For this performer, when all else fails? Reinvent yourself.

Las Vegas prides itself on being the entertainment capital of the world. For performer Christine Hudman Pardy, this was the type of place where she could embrace her dream. As the lead female vocalist for “Le Reve,” a premier show at the Wynn Las Vegas, she provided an experience of escape and wonder to a global audience.  

“You have these insane, chaotic days and then you come into the theater, and you’re still,” Ms. Hudman Pardy says. “And we get to take you on this magical ride for a couple of hours. And you leave changed.”

All that came to a halt in March 2020 when her show closed. Her husband, a drummer on Broadway, also lost his job. The two have been almost entirely without work for more than a year, surviving on savings and unemployment, trying to navigate pandemic life with their three teenagers. For Ms. Hudman Pardy, losing her dream job was made even more painful because of what came with it: a loss of her sense of self and artistic expression.

And yet even as she wrestles with the challenges of the year, her drive to grow pushes her to reinvent herself yet again.

“‘Le Reve’ was such a highlight of my career. But what do you do when the show closes?” she says. “There’s a reckoning within you. There has to be. What is the next dream? It’s not done for me.” 

This is Episode 2 of our podcast “Stronger,” which highlights what women have lost to this pandemic and how they’re winning it back. To learn more about the podcast and find other episodes, please visit our page. 

This story was designed to be heard. We strongly encourage you to experience it with your ears, but we understand that is not an option for everybody. You can find the audio player above. For those who are unable to listen, we have provided a transcript of the story below.

AUDIO TRANSCRIPTChristine Hudman Pardy: Le Reve was just magic start to finish.[Music from Le Reve]You walk in and, you know, everything’s sloping down and there’s this giant pool of water. And there’s a bed in the water, floating. You’ve got dry ice coming up. It’s sort of like Narnia or something. You’re reading about it and then you’re in the book. You’re in the story.[Music from Le Reve]You have these insane, chaotic days and then you come into the theater, and you’re still. And we get to take you on this magical ride for a couple of hours. And you leave changed. 

Jessica Mendoza: This is Christine Hudman Pardy. She’s an actor, singer, performer. And until March 2020 she was the lead singer at “Le Reve,” the signature theater production at the Wynn Las Vegas. 

Samantha Laine Perfas: The show was a big deal – it had a cast and crew of about 275 people, won a bunch of awards. It was the only show in Las Vegas that featured a theater in the round in water. 

[Music from Le Reve’s trailer]

Mendoza: We’ve never seen the show live, but we found some videos online. And it’s pretty amazing. There’s people doing backflips and somersaults. Elaborate fountains and soaring music and fire exploding out of the water. It all feels like a really intense dream.

Laine Perfas: Which is kind of appropriate, because “Le Reve” means “the dream” in French. 

Mendoza: The show ran for 15 years, more than 6,000 performances. Christine had been the main female vocalist since 2018 and loved it. 

Laine Perfas: And then the pandemic. 

[Theme music] 

Laine Perfas: I’m Samantha Laine Perfas.

Mendoza: And I’m Jessica Mendoza. This is “Stronger.” 

Laine Perfas: We hear from six women about what they’ve lost to this long, painful pandemic – and how they’re winning it back. 

[Theme music]

[Ambient: Christine and her husband show Jess and Sam memorabilia from their shows]Laine Perfas: Can you walk us through what’s on the wall? It looks like it’s both of your guys’ shows. Hudman Pardy: It’s both of them. Yeah. Mark Pardy: Yeah. Hudman Pardy: That’s – my husband did “Bat Out Of Hell” on Broadway. And that was last – no, not last summer, the summer before? Pardy: Yeah. Hudman Pardy: He was the drummer on “Lion King.” That’s me, like my “Le Reve” poster...Hudman Pardy: It’s mostly you, honey. “Mean Girls” and – and “Spamalot.”Pardy: That’s only ‘cause you just didn’t save any of your stuff.Hudman Pardy: Well, that’s true. He’s got every recording –Pardy: You know, I have everything, like that’s all the albums I played on. And I don’t know, everything’s organized, but she’s like, “Oh yeah, I did this gig with Carole King.” “Oh, did you keep the program?” “No, no, I forgot.” You know, there’s nothing. Hudman Pardy: I hurt for myself and my fellow artists. I know what we give. You know, you’re putting your guts on a plate for people every night. So it feels incredibly frustrating, I don’t know, just like be told, like, “Oh, I heard about your show. God, it’s too bad.” And it’s – it’s not even real. Hudman Pardy: I don’t look for people to come and save me, but I guess I just want people to know that this – this is real. [Music from an ‘80s Las Vegas commercial]Commercial: “...Come get the best of the U.S.A. Come out and play the American way…”Suzanne Chabré: We like to call ourselves the entertainment capital of the world. Commercial: “...Las Vegas in every way, it’s the American way to play!”Chabré: I’m vice president and chief experience officer for the Smith Center for the Performing Arts in Las Vegas.Chabré: Las Vegas sells escape, and entertainment is a big driver in that. We as a community and an industry try to make everything entertaining and over the top.Chabré: Devastating. It’s all there is to say. You’ll find that within a family, somebody is working in that industry and it’s impacting their lives.Hudman Pardy: We went from just, this is great and we can have a good life and we can pay our mortgage. And now we’re just living on unemployment. And we lost our health insurance and we lost all our benefits.Hudman Pardy: – I got to make my kids dinner every night. I mean, even if it was in a Crockpot leaving it for them. But still, I got to come home and they were sleeping in their beds and I was sleeping in my bed. And I got to take them to school in the morning.Hudman Pardy: When it’s a long term gig like this, it’s like, Oh, my God, welcome to being a real adult. I have a 401k. I have insurance for my family through my work. I’m making a great salary. And I get to go home. It was kind of just overwhelmingly positive for those reasons. Hudman Pardy: To get that in this town at 47, and to still feel like, relevant. Because I think in general, as a woman, there’s always someone like younger, smarter, faster, prettier, funnier. And so you have to really do the work to remind yourself that you’re still – I don’t want to say valid, but you know, that there’s still a place for you, and that you have something to say. Hudman Pardy: As a performer, sort of the collective “we” – we’ve all been going through this. So there is some comfort that, you know, you’re not alone. But what’s the future of all of this? I mean, we were the first to go and we’re like going to be the last, last, last to come back.[Montage of different quotes from Christine]Hudman Pardy: It’s like a constant reinvention. … You know, I think as women, we’re constantly reinventing ourselves. … There’s just this constant – reinvention is the only word I can think of. Hudman Pardy: – twenty-five hundred people. My dad – my dad was the wildlife manager on a ranch and my mom was a secretary. So there was no one going off to New York to be an actress.Hudman Pardy: My dad was so cute. He was like, “I don’t know anything about what you’re doing, sister, but I’ll drive you anywhere, you know, you need to go.”Laine Perfas: What a sweet dad. Hudman Pardy: Ended up getting hired, and like, all the leads came from New York. So it was really like this summer is either going to eat you alive or it’s going to create that spark that’s going to make you follow this path. [Music from “Let It Go,” Full Monty Original Broadway Soundtrack] Hudman Pardy: It was amazing, an amazing experience, an amazing cast, and I don’t know, it was just a joy, a joy from start to finish. Cast: “...Let it go!” Hudman Pardy: And it was just one of those things in your career, that you know, it’s like a marker. Everything before that, everything after that. But that was like a special time. Hudman Pardy: I was 32, 33. I can remember taking a mental note like, “It could be a few more great credits, but then what if I can’t have kids?” And just because you can have kids doesn’t mean you need to have them. But for me, I knew I wanted that in my life. You know, I knew I wanted that experience. So I just, I made a conscious decision: “I’ve been in New York 14 years. I’m ready for a change.” Hudman Pardy: – and the month we moved here, I got pregnant. Hudman Pardy: The first years of me being here were just like having small children attached to my body. You know what I mean? And not that I thought it would be easy in Vegas. I just thought that I had some great credits. I figured that there would be a way in for me. And there just really wasn’t a lot for me. You know, I would get called back down to the end for, like, oh, all the shows. And I would just never book it. Hudman Pardy: When you’re away quite a bit or you have children, you’re sort of like, “Oh, God, who am I?” And it’s like trying to marry the old person with a new person and just – it kind of rocked my confidence a lot. You know? I was just like, Ahh.Hudman Pardy: He was gone and gone and gone.Hudman Pardy: – he went to play “Bat Out of Hell” on Broadway. And then he left from New York to go on tour. He did not come home, not for an hour, not for a day, from June ‘til March of the next year.Laine Perfas: Wow. That’s so long.Hudman Pardy: I’d get up at six in the morning and I would take my daughter to high school. I would come back, I’d wake my son up, I would take him to a different school, and then I would like do stuff around the house, because if you don’t do it, it’s not going to get done. Hudman Pardy: And then I had to leave at 4:30. I would go to the show. I’d do sound check at 5:30 and then I would have to get ready.Hudman Pardy: I would do the first show and then in between I’d FaceTime them, make sure they were going to bed and all that, and that they’d eaten. And then I’d get home at like midnight-ish. And I would just clean up the kitchen and I’d get in bed by 1 or 1:30, and then I’d just do the whole thing over again. And I’m not going to lie. It was really tough. It was really tough. Hudman Pardy: The first three months, it was like rediscovering music that we grew up with, dancing all over the house. We were so happy. I think, because we thought after three months we were going back to work. And so then it shifted into the next three months where it was like, OK, a little less dancing, but still so happy we’re together. And then it shifted into the next thing where it’s like – huhhh, oh my god. You know? [Laughter]Hudman Pardy: From a business standpoint, it was a smart decision because you can’t really sustain the running costs with 30 percent capacity. I think from their side, you know, you can understand why for sure. It doesn’t make it hurt less.Hudman Pardy: “Le Reve” was such a highlight of my career. But what do you do when the show closes? What’s the future of all of this? And so there’s a reckoning within you, you know what I mean? There has to be, of like – what is the next dream? It’s not done for me. Noelle Swan: Hi everyone, I’m Noelle Swan, the Monitor’s Weekly edition Editor. Artists like Christine bring a special kind of light to the world. In addition to bringing joy and laughter into our lives, they also help us come to terms with our fears. If you’ve appreciated this podcast, the best way to make sure we produce more work like this is to subscribe to The Christian Science Monitor. If you already do, thank you! But if not, you can do that at csmonitor.com/subscribe. We really appreciate your support. Again, that’s csmonitor.com/subscribe. Thanks for listening.Mendoza: How is the rest of the family doing, how are the kids holding up? Hudman Pardy: I mean, everyone’s just doing the best they can. I can’t sit around too long and think about how you catch up from something like this. Just like, to be told that you – “We’re shutting it down and you can’t work. You can’t. There’s nothing. And we don’t know when you’ll be able to,” when you’ve made this your livelihood, your living. You know, it’s very – it feels very frustrating. It feels like a lost year. I mean, a lost year academically for my children, a lost year financially for us. [Music] The ironic part is that collectively, we all turn to music, art in times like this. And no one’s talking about us. They haven’t been. They aren’t. And they aren’t talking about anything for the future. After a while, you do kind of feel targeted in some way. So I don’t know. I wish I knew the answer, but maybe I don’t want to know the answer. I just have to try to be happy today, and – not that someone’s going to come and save you, but that you’re an active participant in your life. And that you do all the work that you need to do, and then if you keep doing that, the door is going to come down. So I have to believe that there are better days ahead. At least I hope.  [Music] Mendoza: Do you think you might at some point look back on this as a period of reinvention for yourself again? Hudman Pardy: One hundred percent. Yeah. I mean, I have to. There are definitely lessons from everything. And I think that’s a question that we ask – Mark and I – ask ourselves a lot, you know. What’s the lesson?We have a saying in this house. It’s, “You’re free to be.” And so we meet you wherever you are. I’m not going to try to tell them, like, “Don’t cry, don’t be depressed.” Whatever. I mean, sometimes you just are those things until you’re something else, you know? Just feel the feelings and know that it’s not always going to be like this.Hudman Pardy: We both got hired to go to Nantucket this summer for eight weeks and do “Mamma Mia!.” Mendoza: Congratulations!   Hudman Pardy: So he’s going to play drums and then I’m going to be Rosie.  Laine Perfas: Oh, my gosh, that’s crazy. Hudman Pardy: Yeah. We’re kind of dying. I mean we are like on our knees, grateful. So and the fact that… Hudman Pardy: My youngest son, the excitement that he had when we got the job. I mean, he was just almost more excited than we were. “God, Ma, this is so great.” He was almost in tears. And he was like, “I’m so glad and I’m so grateful that I have parents that do what they love for a living.” And I was just like, ‘cause you get told you’re selfish a lot, you know, in this business. I can’t put my kids to bed at night because I’m out doing two shows. And all the guilt that comes with that kind of stuff. And I can’t be there for every second of homework. But I’m passing that on. And they see that, you know, and I feel – I feel pretty – I feel pretty good about that. That they see that – that I, this is what I was born to do, and they have some respect for that, and they’re genuinely happy, you know. Because you play all these games in your mind as a mom and as a woman, you know, it’s like all the things you’re not doing. All the shortcomings. And, you know, when your kid is like, “I’m your biggest cheerleader. It’s OK to be who you are. It’s OK to follow your dreams even when you’re grown.” And I want them to know that. I’ve always been like, What is it that that still, small voice says to you, like in the night? What is it that you really want? Trust it and do it. You’re never too old for that. Here I am at 50. And like, why – why should I stop dreaming? Why should I stop taking chances? Why should my life stop being exciting? I just feel happy that they kind of see that – that it’s never too late. It’s never too late for a new dream, it’s never too late to try something new. But, yeah that was – that was pretty great. Hudman Pardy: I think that would be my hope for the world is just more empathy, more compassion, more time to stop and go, “Are you OK? Can I help you?” So I don’t want things to go back to where they – the way they were. And it’s impossible anyway. It’s never going to be that. I just want to be the best person that I can be. Mendoza: You sound like, though, a fundamentally kind of optimistic human. Hudman Pardy: Yeah. Mendoza: What drives that? Hudman Pardy: I don’t know. I think I’ve always been like that. I’ve always been a dreamer. That’s how I grew up, just feeling like anything was possible. I told you that once. You know, it’s like, the big Texas sky and my imagination. So no dream seemed too big. It was just endless possibilities. And I think I always just still feel like that little girl in some ways. [Audio clip from “Cast Away”]Hudman Pardy: You know, it’s so silly, but like Tom Hanks said in that – in that movie –Tom Hanks: “....  Because tomorrow the sun will rise. Who knows what the tide could bring?”Hudman Pardy: I always kind of think of that, you know, tomorrow the sun will rise. And that is very simple, but sort of powerful.Yarleny Roa-Dugan: We go into the profession wanting to help out, take care of people. But this pandemic put us all into a bind. Do you take care of other people, or do you take care of your family? Hudman Pardy: So singing like right now? Oh my God. Oh my God. Mendoza: And you can – whatever song feels like speaks to you in the moment.Hudman Pardy: Oh God. There’s only one song that – I don’t know why the song is coming in my mind. But I’ll just sing, I’ll sing a little bit of this I guess. Um:Oh well, I’m tired and so wearyBut I must go alone‘Til the Lord comes and callsCalls me away, oh yesWell, the morning’s so bright And the lamp is alightAnd the nightIs as black as the sea, oh yesThere will be peace in the valley for me, some dayThere will be peace in the valley for me, dear Lord I prayThere’ll be no sadness, no sorrowNo trouble, I seeThere will be peace in the valley for me