Unscripted - A Blog for Actors - Backstage

Good Times.

So, I had my fitting for "ER" yesterday.  When the costumer called me to inquire about my sizes, I gave them to her & started to explain that if she was gonna get me pants with no stretch, I would need the next larger size, and the waist would have to be taken in ('cuz sista got H-I-P-S) - "Not to worry," she said "you'll be wearing scrubs."

Don't I Look Happy? (i.e. - I'M GONNA BE ON "ER"!)

I am happy.  REALLY, I am.  I just booked a spot on "ER" (see previous post), I go for my fitting tomorrow, and I shoot next week.  I'm healthy, my bills are getting paid, I have health insurance...I'm just tired, is all.  I'm doing some production work and still trying to steer my career, live life, stay healthy, stay connected to those I care about, and grow my voiceover career.  Well, get one, really.

Angry? Frustrated? Heart-broken? Check, Check And Check!

Send me an angel in the form of legit representation, PLEASE.  I am up to my eyeballs in jackass shit, and I don't know if I can take it anymore....

And what bothers me at least as much - if not more - than wading through this seemingly never-ending line of non-starters, false leads and emptiness, is that somewhere out there, there are women who don't tell these vermin to go fuck themselves.

Here's a little missive I penned just a few moments ago to an online casting website (names have been changed).  Enjoy:

Every Program Should Come With Complimentary Tissues

A friend and I saw this play last night at Vital Theatre Company, Looking for the Pony, by Andrea Lepcio.  And it pretty much kicked my ass emotionally.  I don't see as much theatre as I should because I am an envious sort and it's hard for me to see plays, especially of this caliber (meaning it doesn't have that far-away, only-in-your-dreams sense of attainability that Broadway does, and is actually good and solid and the actresses make me feel at home somehow) without wincing in pain at the thought that I am not on that stage nor was I even called into audition... then throw on top of that that the play is about one sister suffering through advanced cancer... and is actually an amazingly well-written and beautifully performed piece... I was a wreck.  

Breaking Up Teen Angst Style

When I was in an Off-Broadway show called Iphigenia 2.0, an older, experienced actress once told me that losing a show or auditioning for a part for a long period of time and not getting it is a very similar feeling to breaking up with your boyfriend.  “Believe me….I’ve been married three times…no, actually its worse.”  She was trying to console me as I was crying about not getting a part in a show I had spent a lot of time auditioning for and putting a lot of hope into.  I had been offered the understudy instead of the actual part on the project and knew I couldn’t take it.  I was so sad that my journey with that project was over.  I was heart broken. 

A Shift in the Universe...

"So, when did you feel like everything clicked?" asked an actor-friend of mine the other evening, as we sipped at our splurged-upon overpriced Chai Tea Lattes at the corner Starbucks, huddled away from the snow.

"Like, really clicked," he went on, his nose dipping toward the foam, eying me curiously.  He, like myself, was an actor "in the game"... strong training, great representation, and going out on major projects consistently.  An actor who's gotten close to booking some large roles and climbing up the golden rung of the I've Finally Done It Ladder, but still with that bar jusssttt tantalizingly out of reach. 

I thought about it.  "About a year," I replied initially, thinking the past eleven months or so (out of my three and a half in New York) I'd finally felt like the obstinate glue of the representation struggle had abated with the reign of Fabulous Manager.

Then I stopped myself.  "You know what...?" I continued, "I take that back.  About... four days ago."

The Year of Hard Work

First of all, many many thanks to those of you who reached out to me this week.  I really can't get enough hugs and virtual squeezes these days.  A friend of mine passed along this lovely poem and it has helped:

Walking With Grief

Do not hurry
As you walk with grief
It does not help the journey

Walk slowly
Pausing often
Do not hurry
As you walk with grief

Be gentle with the other
Who walks with grief
If it is you
Be gentle with yourself
Swiftly forgive
Walk slowly
Pausing often

Take time, be gentle
as you walk with grief

--George McDonald

The Chinese New Year has passed.  I don't know much about it nor do I know if I believe in the symbolic lore, but I'm told that we have left the Year of the Rat, which signifies death and rebirth, and have entered the Year of the Ox, which is all about hard work.  And so, back to work I go even though my heart is still heavy.

Just, You Know, Living.

I wish I had some great life-of-an-actor story or situation to share, but not a whole lot has been happening (although I think my big commercial audition today went pretty well - I had a lot of fun).  In part that's because I have yet to decide on what my next acting venture is.  In the mean-time I've just been working on my reel, drawing, working-out, submitting myself for things here and there through Casting Networks and Actor's Access, and, you know, living. 

The "Big" Commercial Audition?

Maybe it's that things have been super-slow for me since my last "project" in November - which then pushed me to be way more choosy about what I look for and go after - or maybe it's because this is the first time this agency has called me (it's a prior agent who left the agency he had been calling me in through, but this is the first time since that split many months ago that he has contacted me), or maybe it's because this seems like it truly has some "big" potential... but I'm a little bit nervous/psyched/chomping at the bit to shine like a mutherf*cking star tomorrow at - of all things - a commercial audition.

"ER" Audition Tomorrow!

(Just look at me - grinning like I've already booked it!)

I'm going straight to producers for "ER" tomorrow, and I am very excited.  I've been working on my sides all weekend - I finally had to just put them down before I made myself nuts.  I only have 3 lines but lots of stuff to do in between (giving injections, etc.)  The scene is with two of the show's "heavy hitters", too!  Briefly, I thought I was nervous, but then I realized...I'm just sooo EXCITED!