New Jersey Stage published its 25,000th story in December 2021. As the site approached the milestone, we posed the question on social media as how we should celebrate.  One response was to highlight our favorite stories from over the years.  We liked this idea, but could not narrow things down to just 25 favorites so we will present a favorite each day from different genres.  Every Wednesday will feature a story about film.  This week's choice is a feature on an independent fim called The Opening Act.

The feature was published on March 22, 2016 and is available here. In it we talk with Linda Chorney, the artist behind the film. In 2012, Linda stunned the world when she was nominated for a Grammy for Best Americana Album as an independent artist with Emotional Jukebox. With this film, she once again pulls back the curtain; this time to show what life is truly like for an independent artist in today’s music world — one in which album sales have been replaced by streaming and dollars replaced by fractions of cents.

“The film is for the rest of us musicians,” explained Chorney.  “My objective is to share with the majority - the 99.9% of the musicians that you’re not alone — this is what we all go through, so that they’ll laugh at it.  They’ll laugh with me at the tragedy.”

On Sunday, April 3, 2022, Linda Chorney will be competing for a Grammy in the category Best American Roots Song with the song "Bored."