Progress in 2010?

In 2010:

I went to Actors Connection 8 times.

I went to One on One 21 times.

I went to the Network 11 times.

I had 25 appointments with my therapist.

I shot 2 on-camera projects.

I had 2 independent improv groups.

I got new headshots.

I overhauled my resume.

And I added 37 new industry contacts to my address book.

I began this year in an independent improv group formed at UCB. We were practicing pretty regularly and performing frequently up until we indefinitely took a break for the summer. I took 1 improv class at UCB in the spring, after which I was invited to join a different independent improv group. We practice regularly but have yet to perform. This will hopefully happen in January. I'm beginning 2011 by immersing myself in improv 3 times a week! I'll be practicing with my team, taking my first ever class at the Magnet, and starting a new class at UCB.

I also began 2010 wanting to focus on commercial work, meeting as many agents and casting directors as I could. I was happily using copy that in subsequent months would prove to be painfully wrong for me. I took classes with both Barry Shapiro and David Cady. Nothing came of my 5 months of efforts. Or shall I say, nothing has come from it yet. What I did take from these sessions was the urgent need to update my headshots and give my resume a professional new makeover. In retrospect, I think I probably seemed very green and oblivious to these industry folks. I'm not sure what my commercial direction will be in 2011. I think I may have to reintroduce my current self to these potentially valuable contacts. Just like with my resume, I need to scrap my current website and start from scratch.

For the last few months I've been focusing my attention on television, mostly sitcom and comedy work. I feel much better about these later auditions than the commercial ones earlier in the year. I think people took me more seriously when I had the appropriate professional materials. I also rapid-fire bombarded myself with classes so I was forced to learn and forced to learn fast! In just 3 months I went from being insecure and ill prepared to getting virtually no notes. It could be a coincidence or mean nothing at all, but I'm willing to accept that as progress.

I did a super crappy job at auditioning this year. I am shocked at how few I attended. This absolutely needs to change in the upcoming year. Considering I barely auditioned, it's pretty impressive that I got to be on set twice in the last 12 months for 2 separate projects. I would love to drastically inflate that number as well. For some reason auditioning was not high on my list this year. I think I was really into taking classes, making industry connections, and doing improv that I just didn't allocate enough time to looking for auditions. In that respect this past year was not at all a waste of time, but I have to get back into the auditioning groove.

As Marci Phillips said recently in class: Trust that you are exactly who you are supposed to be right now. We can think that we are talented enough and experienced enough but not be mature enough yet or have personal issues that need to be sorted out. I am exactly who I am supposed to be right now. I think at the beginning of this year I thought I was ready. I was not. But the work I did this year on my auditioning skills, being professional, and healing of my mind and body have brought me closer than I ever have been to ready. Will I be ready in 2011? Maybe. To a certain extent I can't control when I actually am ready, but I can control being readier every single day of 2011 and into 2012.

Optimism! Yea, Yea!

I just saw Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson just a few performances before they close on Broadway. A girl in my improv group was raving about the show back when it was at the Public and I really wanted to see it there but couldn’t get my shit together.

The theater looked fantastic, it was decked out in a bazillion Christmas lights and chandeliers. The set reminded me of Rent meets American Idiot (which I despised, by the way) meets Roundhouse (you know, from Nickelodeon SNICK circa 1993?). There were all kinds of taxidermied heads on the walls and one full sized animal hung upside down over the audience. There was a complete drum kit set up on stage right. The ambiance was way way different than at most shows. I had to buy restricted view tickets because the show was sold out so I had a really odd angle for much of the action on stage left. I wasn’t worried at first but it turns out a lot happens over there. Also, understudy Heath Calvert went on for Benjamin Walker in the title role of Andrew Jackson. (Tess saw the show the night before I did and warned me that it seemed like Walker was losing his voice!) I had mixed feelings on this. I’ve learned to not feel gypped when I see an understudy because so much of the time the understudy is just as talented as the lead but this was the lead lead! Calvert did a nice job but seemed to need some warming up to get into the swing of things and really be the leading man. At first I was disappointed, Andrew Jackson decked in very tight jeans and a super fitted t-shirt is supposed to be dead sexy. I did not want to jump his bones until about the middle-end. I suspect some of that could be in the writing and character arc but I suspect more that Calvert was finding his footing.

I should have seen Bloody Bloody at the Public. There were a lot of things I really liked about the show, and I’ve heard others say this already, but Broadway sort of seemed a strange venue for such a show. Bloody Bloody is not your traditional musical. It’s not even your traditional rock musical (if there is such a thing). It takes place on a smaller stage, it has shorter musical numbers, there’s not a ton of dance numbers, and it’s sort of choppy and abrupt. It’s also edgy, provocative, and actually funny (I’m talking way more than hokey-predictable-musical funny). To clarify, I really really liked the show but can see how it confounds the average Broadway patron. The cast was all relatively young, I see more of an alternative, comedy, UCB-type crowd loving this show. That crowd does not necessarily spend Broadway ticket kind of money to attend theater.

For all these reasons that Broadway was not the perfect fit for Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson, I love that it's on Broadway anyway. Bloody Bloody is fresh and modern and doesn’t use the same traditional boundaries that even the most risqué (which is not that risqué) Broadway shows abide by. I love that critics embraced the show and that something truly different and somewhat unconventional can win a spot, no matter how fleeting, on illustrious Broadway.

Jeff Hiller plays John Quincy Adams in the show: click here. He’s great and I've seen him perform tons of times at UCB (where he’s also great) and so without actually knowing the guy I kind of feel like I know the guy. He’s been in tons of commercials and he has surprised me by showing up in movies like Morning Glory and Ghost Town. Jeff Hiller made it to Broadway! Projects like Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson need to make it to Broadway so people like Jeff Hiller can make it to Broadway so people like me can keep hoping. Anything can happen in this crazy business, anyone can succeed, and in the most unlikeliest of vehicles.

I also decided to catch In The Heights before it closes on January 9^th. In The Heights is a very nice, mild show. The themes are very familiar and the format is predictable. The subject matter is kinda current and some of the music is vaguely interesting and different. The performances were decent and the show blends into Broadway seamlessly without making waves. All in all it was some forgettable shade of good. Love it or hate it, Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson is not the type of show you forget.

Branding

As an actor there is a ton of marketing that one can choose to do or not do for oneself. Ideally I’d like my work to speak for itself, however I am not so naïve as to think everyone gets where they are with hard work and talent alone. As in any other industry, it’s all about who you know (and who knows you).

I have an actor friend, Tess, who is a marketing maniac. She sends out postcards every month or so, same with email blasts, she has a $400 actor website, she’s constantly plugging her work on her facebook page, and she has started hardcore distinguishing herself as a 40’s Bette Davis girl. I envy her vigor for this aspect of the business. I’ve had her buzzing in my ear lately (in a helpful, excited, proactive way not an annoying way. Yet. ) But now I can’t help wondering: how much is too much?

I’ve been wanting to update my website for over a year now, I’ve also wanted to get some web videos up there forever. I sent postcards out in the fall and am struggling to squeeze anything noteworthy out of these past few months for a Happy New Year batch. (Maybe Tess is just working more than I am? Is she working more because she’s doing all this junk?) Tess is encouraging me to embrace my style, persona, or whatever and work on branding myself. Her point is that people like an entire, clear-cut package to know how to categorize you. It's also easier to remember you that way. It's a shortcut into your personality which is the thing that is truly unique about you. She’s also throwing out some sort of kooky ideas about creating a logo to go along with my name. Like, some sort of symbol or punctuation that people will recognize after seeing a few times. And a catchphrase! Oy.

Is creating an entire brand for myself, an unknown actor, ridiculous or genious? Maybe my fear is that it’s going to seem like I’m trying way too hard in these irrelevant areas rather than in more pertinent ones. I don’t want to stick out from the crowd by being over the top and ridiculous! I also don’t want to bombard my contacts with excessive mailings. I’ve had numerous people tell me lately that it is their job to remember who you are and not to postcard them if you have nothing to say. They end up getting annoyed and remembering you in a negative light.

I can’t sit here and think about this too long and hard or I’ll just end up doing nothing. I guess I should do the things I believe in, like truly defining who I am as an actor, and let the rest naturally follow. That is, if it follows at all.

NYU. Shoot.

Why the hell did I not go to college in New York?

I just did a shoot in the television studio at NYU and the whole operation was very impressive. The studio is a forreal forreal multi-cam television studio and the whole class is the crew for the student who is directing each particular project. The teacher pops in and out but these kids really know what they’re doing! Like, the script I got was actually funny!

I didn’t know what the hell I was doing in undergrad. I’m so jealous of these NYU kids that got started on this stuff back in middle school and high school and knew that they wanted to go to college to study it even more. Everyone has their own path and their own timeline, but NYU looks like so much fun and I totally missed out. My undergraduate education was valuable, certainly, but more broad and therefore way less focused. Maybe in the long run that’s a good thing: being well rounded, but at this point in my career I wish I had a whole pack of college buddies that I could be working with now! When I was applying to college I was scared shitless of New York City, and kind of in complete denial that the college admissions process was happening to boot. I probably wasn’t ready…sigh…I wish I could go to undergrad NOW. I guess I could but I don’t want to be the creepy old lady hanging onto 20 year olds. There’s grad school but that seems too serious. I’m probably way better off sticking with my classes at UCB and bullshit. Meh.

Oh, and I need to spend a minute talking about how awesome it is to audition for something and GET IT! I feel like it’s been a really friggin’ long time since this has happened for me. When I read this script prior to the audition I knew the part was a good fit (which is major considering some of the garbage I’ve gone out for). The audition went well but I didn’t leave the room sure I nailed it. I have no idea how many people auditioned, but I’m pretty sure I beat out at least one or two other people! I had forgotten how amazing it feels to show up at a rehearsal for a director that chose to work with you. Then, being the neurotic human being that I am, I started stressing about doing a good job so he wouldn’t regret his choice! I guess that kind of thing keeps you on your A-game but my poor little shriveled up self-esteem…it probably gets better with experience. Just like auditioning, I have to assume the more times you’re on set filming the better you get. This whole thing got me all hot and bothered to audition more and to beat all those gaggles of hags to land roles.

Now I'm off to make extensive collages of cat mascots. Ciao!

Kindness vs. Honesty

Casting Directors come in all different shapes and sizes. They all have their own unique mix of preferences making it absolutely impossible to know how to please everyone. All I can really do is meet as many of these people as possible, take detailed notes, and try to wow their pants off (figuratively) when we (knock on wood, not their wood...gross!) meet again.

Let's do a detailed comparison:

I met Katharina Eggman recently of CBS. She's a 30ish normal looking woman with a Jeanine Garofalo-esque voice. She's extremely laid back, so laid back that she's cool with showing up 30 minutes late. Shit happens but this was the second time I met her and the second time she was so profoundly not punctual. In a class setting, everyone read their sides and everyone got notes. Everyone also did "a nice job." Everyone. Eggman is very nice and creates an incredibly safe environment but I don't honestly believe that everybody was nice. I also don't believe that she was making an effort to search her vocabulary for any other synonyms or adjectives. The first time I met Eggman was only 8 weeks prior to the second yet she did not seem to recognize me at all.

I don't want to make it seem like I didn't like Katharina Eggman. Because despite all these reasons I should, there was something inexplicably likable about her. Despite her generic notes, I found her supportive. In a private one on one setting I got to read two sides for her. I got notes on the first, did it again, then applied the same notes to the second one and only needed one read. Again, against logic, when she said I did a nice job I sort of believed her! She was easy to talk to and very complimentary.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, I took a class with James Calleri of Calleri Casting. He chose to focus his class on co-star sides and some of the scripts had only one line. According to Calleri we need to get good at these because as an unknown actor, these are the auditions we’re going to be going to now. Granted his class and Eggman’s covered very different subject matters, but Calleri and Eggman are very different casting directors. For Calleri’s class we were warned ahead of time to be on time because nobody would be allowed in the room late. Nobody showed up late so I didn’t get to see what the repercussions would have been. Calleri immediately took control of the room and taught. He has been casting for over 10 years and has a whole lot to say. It sounds like the guy actually knows what he’s doing. Calleri is unapologetically himself and at times (to an actor/pupil) he is intimidating and kind of scary. He doesn’t censor himself, throwing around f-bombs and slouching all the way down in his chair completely spread eagle while addressing the room. All the actors in the class got up and read 2 different sides. I was nervous as hell but things went pretty well. Calleri gives feedback on your outfit, your hair, your makeup, your dialect, whatever he wants!

Eggman was very kind and being in a class with her was very comfortable. The immediacy of that is warm and fuzzy but in the long-term it’s pretty much worthless. Comfortability doesn’t push you to do your best and, I’m sorry, but sometimes being kind seems like lying to me. It also seems sort of lazy! I mean, isn’t it easier to be generally kind than potentially hurt someone’s feelings with some constructive criticism. I like Eggman as a person but I don’t honestly know what in god’s name she really thinks of me! Maybe Eggman comes to these classes to meet new actors but she doesn’t come to class to teach. Calleri does. Calleri doesn’t so much care about your feelings and that makes his positive comments something to feel really really good about. Neither Eggman nor Calleri told me I was perfect, but I got some positive notes from both. I believe them both too. The main difference is believing Katharina Eggman kind of feels like believing in Santa Claus. Believing James Calleri is like believing in photosynthesis.

Only time will tell, however, if that phone shall ring. And who it may be on the line...