In the mid-2010s, young girls everywhere entered the work force. The prospect of virality on the then-lawless Youtube platform was a carrot on the end of Mom’s selfie stick, and young creators like Grace Cascio (’28) were hungry. Equipped with an iPod, “activator”, and a dream, Grace made the same difficult choice fellow entrepreneurs had to make at the start of every day: Would she compose a new song for her BFF and record it in her producer’s (Dad’s) homemade basement studio? Or, would she film her sister creating a new slime video for their Youtube channel, Rainbow Gumdrops, for their five thousand subscribers? These were serious matters.
As the particular responsibilities of being a singer-songwriter and Youtuber faded through the years, the self-proclaimed theater kid’s journey between artist and producer was far from over. Early on in her senior year of high school, Grace committed to the Music and Entertainment Industries program at William Paterson with a feeling that she wouldn’t be able to do anything outside of the music industry (“If I were going to be an accountant, it’d need to be for a production company”). With this one thing certain, she figured it’d be best to “study the whole industry, just in case.”
Cascio, currently a sophomore, stands out among the crowd because her idea of “just in case” is far from the passive effort her humble attitude might lead you to think. In her quest of determining what it is she might want to do for the long-term, she has written and produced a three-song EP (all of which have music videos), organized two cabarets, and brings in millions of views to the music department’s social media pages, all in the name of “just experimenting and seeing what goes well and what doesn’t.”
Excluding her origins as the Rainbow Gumdrops tycoon, the start of Grace’s professional career can be traced back to her senior year of high school, when her dad encouraged her to build up a portfolio for college. These efforts brought to life her EP “Heart Half Empty: Trilogy from the RUBA”, complete with music videos that she was able to produce through crowdfunding.
“I didn’t really go [into creating the EP] thinking I wanted to be a famous artist, but I also went in thinking I wasn’t sure if I wanted to do all the background stuff, too. I had no idea what I wanted to do, so I figured it would give me an opportunity to explore all of it.”
As one could imagine, boldly releasing an EP (or anything original, for that matter) as a high schooler meant inevitably receiving criticism from peers after releasing the first song, “Just a Ghost”. However, Cascio “didn’t want to not finish something [she] had started”, and continued to release two more songs with their corresponding music videos.
“[That experience] definitely made me grow some thick skin and just be like you know what, no one else’s opinion matters. I know me and that’s all that matters.”
An attitude acquired by adversity has only proven itself to aid in her blossoming career. On December 19, Cascio performed in and produced her second cabaret in Philadelphia, a task she gave herself out of pure desire to see more cabarets in the city. From having conceptualized, created, and casted the twelve-person show to having also navigated contracts, a venue change, and advertising, Grace learned every particular detail she would need by experiencing it all on her own.
“If the opportunities are not going to come to me, I have to create them myself. With the cabaret I was like ‘okay, I just have to do this.’…Especially in this industry, you are always waiting for someone else to tell you ‘Yes, you can do this’. You’re always waiting for permission to do it, almost. You’re always auditioning, or whatever you may be doing, you’re always waiting [on] someone else to be able to do something. I was just like, no, I have to do it myself. There was no other option. If there is an idea, I just need to cough up the courage to do it. And it has been the most uncomfortable experience,” Cascio shared through a smile.
Though it wouldn’t seem obvious through her posts as social media intern of the William Paterson Music Department accounts, Cascio feels a wave of self-consciousness any time she makes one of the reels that often get between thousands and hundreds of thousands of views on Instagram. Typically using her own face as a medium of expressing reaction to funny music department-related content, Cascio outgrew her awareness that people would likely judge her with the hope that the more she does it, the easier it will be in the future. This sparked a very proactive conversation about the fear of doing anything in the public eye.
“Doing my own thing and kind of striking up the courage to do my own thing and market it myself is really just the feeling of ‘Am I annoying?’, but I can’t think about it that way. It’s just a mindset switch I had to have…I won’t get anywhere if I don’t share [content] and I just can’t worry about what people are going to think about it. I feel like I do overthink it and I have to tell myself– ‘just stop overthinking it!’”
Although Cascio is gaining all the experience she could need to successfully market herself as an artist, she has put performance on the backburner of her many priorities. Yet, her involvement in her own productions (as well as choir and theater in and outside of school) naturally causes her to be the example of what it really means to take control of your own involvement in the music industry, even if it’s just about figuring it all out.
“Since I am so fascinated by production and how a show and anything live music-related comes together, I just also want to learn about that. Not that I’m putting performance away, because I like doing it, and I love how at school I have the opportunity to do it, but I don’t know if I’d be actively seeking it. Unless something sparks within me in the next few years, but you never know.”
No matter what avenue of the industry her next project may brush up against, Cascio is certainly at work on something, even if today that next “thing” is just an idea. She has proven time and time again that every idea of hers transpires into her reality.
“I think I just have to see where the wind takes me at this point, because I could end up anywhere and need to figure it out along the way. A lot of the time I am just uncomfortable, and I am just starting to be okay with that.”
