Thursday, June 3, 2010

Don't talk of stars, burning above, if you're in love, show me....

Talkity talk talk.

Why do I not have great contemporary monologues? Why are they so hard to find? I am terrified about doing 'overdone' monologues, so I pass a lot of things I'd love to do up just because I feel they are choices everyone is making. I guess that's really only a problem if you don't do them as well as anyone else, but I'd like to have a fighting chance, at least.

I want a monologue that SHOWS something wonderful about me, that makes everyone go, 'Hey, this girl has MOXIE'. Are there any moxie monologues?

I've shocked myself by how much I've let my acting muscles go. The fact that I've had lots lined up for quite a while means I haven't been auditioning, so I don't have new exciting monologues that I'm itching to show. I'm very tired of my old ones (not my Shakespeares, I love my Shakespeares, although I need some new ones of those too, so that I can show people new stuff). But my contemporaries, and especially my canadian contemporaries, are abysmal. So monologues = in tatters. And I missed a submission a while ago, which is kind of unheard of for me. I submit for a lot. I don't get very much, but I take looking for acting work very seriously. I just got caught up with work and....I have no idea what else. Television?

It's been hard to strike a balance between my work and my career. I've never found it so tricky, I guess mostly because I was babysitting, and nothing ever paid enough to really care about missing a day or so. I am loathe to let anyone down, and always go out of my way to appear the best employee ever, but my work has been so sporadic, and for such irregular hours, that it has always been not so bad balancing the two. Also, I've spent most of my life in school, where that battle is fought for you. Easy peasy.

But now the lure of money is very strong. I feel bad not working. But I also know that I don't want to just have a joe job for the rest of my life. I want to work in theatre. And I have to take that seriously in order to move up the ranks. But it's hard when auditioning (or even submitting) seems to yield nothing. Because I could just go to work and make money instead of embarrassing myself. Right now I'm trying to decide if I should crash an audition (which would require, likely, the leaving of work early, as well as the learning of new monologues). I also have to put some time into what I'm going to perform for my friend's cabaret-type night, which I am so honored to be a part of but have put no thought into whatsoever.

What's happening to me? I keep forgetting I'm an actor.

That's easy to do when you're not really one. When you just pretend for no money.

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