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CNN reporter Janine Sharell began covering the workshop as a journalist and decided to get on stage. She still reported the story, but also got a personal pay-off. She got the guts to sing "Love Is Here to Stay" to her husband, who flew in from Los Angeles, a song she wanted to give him at their wedding, but was too nervous to perform. A dose of confidence isn’t what therapist Lisanne Godnick needed. The bold 34-year-old strawberry blonde just wanted was a stage. "You get this amazing feeling," says Godnick, who belted out "Let Me Entertain You" and "Everything’s Coming Up Roses." Lapsing into shrink-mode, she adds: "I don’t believe in quick fixes, but it gives you the opportunity to let loose in a safe atmosphere." And after she directed her own campy, sexy version of "Stand By Your Man," to her husband, who was seated in front with their three kids, Karen Hersh was thrilled. "I never sang on stage before, only in front of my kids, but I always wanted to," gushes Hersh, a former Wall Street bond trader, now a stay-at-home mom. "Now, I don’t want to stop." Even her husband, Jack Hersh, says the experience made a difference. "She just seems to be more open to things," he says. Can you imagine how confident Ivan Farkas is by now? He stared with Amiel Burns five years ago and has taken 46 workshops. "I’m the teacher’s pet," jokes Farkas, a computer programmer, who kept the audience rolling with his version of "Santa Baby." I was afraid of public speaking and decided to give myself this gift for my 50th birthday," says Farkas. Now he speaks frequently. Others, like Ilana Goldwasser, got a chance to redress the past. "I got the shaft when I lost out on the best part in ‘Grease" in eighth grade," quips Goldwasser, 23. Not a bit bitter, Goldwasser, who hails from Boston, recently moved to New York and found her way to the workshop. "I have the same dream that so many people have - to come to New York and be a star," Goldwasser told the audience after crooning, "But The World Goes Round." "Okay, so I had to pay for it."
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