What did you do yesterday?
Sounds good.
Me?
Oh, nothing much, person who doesn't exist. I just went to Whitby in a stranger's car to perform in a castle in a 24 hour play-event for no money.
Yes, I am my own agent, why do you ask?
I went and did Trafalgar 24 with Driftwood Theatre yesterday. It's a fundraiser for their season, and brings out a ton of people to the fanciest school I have ever seen that did not appear in 'Cruel Intentions'. Actors and directors show up at 9 am and rehearse plays that were written overnight, and then we perform at 7:30. I've done events like this before but never this one, so it was a lot of new people. I had a pretty good time. That stuff can be overwhelming for me, as not knowing people makes me nervous, and I feel distinctly 'un-actorly' whenever I'm in a room with lots of actors. I'm so bad at the things actors have to do all the time, like speaking to humans and smiling and not eating two pieces of cheesecake in one sitting.
But it was fun....it's amazing to remember that even in the most ridiculous circumstances, the show will go on, and does go on, somehow.
I did get sad halfway through though, as I didn't get a part in Driftwood's season, and the one in Barrie that I really had my heart set on has not contacted me (even after I wrote to them to ask if they had made decisions, HA! Clearly they are not so into the me), and I really really want to do Shakespeare this summer (or NOW. and Forever. But mostly this summer), and it's not going to happen. So I'll be back auditioning for Fringe and not auditioning for SummerWorks and that all kind of seems like the same thing I've done before and I dont know if I really want to do it right now.
Blargh.
I don't know.
Hopefully something good will materialize now, as I really need that.
Saturday, March 13, 2010
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
And I'm Still Hurting
Ok, so positive energy is officially invited to bite me.
As it did not get me the part I so badly wanted.
This really sucks. There's a part for me in that show, my audition was good, a friend wrote a note of recommendation for me.....and I really wanted this one.
The ones where it's actually their mistake, rather than yours, are the worst ones not go get. When you kind of aren't really right for it, when you don't do a great job, whatever, you don't get it. When you could REALLY do it, and they don't see that, even though you show it to them with everything you have, that sucks. That's on them, but it still sucks. For me.
Curses curses curses foiled again.
I am so very disappointed.
As it did not get me the part I so badly wanted.
This really sucks. There's a part for me in that show, my audition was good, a friend wrote a note of recommendation for me.....and I really wanted this one.
The ones where it's actually their mistake, rather than yours, are the worst ones not go get. When you kind of aren't really right for it, when you don't do a great job, whatever, you don't get it. When you could REALLY do it, and they don't see that, even though you show it to them with everything you have, that sucks. That's on them, but it still sucks. For me.
Curses curses curses foiled again.
I am so very disappointed.
Monday, March 8, 2010
Way-ay-aiting is the hardest part
I told myself I would name all my posts using musical theatre lyrics, which makes me soooo not cool, but super cool in my little mind, but I have to immediately make an exception for Tom Petty lyric stolen from the episode of 'The Simpsons' where Homer gets a gun. It's good to have goals.
So so much for that.
Also so much for the summer project I really want. No, we're not saying that, we are using The Secret and saying that I WILL THINK IT AND ATTRACT IT INTO MY LIFE LIKE A MAGNET. Really I am trying to say that but also saying 'Oh God I probably didn't get it I am a failure'. But apparently this is not doing The Secret at all, you have to be totally sure that things will happen the way you want them, and that is so not how I operate at all.
I'm trying to be more positive, but it definitely feels like a jacket that does not fit, whereas my negativity feels like pajamas. I can just put that on and sit in bed and eat chips for days. Yep. That's me. BUT NO MORE OF THAT.
Maybe a bit more of that.
Yesterday I went to a rehearsal for the writer's circle where I'm an actor. They write scripts, and then some actors come in and we read them and try to help them hear the work. It's really fun and the writing is incredibly strong. It makes me wonder about my own writing. I'd really like to create my own work, but writing is terrifying for me. I am taking a playwriting class and I wrote something and have had to hear it read and that was incredibly painful. I just wanted to throw up all over myself. I don't think I have any sense of plot or action, all I want is to create small moments for nerdy people, or have ridiculous absurd things happen. Sometime I see theatre and that is all it is anyway, and I think 'I could do that'. And then I see theatre and realize that what I have is a collection of napkins with words scribbled on them and that that is so far from a play, and that I have no money or people to help me turn it from napkins to play and then I want to give up and be really jealous of talented people with help turning their scribblings into something. Everyone in the writer's group is talented....really talented. It overwhelms me.
I don't think I'm talented at all. I think I'm genuinely a really hard worker, but then there are days like today where I watch season 2 of 'Friends' instead of doing ANYTHING ELSE and then I wonder how I can think I have this great work ethic. Maybe I don't. I hope so though, because that's about all I have going for me.
I am good at pushing myself through horrible experiences, though, which might be a requirement if I am going to try and write anything really. I write all the time but it is absolutely nothing. Just little bits......
I'm waiting and it really sucks. Let's have good news now, please.
So so much for that.
Also so much for the summer project I really want. No, we're not saying that, we are using The Secret and saying that I WILL THINK IT AND ATTRACT IT INTO MY LIFE LIKE A MAGNET. Really I am trying to say that but also saying 'Oh God I probably didn't get it I am a failure'. But apparently this is not doing The Secret at all, you have to be totally sure that things will happen the way you want them, and that is so not how I operate at all.
I'm trying to be more positive, but it definitely feels like a jacket that does not fit, whereas my negativity feels like pajamas. I can just put that on and sit in bed and eat chips for days. Yep. That's me. BUT NO MORE OF THAT.
Maybe a bit more of that.
Yesterday I went to a rehearsal for the writer's circle where I'm an actor. They write scripts, and then some actors come in and we read them and try to help them hear the work. It's really fun and the writing is incredibly strong. It makes me wonder about my own writing. I'd really like to create my own work, but writing is terrifying for me. I am taking a playwriting class and I wrote something and have had to hear it read and that was incredibly painful. I just wanted to throw up all over myself. I don't think I have any sense of plot or action, all I want is to create small moments for nerdy people, or have ridiculous absurd things happen. Sometime I see theatre and that is all it is anyway, and I think 'I could do that'. And then I see theatre and realize that what I have is a collection of napkins with words scribbled on them and that that is so far from a play, and that I have no money or people to help me turn it from napkins to play and then I want to give up and be really jealous of talented people with help turning their scribblings into something. Everyone in the writer's group is talented....really talented. It overwhelms me.
I don't think I'm talented at all. I think I'm genuinely a really hard worker, but then there are days like today where I watch season 2 of 'Friends' instead of doing ANYTHING ELSE and then I wonder how I can think I have this great work ethic. Maybe I don't. I hope so though, because that's about all I have going for me.
I am good at pushing myself through horrible experiences, though, which might be a requirement if I am going to try and write anything really. I write all the time but it is absolutely nothing. Just little bits......
I'm waiting and it really sucks. Let's have good news now, please.
Friday, March 5, 2010
The Sheriff Who Escorts You Out of Town
This blog would be a lot better if it had pictures, wouldn't it? I should get on that. I can take pictures. I am sure I can figure that out. Ok, this will start happening. Then maybe I can convince some people to read it. Although I'm not sure I even want to do that.
Callback today. That's nice. It is like a second date, a second chance, but also, a way to hold you up to harsher, more intense scrutiny, and see if you fit in the little box they have decided they might consider putting you in. That sounds more negative than I want it to. Callbacks are great. I like when I get them. I like when I do not suck IMMEDIATELY and have to be forced from the audition room with everyone crying.
It was a very fun one. That's nice too. It's such a good feeling when you're in the room and you're working with people, it moves it from feeling like a try-out to feeling like the work, like you're just people in a room who want the play to be as good as it can be, who want to discover things about a text. That's very invigorating and reminds me of why I like acting in the first place. And when the director is good and has great notes and interesting ideas, specifics and is willing to play, its just a lot of fun. That happened today. That's always good. I also always think it indicates that the director is interested in creating something, and wants to see if he actually likes people, not just whether they can do the given sides, and their own monologues
I really want to have the experience of being a reader or being in the audition room, and get to see a lot of people audition. Particularly girls. Part of this is competitive, yes, but mostly I'm just so so so curious. This would probably mean me writing or directing something. I doubt that will happen anytime soon. Blargh. It would be interesting though....
So now I have to forget allll about that and think nothing of it. Sick.
Callback today. That's nice. It is like a second date, a second chance, but also, a way to hold you up to harsher, more intense scrutiny, and see if you fit in the little box they have decided they might consider putting you in. That sounds more negative than I want it to. Callbacks are great. I like when I get them. I like when I do not suck IMMEDIATELY and have to be forced from the audition room with everyone crying.
It was a very fun one. That's nice too. It's such a good feeling when you're in the room and you're working with people, it moves it from feeling like a try-out to feeling like the work, like you're just people in a room who want the play to be as good as it can be, who want to discover things about a text. That's very invigorating and reminds me of why I like acting in the first place. And when the director is good and has great notes and interesting ideas, specifics and is willing to play, its just a lot of fun. That happened today. That's always good. I also always think it indicates that the director is interested in creating something, and wants to see if he actually likes people, not just whether they can do the given sides, and their own monologues
I really want to have the experience of being a reader or being in the audition room, and get to see a lot of people audition. Particularly girls. Part of this is competitive, yes, but mostly I'm just so so so curious. This would probably mean me writing or directing something. I doubt that will happen anytime soon. Blargh. It would be interesting though....
So now I have to forget allll about that and think nothing of it. Sick.
Thursday, March 4, 2010
Love Lifts Us Up Where We Belong
Wow, do I come up with bad post titles or what? I wish I could get paid to think up terrible puns. I guess if I had been a writer on 'Sex and the City', this would have been possible. Or bad play titles. I would be amazing at thinking up titles of plays that nobody would ever want to see. I could probably write a lot of plays that nobody would ever want to see too, but who has the patience? Well, apparently I do, I spend a lot of time typing away at little snatches of dialogue that will never be anything, and if they were, eventually, something, it would be the sort of something that I could convince a few dear friends to see, but would be otherwise performed in an empty theatre and cost me a lot of money.
I am going through intense bursts of 'feeling like an actor', and then 'feeling not like an actor'. After such a long break from acting, and such a tough break from the only thing that made me feel like an actor, I am definitely back in it in a way that I didn't think would be possible. It's not 100%. It's not the career I want, or even close to that. But it is more than I was doing. I'm in a show. I have a (really cool sounding, professional-type) workshop coming up. I'm doing a reading series and helping develop new work. I am auditioning a bit, and have a callback tomorrow. These are all not nothing. I think. Today I had rehearsal, tomorrow callback, Sunday costume fitting and reading. That seems like an actorly schedule.
And then I flip and feel like the work I'm doing isn't good enough, both in terms of the quality of the work I'm putting out there and the stuff that I'm cast in or trying out for or whatever. That everyone else has real careers and mine is still so amateur. And that everything I'm doing is really nothing.
That's frustrating. I don't like that feeling, but I don't know how to stop it.
Sometimes I try by watching so much TV-on-the-Internet. It often works!
I am going through intense bursts of 'feeling like an actor', and then 'feeling not like an actor'. After such a long break from acting, and such a tough break from the only thing that made me feel like an actor, I am definitely back in it in a way that I didn't think would be possible. It's not 100%. It's not the career I want, or even close to that. But it is more than I was doing. I'm in a show. I have a (really cool sounding, professional-type) workshop coming up. I'm doing a reading series and helping develop new work. I am auditioning a bit, and have a callback tomorrow. These are all not nothing. I think. Today I had rehearsal, tomorrow callback, Sunday costume fitting and reading. That seems like an actorly schedule.
And then I flip and feel like the work I'm doing isn't good enough, both in terms of the quality of the work I'm putting out there and the stuff that I'm cast in or trying out for or whatever. That everyone else has real careers and mine is still so amateur. And that everything I'm doing is really nothing.
That's frustrating. I don't like that feeling, but I don't know how to stop it.
Sometimes I try by watching so much TV-on-the-Internet. It often works!
Monday, March 1, 2010
La Repetition
We're going to do it again and again....and again....and again and again!
Oh Simpsons. I would be a better person if I opened a blog post with a quote from classic literature, or probably even The Godfather or something, but that's just not how I roll.
La repetition is french for 'the repetition'. And also, 'the rehearsal'. I had rehearsal today. It was ok. I get insights into how I work and then I worry that the way I work isn't right. I feel like I move slower than the other people I'm in the play with, I like to layer things and try things out and it takes me some time to really get into the world of the play and start making connections. Maybe that means I'm not that bright? The other people in the play seem to come in with more decisions made, but I like to explore more. I used to think I was extremely intense, but maybe things have changed, because now I'm kind of feeling like I want to take my time and let the play piece it self together for me. Maybe it's also just the play...it's very cryptic. It's a mystery. It's one of the things that attracted me to working on it.
It is a lot of people giving notes....there are four people on the other side of the table, and then the other actors give notes, which I usually dislike. And this time is not exception. I'm trying not to get my back up about it because I don't want to be DIFFICULT.
I guess I am extremely difficult....the way I work clearly doesn't work for everyone. So I'm trying to keep my mouth shut even though it's not ideal for me. Especially because I have been very worried about being a difficult person to schedule thus far. I have had bad timing luck. I used to cancel everything for rehearsals, clear my schedule just to be in a show, and now that's just not possible. Maybe I'm less committed to theatre, but really I think it is just life. It finds a way. Jurassic Park. Life gets in the way more and more now.
Also, learning lines is hard, and it's probably really bad for an actor to struggle the way that I do with them. Eep.
I have to learn lines for Thursday and I have to learn some sides for Friday. I am going to try not to get too pent up about that, because if I get overwhelmed I will fall apart. LET'S KEEP IT TOGETHER.
Oh Simpsons. I would be a better person if I opened a blog post with a quote from classic literature, or probably even The Godfather or something, but that's just not how I roll.
La repetition is french for 'the repetition'. And also, 'the rehearsal'. I had rehearsal today. It was ok. I get insights into how I work and then I worry that the way I work isn't right. I feel like I move slower than the other people I'm in the play with, I like to layer things and try things out and it takes me some time to really get into the world of the play and start making connections. Maybe that means I'm not that bright? The other people in the play seem to come in with more decisions made, but I like to explore more. I used to think I was extremely intense, but maybe things have changed, because now I'm kind of feeling like I want to take my time and let the play piece it self together for me. Maybe it's also just the play...it's very cryptic. It's a mystery. It's one of the things that attracted me to working on it.
It is a lot of people giving notes....there are four people on the other side of the table, and then the other actors give notes, which I usually dislike. And this time is not exception. I'm trying not to get my back up about it because I don't want to be DIFFICULT.
I guess I am extremely difficult....the way I work clearly doesn't work for everyone. So I'm trying to keep my mouth shut even though it's not ideal for me. Especially because I have been very worried about being a difficult person to schedule thus far. I have had bad timing luck. I used to cancel everything for rehearsals, clear my schedule just to be in a show, and now that's just not possible. Maybe I'm less committed to theatre, but really I think it is just life. It finds a way. Jurassic Park. Life gets in the way more and more now.
Also, learning lines is hard, and it's probably really bad for an actor to struggle the way that I do with them. Eep.
I have to learn lines for Thursday and I have to learn some sides for Friday. I am going to try not to get too pent up about that, because if I get overwhelmed I will fall apart. LET'S KEEP IT TOGETHER.
Sunday, February 28, 2010
In Which I Try to Blog....Again
Hmmm..
I guess I don't like blogging that much. Seeing as I never do it.
Actually, I really like blogging a lot. I just feel like I might not have enough to blog about. Even if this blog focuses on theatre, I don't know if my theatrical thoughts are interesting enough. Lots of the time they aren't even theatrical. I recently sat through a play and spent a good chunk of it creating elaborate fantasies in my head. This, on one hand, greatly compromised my play-going experience, and, on the other hand greatly enhanced it. I had a hell of a time.
Today I went for an audition for a job that is kind of acting but not really. Hosting, tour-guiding, performing-type thing. With a Harry Potter twist! And that's all I'm allowed to say because they made me sign a confidentiality agreement, which freaked me right the hell out, even though I actually think I am pretty ok at keeping secrets.
I had a moment where I was really sad and embarrassed, and all 'I have a degree, and have been told I am a smart girl, and all my friends are lawyers, and I probably won't get this job which is kind of ridiculous. AND even as an actor, I have some training and have been working so hard for so long and I am still doing this kind of thing, way more than I'm auditioning for stuff that I'd love to do, or creating things on my own'.
I have those thoughts a lot and I'd really like to not. As much as sometimes I hate the stuff I have to do, I am trying to be more grateful whenever anyone gives me a penny to perform. It took so long before I was ever given money to act, and I remember the first time I was paid ($145 for a Fringe show that was rehearsed over a week in the writer/director's bedroom), I was so thrilled. I still have the cash in an envelope. I could never bring myself to spend it because I wasn't sure I'd ever be paid to act again.
So I sat through the audition and kind of laughed at my embarrassment and that made me feel better. I'm trying to be grateful. Its hard when there's so much rejection and unfairness. But, no matter how bad the play is or how difficult the process is, in general I'd rather be in the rehearsal room than out.
I have to fight to remember that.
I guess I don't like blogging that much. Seeing as I never do it.
Actually, I really like blogging a lot. I just feel like I might not have enough to blog about. Even if this blog focuses on theatre, I don't know if my theatrical thoughts are interesting enough. Lots of the time they aren't even theatrical. I recently sat through a play and spent a good chunk of it creating elaborate fantasies in my head. This, on one hand, greatly compromised my play-going experience, and, on the other hand greatly enhanced it. I had a hell of a time.
Today I went for an audition for a job that is kind of acting but not really. Hosting, tour-guiding, performing-type thing. With a Harry Potter twist! And that's all I'm allowed to say because they made me sign a confidentiality agreement, which freaked me right the hell out, even though I actually think I am pretty ok at keeping secrets.
I had a moment where I was really sad and embarrassed, and all 'I have a degree, and have been told I am a smart girl, and all my friends are lawyers, and I probably won't get this job which is kind of ridiculous. AND even as an actor, I have some training and have been working so hard for so long and I am still doing this kind of thing, way more than I'm auditioning for stuff that I'd love to do, or creating things on my own'.
I have those thoughts a lot and I'd really like to not. As much as sometimes I hate the stuff I have to do, I am trying to be more grateful whenever anyone gives me a penny to perform. It took so long before I was ever given money to act, and I remember the first time I was paid ($145 for a Fringe show that was rehearsed over a week in the writer/director's bedroom), I was so thrilled. I still have the cash in an envelope. I could never bring myself to spend it because I wasn't sure I'd ever be paid to act again.
So I sat through the audition and kind of laughed at my embarrassment and that made me feel better. I'm trying to be grateful. Its hard when there's so much rejection and unfairness. But, no matter how bad the play is or how difficult the process is, in general I'd rather be in the rehearsal room than out.
I have to fight to remember that.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)