Our next featured artist/educator in the #AskATeach Series is the one, the only, Sheri Sanders! 
MM: First things first, when did you realize you wanted to have a career in the entertainment industry?
Sheri: I remember being 6 and there was a talent show at PS School #5 in Yonkers, New York and I sang Edelweiss from The Sound of Music, and I got this crazy standing ovation. That was when I knew something was up…. As far as the Industry went, I’d say it was when I moved to NYC, and started taking professional acting classes, joined two theatre companies, and got the cue to start auditioning professionally, because I was getting the same reaction- but I still didn’t quite understand it!
MM: If you were stranded on a desert island, what television shows and movies would you want available to you, (pending that there is internet access of course.)
Sheri: American Bandstand, Soul Train, Hullabaloo, Ed Sullivan, The Smothers Brothers, Sonny and Cher, The Midnight Special, Solid Gold, Dance Fever!
MM: If one were to walk into your home, what books are permanently on your bookshelf?
Sheri: I have 43 Journals I’ve written in, 14 binders of Sheet music of Popular tunes I’ve been collecting and cutting and arranging for the last 12 years, and a handful of books on acting, movement, and of course, a book on Laura Nyro. 
MM: What’s your fondest teaching moment? (Or top three if you can’t pick just one.)
Sheri: When I put a Disco song on young men that are starting to discover their sexuality. Often times when young men are gay and studying musical theatre, we teachers work on “neutralizing” them so no one is thinking about whether they are gay, or straight. We are JUST thinking about their great acting. But Disco music gives them an INCREDIBLE send of freedom to play in their nature. I feel we should teach them to be neutral of course, but also to fully explore and experience their true sexuality as well. Many of their best assets as a performer are in there, and then they can bring those feelings they find being free and true to their nature, and bring them to the “neutral space” for incredible acting.
MM: What words of wisdom would you offer to aspiring performers?
Sheri: Stay away from trying to fit into a type. The market has changed, and people just want you to be you, and connect to the material emotionally, and live in the WORLD of the music. They will decide what role they want to call you back for!
MM: What words of wisdom would you offer to young arts educators?
Sheri: In terms of what I teach, Popular music and Mastering Popular music is a two way street. It takes teachers and their students to master it together. I notice that some young performers come to their teachers for Popular music and guidance on pop/rock, and everyone is lost. If the teacher and the student get together and say, lets study Motown together. Lets make a pandora station, lets watch videos of people performing on American Bandstand, lets watch the people dancing to this music, lets look and listen together, we’ll find a song then both bring our knowledge. It a GREAT collaboration!
I think this goes for any education in any style, everyone is accountable for bringing research to the table. Students and teachers! Make the students do the work too! It cant all be on you, teachers!
MM: In today’s economic state, arts education programs are being cut. What reasons would you give to a political for preserving arts education programming in public schools?
Sheri: Young people are not being parented as much anymore, their teachers have become their parents. their attention span is much shorter, and the ability to be intimate with ANYTHING has been truncated by social media and the immediacy of the internet. The arts insists on a place to put their feelings about their lives, develop self expression, and create intimacy in relationship. To themselves, each other, and an art form.
MM: Who is/was your greatest teacher?
Sheri: My Parents, my Meisner teacher Matthew Corozine, and Oprah!
Thank you, Sheri!
Learn more about what popular audition song is best for you at rocktheperformance.com.
Live, Love, Learn,