Unscripted - A Blog for Actors - Backstage

PPD (Post-performance Depression)

I am highly susceptible to post-show blues.  I distinctly remember being in sixth grade and playing Ruth in Pirates of Penzance and it being my favorite thing in the world.  I'm sure we only had about three performances but after the last one I remember coming off stage and feeling like I could cry for a week.  When I got to play Olivia in Twelfth Night my junior year of college, the actress who played Viola and I went to a pub when it was over and mourned as though we had just lost a dear friend.  We must have been a sorry sight.

The show I was assistant directing just closed and I feel utterly depressed.  Even though I am acting in another show, I have just lost my major day-time responsibility so am feeling rather destitute.  All I want to do is lie on bed in my pajamas and eat peanut butter on a spoon, but the building anxiety of "WAKE UP, SARAH, YOU DON'T HAVE A JOB" is preventing me from sleeping, never mind "relaxing."

Bop It - An Update

Just had to let you know that there are now TWO Bop Its. YEAH.  

They are also both some new extreme version that sounds angrier when you mess up and has faster, scarier music.  Very intimidating.  But if you read my last post on the wonders of the Bop It, you'll know that this only means that the philosophy behind mastering the game of bop, twist, spin, flick and pull (x2, mind you) has only gotten deeper. 

You Should Be On Broadway

I have been thinking about lots of things over the past couple of weeks, many of them related to acting, but some not, and perhaps as a result of Thanksgiving, family has definitely been one of them. I'm not sure  what I have to say about it all yet (I have a terrible habit of thinking a lot before I speak - cue long periods of silence) but in the meantime, there is always room for laughter.

This video has been making the Facebook rounds recently amongst my circle of actor friends and has done a good job of keeping my sense of humor from jumping out the window.  Regardless of whether or not your Thanksgiving involved conversations like this, I'm sure we can all relate.  

Enjoy!

 

--Sarah Wharton

It's Easier With Your Eyes Closed

Think what you want, but I'm talking about Bop-It.

Nope, still not a euphemism.

Actual Bop-It.  You know - that super annoying hand held game that you pass around in a circle and makes you feel like maybe your brain never evolved beyond the basal ganglia.  It doesn't help that the machine is mean.  Mess up and it yells things at you like, "Now do it again, ONLY BETTER."  (Sounds frighteningly like an acting teacher I once had.)

The reason I have been playing Bop-It recently is because of a new play I'm in called "Percival's Big Night".  One of the characters in the play references Bop-It at one point so our director took the opportunity to use the game as a warm-up tool.  Concentration.  Group Effort.  If you mess up, it really doesn't matter, let it go, it's a game.  And hey, look!  When you practice, you get better!

Inspiration(al)

I went to the Stella Adler Studio of Acting.  

It's funny how sometimes I forget what that means.  

My first two years there I remember feeling very connected to Stella's history, her legacy as an actress and what she believed it meant to be a theatre artist.  I read the Art of Acting.  I thought constantly of The Group Theatre and identified with Stella's notion that actors were noble beings, that we served a higher purpose in society and carried great responsibility with the art form that we had chose to study and carry out.

Free(lance) Life: Part Four

Huzzuh!  A night off!  How glorious...

Sunday (actually, it was technically Monday morning) marked the finale of the Haunted House.  The experience ended with all of the tour guides taking a tour ourselves for the sake of a video camera and there was all sorts of hooting and hollering as we finally emerged from the doors and out onto a deserted 21st street at 3am.  I don't want to talk about how much redbull I drank.

Monday was mostly a blur.  After staying up all night I had rehearsal from 9am to 3pm and then another from 9pm to midnight.  I was completely incoherent by 11 but after sleeping for 12 hours yesterday, I feel new again.  

Free(lance) Life: Part Three

Learning.

No matter how many articles I read about how perfectly normal it is to be in a whirlwind of confusion about everything in you life at age 22, I am still slightly terrified by the fact that I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT I WANT.  Yes, it’s exciting, but also terrifying.  

For now, I think all I can do is keep learning about the various things I am passionate about and hope that they will start to slowly come together in some semblance of a purpose.  

Oh, Purpose.  Big Word.

Free(lance) Life: Part Two

I want to be an Actor. 

For me, this doesn't even necessarily mean being able to support myself as one (I would be perfectly happy to make my money writing) but it does mean that I want to be involved to the extent of always doing it.  A few weeks off here and there are very welcome, but going for months at a time with no acting job makes my soul hurt.

I have separated my acting life into two sections; the "Industry" a.k.a. "I-don't-know-if-this-will-ever-work-out-but-there's-no-harm-in-trying" and the "Community" a.k.a. "I-have-awesome-amazingly-talented-friends-with-BFAs-we-are-smart-enough-to-do-this-on-our-own."

Free(lance) Life: Part One

Oh man.  I don't even know where to start.  Let me just say that the whirlwind that has windswept my life for the past few weeks is wonderful.  My hair might be a little more tangled than usual, but I feel exhilarated, as if I have just stepped off a roller coaster.  Actually, I am at that point where the car has just crept over the edge and has started to pummel towards the ground at what seems like deadly speed.  My impulse is always to lean back in my seat, as if the car might slow down to a slightly less terrifying pace,  but then there is always a moment where I realize that the thought is completely ridiculous and that the car is only going to go faster as the ride continues.  So I give in and lean forward, thrilling in the speed and laughing as I get turned upside down and all around, my direction completely out of my control.

Since I quit my job, I have experienced much of that same mixture of fear and excitement, not sure what is going to happen but with an assuredness in the back of my mind that somehow everything will be okay.  The ride will end.  I will be in one piece.  And I will probably want to do it all over again.  It is all far too much to explain in one blog post, so I'll do my best to split it all up in some way that makes sense.

Act Your Face Off

I have been taking an on-camera class recently to get some more practice at the whole TV/Film audition thing.  It's been great so far and I already feel WAY more prepared to deal with that portion of the industry than I did before.  One of the many wonderful things the casting director who teaches the class has said is, "Just go in there and act your face off." Love it.  

But that's not really the point of my story.

The point of my story is that the studio where I am taking these classes is in one of those very NYC multi-purpose buildings with very slow, finicky elevators and 11 different completely unrelated business on each floor.  My class is on the top floor, so anyone using the elevator to go down from any of the other floors will most likely be met with a car full of actors.

I quit my job!

 Anyone who has been reading my posts here for the past few months knows all about my frustrations with my day job, how unhappy it made me and how I was finding it very hard to ever go on any auditions or make time for anything I actually wanted to be doing.

Well, it's done.  I quit.  Scary? Yes! Thrilling? Even more so! Stupid? Maybe!  What's next?  Who knows!  

It hit me last week that I chose to study acting for a reason, and there is a reason I am not satisfied by just making money.  Yes, I would like to eat and have a place to live, but there is little thrill for me in the pursuit of monetary wealth.  Sometimes I wonder why I didn't decide to go to law school, or study international relations (both of which I considered for more than just a moment or two) and why I don't just flee this wobbly world of auditions and parts that don't pay and shows that may never have an audience.  But it's sort of like thinking about running away from home.  Ultimately, acting is where my heart is right now, and I have to respect that. 

"An Atrocious Question."

 I was watching an episode of a TV show recently where all the main characters had gathered at a big dinner party and were engaged in meeting and making small talk with friends of friends and other various acquaintances.  One conversation consisted of a high powered business woman, a sculptor, and a newcomer that neither the two women nor the audience know anything about.  The business woman opens the conversation with the newcomer with, "So what do you?" to which the sculptor responds, "That's an atrocious question."

Is it?  I, for one, loath being asked that question.  My answer has become two fold: "I am ....... but to pay my bills I ....."

Tasting Menu

 One of the reasons I am an actor is that I can never make up my mind about what I want to be.  Dancer. Marine-Biologist.  Archeologist.  Lawyer.  Orchestra Conductor.  Bank Robber.  

As an actor you get to be everything!  Of course it's not for real, but you don't have to go to school for 4-8 years for each new role you take on either.  It's the chef's tasting menu of life.  

I also love the learning opportunity that comes along with each new role - the historical research or looking up special vocabulary words your character uses... what's the context?  What does the character's world look, taste and smell like?  I think I've probably retained far more historical information through character research and study than through history class.

I saw "In the Next room" aka "The Vibrator Play" by Sarah Ruhl at Woolly Mammoth Theater Company in DC over the weekend.  One of the things that Woolly does best is letting the audience in on all those historical/contextual fun facts that really help enhance the story.  In addition to having some 19th century 
"personal massage devices" on display in the lobby, my program was filled with interesting information about the play and the history that surrounds it.  Vibrators first came on the scene as a treatment for women's "hysteria".  Nothing like a good orgasm to clear the mind.

The extra information helped me understand (and appreciate) the play.  It's like when you have the privilege of having the chef come out and introduce you to all the scrumptious things you are about to eat - the whole experience becomes just that much more complete.  

Now What?

 I am at my parent's house this week.  The show I was in just closed and my boss actually offered me a week off so I seized the opportunity to get out of the city for a few days.  Fairfax, Virginia is not the most exciting place in the world, but it's kind of nice to have an excuse to do absolutely nothing.

My next project was going to be working with a new theater company on a site-specific production of Othello.  I actually spent most of the day on Monday working on marketing materials and brainstorming ways to get the word out about it.  Sadly, the director called me last night to let me know that because of a family emergency, the production is probably going to be postponed.  My heart goes out to him.

But now I don't really have any plans.  I am participating in a showcase in November but for some reason that seems ages away.  I got an email from someone I work with saying, "It is so busy here! It looks like there will be plenty for you to do when you get back!" My gut reaction was, "I quit."  hmmmm....

The past month or so I have had terrible luck with getting any auditions.  I have been sending out my materials, submitting for things on Actor's Access, checking Backstage etc but have not gone to one audition.  Since this is my fist year doing anything like this, I don't yet have a sense of the "season."  Is it just slow right now? What's the deal?

I also keep reading all these articles about people in their 20s and how it seems that just about everyone these days is taking a year (or three) to travel the world, move back in with their parents, behave like a complete adolescent, etc.  Maybe it's because I don't know what my next step is, but I have been feeling rather like an angsty teen and very tempted by the idea of just staying here in the suburban quiet and "figuring my life out."

I don't know what to do.  I am 97.5 percent sure that "sense" will get the better part of me and I will be on a bus back to NYC on Monday so that I can be at work at 8am on Tuesday.  But that other 2.5 percent can't help but wonder what might happen if I just stayed here...

To quote the great Samuel, "I can't go on.  I'll go on."

--Sarah Wharton

Let us go then, you and I...

 For some reason, I woke up this morning feeling old, cranky and with a line from "The Love Song of Alfred J. Prufrock" by T.S. Elliot it my head.  (Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?)

I looked up the poem when I got to work and re-reading it made the day feel a little less grey and rainy. Thought I'd share, just for funzies.  Here it is: 

THE LOVE SONG OF ALFRED J. PRUFROCK 

T.S. Elliot

 S’io credesse che mia risposta fosse

A persona che mai tornasse al mondo,

Questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse.

Ma perciocche giammai di questo fondo

Non torno vivo alcun, s’i’odo il vero,

Senza tema d’infamia ti rispondo.

LET us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherised upon a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats	5
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:
Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question …	10
Oh, do not ask, “What is it?”
Let us go and make our visit. Read the rest here: The Love Song of Alfred J. Prufock --Sarah Wharton

The Show Goes On

 After our sad Sunday situation where the show I am in had to be cancelled due to lack of an audience, I think the entire cast went through much boot-strap pulling and sleeve-rolling (maybe some bucking, too).  Lucky for us, we had an audience in the house last night, so our show got to go back on the stage.  The Burkinis will continue in all its ridiculousness!

--Sarah Wharton

A Show With No Audience Is...

... Cancelled.

There has always been much debate about what exactly theatre is.  Is it the stage?  Is it the script?  What qualifies as an audience?

 

I know there are many answers to those questions, and room for infinite interpretation, but at 4:05 pm today, in the dressing room of the Abingdon Theatre, the answer was very simple.  No audience, No Show.  Cancelled.  Bye-bye.  Go home.  If you want to be on the stage, make sure some people show up on Tuesday.

This show (or no-show, as it was today) is a rather wild a raucous sketch comedy called The Burkinis.  It's a new work, and definitely one of the more "out there" pieces that I have been in but I LOVE doing it.  As cliche as it may sound, I have never felt more free on stage.  We opened last night to a great house that seemed to thoroughly enjoy it.  I was excited to do it again today.  

I think it's useless to look for something to put the blame on.  Maybe it was the weather.  Maybe it's the competition of The Fringe Festival.  Maybe it's the fact that the tickets cost a little more than most of my starving artist friends want to spend on an off-broadway show.  Maybe the Abingdon Theatre Complex fell into a black hole between 3:30 and 4:00 pm today and the hoards of fans scrambling to see our show were simply unable to find the entrance.

Whatever the reasons may be, none of them really matter.  Our show was cancelled today, and so we all felt a little bummed and walked home in the rain, but are now in all our various spaces trying to figure out how to make sure it doesn't happen again.  We care, so we'll make it work.

I have written about this before - being an artist in New York and how hard it is to find the time, energy and resources to balance the performance and the audience element of a show so that they live up to one another's "quality".  In a very simple world where people only walked in shoes that were either black or white, good shows would have good audiences, and bad shows would be cancelled.  If we lived in such a simple world, however, there would probably be no need for theatre.  

So here I am, recommitting myself to something I truly love, ready to do some shameless self-promotion in the next few days... LET ME ENTERTAIN YOU.  DAMMIT.  Funny how that works... I really want people to come see the show and have a good time... so that I can have a good time!  Good times all around.  See you at the show ;)

--Sarah Wharton

Tango

 Through a random series of New York events, I ended up at a free tango class with a couple of my girlfriends last night.  I had come from a long day at work, a not-so-good audition and rather rude encounter with a random woman on the street who let me know I was a whore for wearing red heels and and proceeded to tail me to "see how fast I could walk in them."

So I was feeling a little grumpy.  Dancing sounded like the perfect remedy.  And it was!

I really don't know anything about tango.  I can fake my way through ballet and modern/jazz moves, and for some reason swing feels pretty natural, but tango is one of those sexy, elusive things that I have only admired from my seat in the audience or in front of the TV.

Since my girlfriends and I were one another's dates, the teacher immediately paired us up with some of the more experienced guys at the studio.  Maybe I was just really tired, but I think there might be something magic about tango.  Despite having my arm around someone I had never laid eyes on before, I was able to just close my eyes, listen to the music and be led ever so delicately around the room.

Several rock steps and a few swivels later, I had completely forgotten about the weight of the day and felt like I should have a flower in my hair.

The place is called Triangulo - definitely worth a visit!

--Sarah Wharton

(Too) Well Behaved

 I am one of those people that was good at school.  I paid attention (or at least gave the impression that I did), I did my homework, I studied for tests, I remembered to bring my gym clothes on the right day.  The system worked for me, and when it didn't, I manipulated it from the inside rather than trying to rebel against it.  I care about the work I do and it's important to me to do it well, even if it's not my idea of "fun". I guess that makes me a "good" girl.  Responsible.  Reliable.  Diligent. All those choice words that teachers like to put on report cards.

So now I have this job.  The job that pays my bills.  That job.  The "ugh" job.  Hate is a strong word.  But. I. Really. Don't. Like. It. At all.

Still, some puritan sensibility within me makes me feel guilty if I don't at least pretend to work hard and do a good job.  After four years of artsy-fartsy, crazy, flower, free your mind unleash your soul roar like a tiger "liberal" learning, I am finding it increasingly difficult to sit at a desk for 8 hours in a row without spontaneously exploding into a wild forrest nymph (singing, dancing, removal of clothing).

Hollywood Discovers New Dimension

 I went to see Toy Story 3 recently and ended up going to see a showing in 3D by accident.  3D movies have never really held much appeal for me - I always think the animation ends up looking kind of gimmicky and wearing sunglasses inside just makes me feel like a douchebag.

oh well. Cute movie.  But that's not the point.

 Of course, ALL the previews that played were for 3D movies as well.  It seems like everything is now available in 3D.

I started thinking about what the next step would be.  It seems 3D will soon lose its novelty draw so movie marketers and animation studios are going to have to think of something to take it to the next level.

SO:

I see a revival of the living theater, my friends!  Once everything goes 3D, the next step into the realm of "real" would have to be living, breathing beings in full flesh, creating a story right before your very eyes! Right?

Okay, so maybe not.  But it's wishful thinking.  I really do wonder what the next big movie theater thing will be though.  Will Hollywood discover the next dimension?

--Sarah Wharton