050: Recollections in Creative and Cultural Realms

Catalyst: A Creative Industries Podcast

Catalyst is a Creative Industries podcast, from Chapman University. Each episode features Chapman students who have completed a Podcasting course through the Center for Creative and Cultural Industries at the university. Students who had no podcasting experience or technical ability in the genre before taking the course were able to contribute all the segments to Catalyst this season with the goal being that they will take this ‘hands-on’ experience and carry it over to the launching of their very own series. Each episode of Season 7 will feature one to two different interviews conducted by CCI students, exploring different aspects of the Creative and Cultural Industries.

Vanessa Eliasson interviews actor/writer Grant Goodwin in this week’s first segment. Grant, whose work can be seen in such vehicles as Hart of Dixie, Tropical Cop Tales, and the upcoming season of Stranger Things, recounts his start in the business at a young age, and the pros & cons of changes he has seen over the past several years working as an actor. The two discuss Grant’s love of writing and how his work gravitates toward a more comic bend. They wrap up the conversation talking about what is taking priority in his career right now and what his hopes are for some of his recent writing projects.

In segment two, Ru Chen speaks with the Public Programs and Collections Manager at the Chinese American Museum, Rachelle Shumard. Rachelle and Ru delve into what a Public Programs and Collections Manager does in general, as well as how the pandemic caused museums and cultural centers to rethink how they operate in order to stay afloat during Covid. They also acknowledge that the virtual programing developed during the pandemic allowed greater audiences to access museum programing, and how that now is a part of museum plans even in a returning to in person programing. A self-professed lover of History, Shumard enjoys the aspects of her job that allow the community to reclaim lost or forgotten history, which can, as we learn in this segment involve events and even physical locals.