Jul 8, 2026 · 1 hr 24 min · 13 segments
Years before she ever thought she'd actually play her, Deanna Cudjoe performed Cassie's monologue in a college acting class and texted her old teacher the day she booked the real thing. Deanna is the…
Deanna CudjoeGuestGabbyHostAnd then you're like, okay, we're going on a tour.
I think there's, like, something to be said, though, because as I'm listening to you just explaining the, like, roller coaster that is your college experience, maybe you recognize this now, but...
I feel like probably a lot of people saw your hunger and your openness, which I think is so, so rare to, like, be able to pivot.
Because myself included, I feel like it's really easy to, like, have this big dream, right? Like, being in a ballet company, being a rockette, whatever.
Yeah.
Sometimes that like does not work out for whatever reason, mostly because it was not meant for you.
But like, obviously, that's very hard to see and understand.
But you were just like, hey, let me actually follow this other thing and do it kind of fearlessly, which I think is extremely, extremely rare, which I am now inspired.
I know you mentioned this of... a little bit of like the naivety around it of like i don't know i'm just going do you think yeah that in terms of the musical theater route helped you in the beginning especially everything's typecasted in like the dance world but specifically musical theater as well yeah that kind of help you of like i don't really know i'm just gonna go and it maybe landed you more opportunities than if you didn't have those like rose colored glasses on
I've talked to friends who are musical theater school who told me like, yeah, my teachers told me I was the ingenue.
Like I was just like go based off what people say makes you shine, which is just being you.
And it's like the more I learn now, the more I like yearn for when I didn't know.
You
And then you're like, okay, we're going on a tour.
I think there's, like, something to be said, though, because as I'm listening to you just explaining the, like, roller coaster that is your college experience, maybe you recognize this now, but...
I feel like probably a lot of people saw your hunger and your openness, which I think is so, so rare to, like, be able to pivot.
Because myself included, I feel like it's really easy to, like, have this big dream, right? Like, being in a ballet company, being a rockette, whatever.
Yeah.
Sometimes that like does not work out for whatever reason, mostly because it was not meant for you.
But like, obviously, that's very hard to see and understand.
But you were just like, hey, let me actually follow this other thing and do it kind of fearlessly, which I think is extremely, extremely rare, which I am now inspired.
I know you mentioned this of... a little bit of like the naivety around it of like i don't know i'm just going do you think yeah that in terms of the musical theater route helped you in the beginning especially everything's typecasted in like the dance world but specifically musical theater as well yeah that kind of help you of like i don't really know i'm just gonna go and it maybe landed you more opportunities than if you didn't have those like rose colored glasses on
I've talked to friends who are musical theater school who told me like, yeah, my teachers told me I was the ingenue.
Like I was just like go based off what people say makes you shine, which is just being you.
And it's like the more I learn now, the more I like yearn for when I didn't know.
You
Every episode on Radar is fully transcribed, speaker-labeled, and rich with metadata. Here is a taste of this one. Try Radar for free to see the rest.
3 of 5
Already A Ballerina
Counselor reframed Deanna’s entire ballet journey
Stop Caring, Dance Changed
Breakdown leads to breakthrough in next class
Chasing Ballet Perfection
Deanna reveals early struggles with ballet
+2 more clips · 3 min 15 sec of audio in all
The rest of this transcript — segmented and speaker-labeled, so you land on the exact moment something was said
All 5 clips — the highlight moments, each cut as its own audio, with a title and a speaker
All 13 segments — the transcript broken into labeled sections, every ad read marked
All 25 topics — jump to every other episode discussing the same subject
Every related episode — other shows Radar links to this one
No account is needed to search Radar.
