If you’re into the Tampa Bay community theater scene, chances are you’ve encountered Janice Creneti. She has been active in theater for more than 40 years, including performing and directing in the Tampa Bay area for the last 20 years.
Creneti has appeared in over 100 productions including live theater, TV and film. In 2015, she portrayed Claire in Edward Albee’s Pulitzer Prize-winning “A Delicate Balance,” presented by West Coast Players in Clearwater — one of many productions she was involved in at theater. She also served as the artistic director at WCP for 12 years.
More recently, she directed the Early Bird Dinner Theater production of “One Slight Hitch,” by Lewis Black. The show ran Jan. 6 through Feb. 18. Last year, she helmed EBDT’s production of “Mom’s Gift,” by Phil Olson.
On her website, Creneti describes herself as a teacher, performer, speaker, and coach, as well as a “student of the human soul.”
Creneti recently told Tampa Bay Newspapers how she began your journey of personal storytelling.
“I attended a workshop with Powerstories Theatre in Tampa when I was working for a nonprofit organization and learned about their Seek and Speak Your Story workshop, which I then joined,” Creneti said. “It was a breakthrough experience for me. I'd been telling other people's stories as an actor for decades. But telling my own story in a theatrical setting was new and profound and led to me telling my personal story as part of several of their shows.”
This, in turn, led to Creneti’s one woman show, “My Year of Saying No.” In it, she tells the story of how COVID woke her up to how broken her life was, how she had become so overcommitted by saying “yes” to everyone and everything but herself and how she took her life back one "no" at a time.
“Towards the end of the first year of COVID, I was having lunch with a friend where we were swapping stories of all we'd learned from the pandemic experience,” Creneti said. “I commented that it had been ‘my year of saying no.’ My friend noted that was a great title for a book.”
As fate would have it, a few weeks later, Powerstories issued a call for scripts for the inaugural Voices of Women Theatre Festival.
“I had always thought in the back of my mind that one day I would do a one woman show,” Creneti said. “During COVID I was diagnosed with health issues that kept me from performing in person with others. I had just had to turn down another show that I really wanted to do when the Powerstories call for submissions was announced.”
Creneti realized this was her moment to take the leap — and that “My Year of Saying No” was the perfect title for a play.
“I threw myself into writing and a week later had the story that became the play,” she said. “I then had the great fortune of getting connected with Soaring Solo Studios where I studied the art of solo theater with Jessica Lynn Johson who helped me turn the simple narrative story into a 20-character play.”
“My Year of Saying No” by Janice Creneti was selected as the 2023 Carrollwood Cultural Center Studio Project. The play chronicles the author’s journey through the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic exploring the impacts of sexism, gender roles and society’s rigid expectations on mental health. Through the use of multimedia and multiple characters such as Patriarchy, Perfection, Zoom, Janice’s Body and COVID herself, this serio-comedy solo show tracks one woman’s journey to confront all that isn’t working in the world, and in her life, to build a path back to herself.
Last month, Creneti performed “My Year of Saying No” at the 31st Annual Los Angeles Women’s Theatre Festival.
“My solo theater coach, Jessica, had been working with the Los Angeles Women's Theatre Festival for a number of years and encouraged me to apply, pushing me out of my comfort zone, as all great coaches do,” Creneti said. “Being a part of the festival was a very rewarding experience. I firmly believe that amplifying the voices of women, particularly women of color, is a key step in healing our world, making it a place that is not only safe but supportive for everyone and so lending my skills and time to that work felt important and gratifying.”
Creneti said she also got to meet other amazing women who are using their art to uplift and educate.
“It is always very inspiring and energizing for me to be around other people who have dreams and visions they are willing to bring to the world,” she added. “It helps me counteract the negative voices in my head telling me all the reasons not to put my show out there. Plus, as a newer solo artist I learn so much from watching other performers.”
Theater is only one facet of Creneti’s life. She works for Pinellas County Schools. As part of the district’s ESE Department, recently received the Jane Langenbach Award at the Florida Strategic Instruction Model (SIM) Professional Developers Annual Update.
“My father was a career educator and coach,” Creneti said, explaining how she became interested in a career in education. “He was passionate and committed to what he did. From a very young age, I got to see the difference he made in the lives of his students.”
In college, where Creneti started out to become a research scientist, she realized she felt the same call to connect with and uplift people.
“So, I added on an education degree,” she said. “I thought I'd teach for a few years and move back into science research, but I quickly realized teaching was the place for me. There, I could make a difference. I could help shape the kind of world in which I want to live — one full of compassion, curiosity, acceptance and joy — by helping people discover and grow their potential.”
Creneti is able to use her theater experience in her role as an educator.
“What I learned from theater is the power of a story, and how connecting with our emotions can open us up to new worlds,” she said. “This is what theater does. So, when I am designing educational experiences, I start by envisioning the journey I want the learner to make. I think about where they are likely to be starting and where I want them to get and what experiences they will need to have to help them take each step.”
Creneti explained that the second half of her teaching career has been focused on teaching and coaching adults to try new instructional methods to reach more students.
“That involves shifting mindsets and aspirations,” she said. “So, I find sharing stories, emotions included, of educators who made these shifts and students who thrived as a result a critical part of the learning process, inspiring people to move out of their comfort zones, what a colleague of mine refers to as ‘good theater.’”
Back at Powerstories Theatre in Tampa, Creneti is a Seek and Speak your Story workshop facilitator.
“The purpose of the Seek and Speak Your Story workshop is to help each person explore their life experiences and find the treasures they have gained from them, to find the empowering messages from their lives that they can offer as a gift to others,” Creneti said. “This involves teaching basic story frameworks, exploring what makes a story empowering, and coaching people to find those stories in their own lives, then flesh them out and tell them in a way that ‘opens minds and hearts.’”
Whether she is on stage performing her one-woman show, or in the classroom designing and sharing educational experiences, Creneti is committed to encouraging others to explore their inner emotional landscape.
“We are all so rich in potential,” she said. “We are born to thrive, to bring our gifts, our uniqueness, to creating a life-giving world. And it is in doing this that we feel happy and alive. We need each other. We can enrich each other and, in doing so, experience a life of deep fulfilment and joy.”
