illness, schizophrenia
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And I wanted to write a memoir that gave people hope because most of the things I read about schizophrenia ended in a tragedy
3:02
And my son is actually doing quite well with treatment. And so we wanted to show what the family goes through
3:08
but also that with treatment and purpose and love and community and structure
3:15
that somebody with mental illness can do very well. What can we find the book
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Find the book on Amazon. Ben Behind His Voices on Audible in your library in Barnes Noble places like that it still available for sale What was the funniest voice that you ever done and can you show us
3:40
Sure. There's one little girl who I kind of based on Lucy and Charlie Brown, because she was like the mean girl in the first grade
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She's kind of like this, and you've got to make it really nice. And you have to change your visual expression
3:51
and then the little boards were a little more tough, and you're kind of like this. You have to have a different kind of stance and mouth placement for each character that you do
4:00
and a different personality in your mind. As we know, you're going to be May in Bye Bye Birdie, Correct
4:06
And as we know, the show is about Conor and Bertie or Elvis getting drafted into the army
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And our nonprofit partnership is with the American veterans. And we would like to know what are some words of encouragement that you would give to the young men
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women in the army. Advice. I can't give personal advice, but I would just say thank you
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And hang in there because I know you missed your families, but the country appreciates you
4:36
and your work is important. What advice would you give to young leaders in our audience
4:42
Young leaders in your audience. Getting a chance to be a leader is just as important as whatever it is you study in school
4:54
Learn from other leaders, learn from each other, make your decisions, notice the consequences
5:04
of your decisions, and especially with leadership collaboration is hugely important. Don think that leadership is a dictatorship That why I love theater so much but really any kind of teamwork sports teams it the same thing It the team members with each other It the team members relationship
5:20
to the coach or the director or the other players. And collaborative leadership is where
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to use a cliche, the whole is truly greater than the song of its parts. Like we come together
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And in this world where we're all stuck on our smartphones, I think that the more we have in-person collaborative leadership
5:40
collaborative decision-making, but with someone whose final say matters because otherwise we'll just have collaborative chaos and that's not a good thing. He has people and teams and friends
5:53
and we all need that. Let's show our work. Okay, so this is my rock. It just says by, three
5:59
B's, bye-bye, birdie. Okay, back was supposed to be a K but then it kind of turned into like a
6:04
K-star type of thing. BB Birdie. Oh. So I had the BB
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The BB. Bebe Birdie. Remarkably like yours. Look at that. And I juice some hearts because I love working with you guys
6:23
And I love the mission of New Paramed Theater. So that's the hearts. Well, thank you so much for joining us here on Conversations with Kimi
6:30
I hope you enjoyed yourself because I enjoyed myself. And I want to tell you guys to make sure that you remember your voice is your power
6:36
So use it. Key me out. Conversations with Kimmer. is produced with support from the Department of Economic and Community Development, Connecticut Office of the Arts, which also received support from the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency
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