And my streak of not getting cast continues.
The thing is, I know it is not for lack of ability and that is a huge thing for me to be able to admit that. It's something else. How I look with the lead guy or scheduling things or whatever. It is the intangibles that are out of my control at this point that seem to be getting in my way.
So of course, I look at myself and wonder what I can change about me that will make me more marketable. Should I cut and dye my hair? Should I work out more? Should I start wearing more makeup to auditions? Honestly, I don't know. The one thing that Hollywood would seem to tell me is that I should lose some weight, but even doing that in the past didn't help. So what can I do?
I can keep trying. That's really all I can do at this point, is to just keep trying and hope that someday, something will stick.
Someday...
22 November 2010
16 November 2010
Ego
The actor ego is a very fragile thing. As I'm sure you know, I spent a week or two there thinking I was pretty damn good. As of last night, I'd say about 90% of that feeling has left me.
I'm not saying I doubt my abilities. Not at all. I'm still good at this and I still work really hard and I'm clever so I can figure things out. But one has to wonder sometimes...
We're working on a new scene in class and I met with my scene partners (there are three of us in the scene this time) and we talked about things and one of the main things I need in the scene is a defined relationship with the man, who plays my sister's husband. It's pretty obvious in the text that my character is in love with him and has been for some time and while we were talking, the other woman in the scene suggested that perhaps he and I had slept together at some point and that her character either knew it or was suspicious. And I said no. Because I had thought about it and I know that for me, I feel more sexual tension when I haven't slept with someone. In my own mind, I equate physical intimacy with a separation, largely because the majority of the men I have been intimate with disappear shortly thereafter. And I'm not even talking about sex - a couple have ditched me after an intense make-out session. So because of my own fucked-up-ed-ness about relationships, I thought it would fuel me more as an actor if my brother-in-law and I as characters had not slept together.
And I got my ass handed to me.
I feel like I need to apologize to the other woman I'm working with because I should have listened to her suggestion from the beginning. And I should have listened to the man in the scene because I think he was initially leaning towards us having slept together, too. So I apologize to the both of you that I let my ego get in the way of making the riskier choice.
Because as it turns out, the teacher had us get up into environment. Well, she had me and the guy get up into environment, anyway. The scene is weird - he talks with her for a while (six or seven pages), then I enter and she leaves and I talk to him for a while (six or seven pages), and then she comes back and the three of us are on stage for three pages before our scene ends. So the first half of the scene was the two of them reading at the table. And then I fucked up my entrance and the teacher coached me through it. And then my sister left the scene and they chatted about the work that was just done at the table and the teacher said to get rid of the table because she wanted the two of us up in environment, which was then thrown out the window when we said we hadn't slept together.
And I'm still kicking myself because it is the riskier, scarier choice to say yes, we had slept together. That should be one of those automatic things, like when you're developing a character and you ask yourself if you love the other person in the scene with you, you answer "Yes" because that connects you to them. "Yes and" instead of "No but." You don't have to be intimately in love with them, seeking marriage and a life together, but if you choose to love that person, you are invested in them on some level and therefore, you are invested in the scene. So the answer to the question, "Have you two slept together?" when it is not answered in the script should always be "Yes." Because that is the scarier choice. It should be an automatic that I should have learned back in Tech 1.
And now I'm "shoulding" myself. Man, I'm having a bad morning.
So the teacher had us do the first dozen lines of our part of the scene a couple of times - once as if we hadn't slept together, once as if we slept together last night, and once as if we slept together five years ago - and the differences were remarkable. The difference in how I felt about him, and about my sister, and about myself, and about my relationship with him, and my relationship with my sister and it became glaringly obvious to me (which it probably already was to everyone else in the room) that yes, these characters have slept together at some point. It makes the dialogue make more sense and brings so much more life into the scene.
And my point with this whole entry is, that while I've been on my little ego trip, I seem to have forgotten some very important fundamentals.
Yes, I found them again. And yes, I am the sort of actor who will try different things and who is open to being proven wrong. And I don't know - maybe it was like a therapy session where I had to get there myself instead of having someone tell it to me. But it's frustrating. And it's frustrating, in part, because this is the teacher who I auditioned for and I haven't found out yet if I was cast or not, but I know some people know if they've been cast, so I also felt last night like this was another callback for me. Like she maybe had some doubts about what I would be like to work with so she really wanted to work with me to see if I could handle her show and I don't feel like I did very well. I missed the most obvious, most basic of choices. I felt like I was called out for not having done my homework. I did homework. Just the wrong assignment. But also, this is class. I should not be putting the pressure of trying to win a role in a completely unrelated play on my classroom discovery. This was essentially a first read - a first real read where all of us had read the script, knew (at least sort of) who our characters were. This was exactly the time to fuck up and try different things. This was "play space" and I turned it into "pressure of performance" space and I fell flat on my face doing so.
Fuck.
So I'm frustrated today. I know I can do this. I just need the opportunity to do it and if I continue to perform at this level (even though I know I am capable of performing at that level), I will not get the opportunity. I need to step up my game. Or something.
"Yes, and..."
I'm not saying I doubt my abilities. Not at all. I'm still good at this and I still work really hard and I'm clever so I can figure things out. But one has to wonder sometimes...
We're working on a new scene in class and I met with my scene partners (there are three of us in the scene this time) and we talked about things and one of the main things I need in the scene is a defined relationship with the man, who plays my sister's husband. It's pretty obvious in the text that my character is in love with him and has been for some time and while we were talking, the other woman in the scene suggested that perhaps he and I had slept together at some point and that her character either knew it or was suspicious. And I said no. Because I had thought about it and I know that for me, I feel more sexual tension when I haven't slept with someone. In my own mind, I equate physical intimacy with a separation, largely because the majority of the men I have been intimate with disappear shortly thereafter. And I'm not even talking about sex - a couple have ditched me after an intense make-out session. So because of my own fucked-up-ed-ness about relationships, I thought it would fuel me more as an actor if my brother-in-law and I as characters had not slept together.
And I got my ass handed to me.
I feel like I need to apologize to the other woman I'm working with because I should have listened to her suggestion from the beginning. And I should have listened to the man in the scene because I think he was initially leaning towards us having slept together, too. So I apologize to the both of you that I let my ego get in the way of making the riskier choice.
Because as it turns out, the teacher had us get up into environment. Well, she had me and the guy get up into environment, anyway. The scene is weird - he talks with her for a while (six or seven pages), then I enter and she leaves and I talk to him for a while (six or seven pages), and then she comes back and the three of us are on stage for three pages before our scene ends. So the first half of the scene was the two of them reading at the table. And then I fucked up my entrance and the teacher coached me through it. And then my sister left the scene and they chatted about the work that was just done at the table and the teacher said to get rid of the table because she wanted the two of us up in environment, which was then thrown out the window when we said we hadn't slept together.
And I'm still kicking myself because it is the riskier, scarier choice to say yes, we had slept together. That should be one of those automatic things, like when you're developing a character and you ask yourself if you love the other person in the scene with you, you answer "Yes" because that connects you to them. "Yes and" instead of "No but." You don't have to be intimately in love with them, seeking marriage and a life together, but if you choose to love that person, you are invested in them on some level and therefore, you are invested in the scene. So the answer to the question, "Have you two slept together?" when it is not answered in the script should always be "Yes." Because that is the scarier choice. It should be an automatic that I should have learned back in Tech 1.
And now I'm "shoulding" myself. Man, I'm having a bad morning.
So the teacher had us do the first dozen lines of our part of the scene a couple of times - once as if we hadn't slept together, once as if we slept together last night, and once as if we slept together five years ago - and the differences were remarkable. The difference in how I felt about him, and about my sister, and about myself, and about my relationship with him, and my relationship with my sister and it became glaringly obvious to me (which it probably already was to everyone else in the room) that yes, these characters have slept together at some point. It makes the dialogue make more sense and brings so much more life into the scene.
And my point with this whole entry is, that while I've been on my little ego trip, I seem to have forgotten some very important fundamentals.
Yes, I found them again. And yes, I am the sort of actor who will try different things and who is open to being proven wrong. And I don't know - maybe it was like a therapy session where I had to get there myself instead of having someone tell it to me. But it's frustrating. And it's frustrating, in part, because this is the teacher who I auditioned for and I haven't found out yet if I was cast or not, but I know some people know if they've been cast, so I also felt last night like this was another callback for me. Like she maybe had some doubts about what I would be like to work with so she really wanted to work with me to see if I could handle her show and I don't feel like I did very well. I missed the most obvious, most basic of choices. I felt like I was called out for not having done my homework. I did homework. Just the wrong assignment. But also, this is class. I should not be putting the pressure of trying to win a role in a completely unrelated play on my classroom discovery. This was essentially a first read - a first real read where all of us had read the script, knew (at least sort of) who our characters were. This was exactly the time to fuck up and try different things. This was "play space" and I turned it into "pressure of performance" space and I fell flat on my face doing so.
Fuck.
So I'm frustrated today. I know I can do this. I just need the opportunity to do it and if I continue to perform at this level (even though I know I am capable of performing at that level), I will not get the opportunity. I need to step up my game. Or something.
"Yes, and..."
09 November 2010
Energy
I was thinking about something else yesterday before class that I want to write down so I don't forget it. I feel, though, that it is important to note that I was thinking about this before class because if any of my classmates are reading this, I don't want you to think that something you did inspired this post. This post is not at all a commentary on last night's class, just sort of a general reminder to myself.
And I am, admittedly, a little nervous to post this here because I know I sound really pretentious, but I'm trying to keep track of my learning process as a performer and this, for me, is a big one. Please know I'm not trying to sound like a know-it-all. These are just my thoughts at the moment.
There seems to be this trend in Hollywood right now where blase is cool. The slacker is cool. The disconnected, apathetic character is cool. I don't mean to name names, but Ellen Page strikes me as one of these sorts of actors. Maybe this is why I don't really want to see "Juno" - in the previews I saw for it, it looked like she just really didn't care. I think this is also my issue with Matt Smith as the Doctor - he spends lots of time running around being weird, but I don't really see things affecting him as strongly as they have affected other Doctors. You can stand there and look at Daleks, or you can STAND AND LOOK AT DALEKS. He chooses the former. I would prefer to watch the latter.
For those of you who watch "America's Next Top Model," I'm talking about what Ms. Tyra Banks refers to as "being fierce."
Now, I'm not saying that every character out there has to be some cracked out whackadoo hopped up on speed in order to be interesting. But I think there is a difference between the actor being apathetic and blase and the character being apathetic and blase. If the actor is blase, I don't want to watch that. If the character is blase, but the actor is fully invested in being blase, that can be interesting.
I know I'm not making a lot of sense, so I'll try a couple of stories.
These two swing dance teachers came to Chicago many years ago and held workshops and many many dancers all around the world consider these two to be just about the best there are. After all, he's one of the people who sort of resurrected lindy in the 1980's or 1990's. And she is...well, she's adorable. There are no two ways about it. Anyway, in their workshops, they were stressing the fact that a dance is a conversation and that the follow has just as much right to speak as the lead and that the lead needs to know how to listen, too. Which is a lovely concept for people who have been dancing for a while and are comfortable with the basics and are looking to push their dancing to the next level. It becomes confusing, though, when you're still counting out the beats in your head and trying to remember if you start with your left foot or your right and suddenly, you are being told that when he's leading you through a six-count turn, it's okay to tell him to stop and wait while you make it an eight-count turn so you can be wiggly for two counts and show off. Suddenly, you're just focused on showing off. You forget that you're supposed to be connected to your partner and inspired by the music; you just want to get in that little two-count wiggle so you can say you know how to dance like the super adorable internationally beloved teacher with the cute accent. And your partner, your poor lead, who is still struggling with the concept of leading from his center instead of jerking your arm out of the socket is focusing so hard on trying to keep the beat that he jerks you through your little two-count wiggle and then remembers he was supposed to just let you do that, so he stops dancing completely because he's lost and frustrated and needs to find the one again, so you wiggle some more to fill the empty beats and he thinks he's just supposed to let you, so he does and you find yourself wiggling for thirty-two counts before you've run out of appropriate wiggle and you both look at each other with an awkward grin that says, "There's a downbeat coming up soon. How about we hit that?" and then you get back into the dance, completely self-conscious and afraid to try that again. At which point, inevitably, the teacher walks by in the workshop and encourages you to wiggle and you're back where you started.
All of this could have been fixed if the dancers knew what they were doing in the first place, and then tried to expand on that knowledge.
I think the same applies to theater.
In one of the first classes I took at the theater where I am now taking classes, we would have to come up with some activity that was difficult to do (but not impossible) and of the utmost importance. One woman decided her activity would be writing a suicide note. Which could be a great exercise, or it could blow up in your face, as the teacher pointed out. If you choose to be a character who really wants to die, then there is nothing to prevent you from just offing yourself at the top of the scene and bam! You're done. Scene over. If, however, you happen to want something from the other person in the scene, no matter how minor that thing may seem, but you really really want it, then you have a scene. If you want to die, but you need to have one last cheese sammich first and your scene partner makes the best cheese sammiches in the world. Or you don't really want to die and the whole thing is really just a cry for attention - the attention of the person in the scene with you. You can still be the super depressed character who sees no other way out of this situation, but there is something more to that character. There is something that makes us, as the audience, want to watch. We want to know if he'll make you the cheese sammich, knowing that as soon as you eat it, you'll die. Or we want to know if she'll confess her undying love for you, thus preventing you from kicking the chair away. That one little glimmer keeps you alive on stage as an actor. As opposed to the actor who just doesn't care about anything. What is the point in that scene?
But I think the problem starts in our very first acting classes. We are told to relax and get comfortable on the stage. This often leads to slouched posture and aimless meandering around the environment. When you think of relaxing, that's what you think of, yes? Sitting comfortably on the couch, maybe kicking off your shoes, getting to a place where you could easily fall asleep. What I think the teachers mean (I could be wrong, this is just a theory) is that we should not be nervous or self-conscious about being on stage, not that we should lull ourselves to sleep. It is possible to be comfortable and still alert. It is possible to be comfortable and still engaged. I think the direction to "relax" is a suggestion that we not judge ourselves, that we just let the moment-to-moment of the scene happen. I don't think it is a direction to check out. But I see that happening all of the time. People on stage just being, for lack of a better word, floopy. In an empassioned scene, they stand with one hip cocked lazily out, doing the head bobble, and when they can't take the emotion of the scene anymore, they turn slowly and take a couple of steps, dragging their feet a few inches to the left of where they had been previously. The passion is indicated by the loudness of their voice, not by their actions or behaviors. Is that how you fight with a loved one? Is that how you seduce a potential lover?
(The teacher called me out for hiding my face when the emotions got too intense in a scene I was working on. I know I do it, too. I know I go for the comfortable instead of the risky, so I'm not trying to point fingers here while I paint myself as perfect. I have found myself bending at the waist to scream at someone instead of walking toward that person, which is one of my biggest actor pet peeves and I yell at myself in my head for it afterward. This is a reminder to me as much as to anyone else that energy is a good thing and it can take many forms. But you gotta have it.)
I think I'm mostly saying that I see a lot of actors who need to get their bodies involved in what they are doing. If you keep your center and keep your core, you can still be relaxed and comfortable on stage, but you will be engaged in what is going on. You will have life and energy and be compelling to watch. Even if your character is apathetic and blase about the world around him, most apathetic people secretly really want something. To be loved, or to be noticed, or to get out of this stupid po-dunk town. And it is the want for those things and the frustration of not getting to have them that leads to apathetic behavior. But as an actor, you need to have that desire and that frustration living in you before you can be properly apathetic on stage. If you just aim for the blase, your audience is going to tune out before you say your first line.
It's like trying to put the wiggle in the dance before you know the steps.
I don't know. I could be talking out of my ass. Or this could be lesson #7 in my self-taught class on how to be more like David Tennant (who is not a perfect performer, but almost every time I watch him, I'm inspired to go out and live and perform and feel and love and let myself be ripped open with heartache, so at the moment, he's who I'm looking to for inspiration as a performer). Hamlet's soliloquy, for example. He's contemplating suicide. But he's hurt and confused and feels betrayed and honestly doesn't know if he is more afraid of continuing in his current state or of the unknown thing that happens (or doesn't happen) when you die. It's a speech about suicide, but it's a speech about so much more than that, and that is why it has stood the test of time. Can you imagine Hamlet going out and delivering this speech as blase dude? There'd be no point for the rest of the play. He is despondent, but that doesn't mean he doesn't care. It is because he cares so much that he has become despondent.
Wow, I'm sounding like a pretentious windbag now. Sorry about that. I did have a moment in class last night where I was feeling pretty good about myself (as I have been for a couple of days) and then it all kind of caved in and my humility kicked in and said, "You don't have all of the answers. You've only been studying this for fifteen years - what could you possibly know about acting?" and the little self-doubt demons came creeping back up my spine. I would like to say that I think I know something. And I think that thing that I know is that acting is living truthfully under imaginary circumstances. And in order to do that, one has to live truthfully on stage. It's not about being cool and blase - it is about being truthful. And there is so much more to being cool and blase and apathetic that you as an actor need to know before you can get up there and be those things as a character, none of which are really cool or apathetic or blase.
I guess I wish I saw more people being passionate about what they do instead of flippant about it.
I'll stop being whiny.
And I am, admittedly, a little nervous to post this here because I know I sound really pretentious, but I'm trying to keep track of my learning process as a performer and this, for me, is a big one. Please know I'm not trying to sound like a know-it-all. These are just my thoughts at the moment.
There seems to be this trend in Hollywood right now where blase is cool. The slacker is cool. The disconnected, apathetic character is cool. I don't mean to name names, but Ellen Page strikes me as one of these sorts of actors. Maybe this is why I don't really want to see "Juno" - in the previews I saw for it, it looked like she just really didn't care. I think this is also my issue with Matt Smith as the Doctor - he spends lots of time running around being weird, but I don't really see things affecting him as strongly as they have affected other Doctors. You can stand there and look at Daleks, or you can STAND AND LOOK AT DALEKS. He chooses the former. I would prefer to watch the latter.
For those of you who watch "America's Next Top Model," I'm talking about what Ms. Tyra Banks refers to as "being fierce."
Now, I'm not saying that every character out there has to be some cracked out whackadoo hopped up on speed in order to be interesting. But I think there is a difference between the actor being apathetic and blase and the character being apathetic and blase. If the actor is blase, I don't want to watch that. If the character is blase, but the actor is fully invested in being blase, that can be interesting.
I know I'm not making a lot of sense, so I'll try a couple of stories.
These two swing dance teachers came to Chicago many years ago and held workshops and many many dancers all around the world consider these two to be just about the best there are. After all, he's one of the people who sort of resurrected lindy in the 1980's or 1990's. And she is...well, she's adorable. There are no two ways about it. Anyway, in their workshops, they were stressing the fact that a dance is a conversation and that the follow has just as much right to speak as the lead and that the lead needs to know how to listen, too. Which is a lovely concept for people who have been dancing for a while and are comfortable with the basics and are looking to push their dancing to the next level. It becomes confusing, though, when you're still counting out the beats in your head and trying to remember if you start with your left foot or your right and suddenly, you are being told that when he's leading you through a six-count turn, it's okay to tell him to stop and wait while you make it an eight-count turn so you can be wiggly for two counts and show off. Suddenly, you're just focused on showing off. You forget that you're supposed to be connected to your partner and inspired by the music; you just want to get in that little two-count wiggle so you can say you know how to dance like the super adorable internationally beloved teacher with the cute accent. And your partner, your poor lead, who is still struggling with the concept of leading from his center instead of jerking your arm out of the socket is focusing so hard on trying to keep the beat that he jerks you through your little two-count wiggle and then remembers he was supposed to just let you do that, so he stops dancing completely because he's lost and frustrated and needs to find the one again, so you wiggle some more to fill the empty beats and he thinks he's just supposed to let you, so he does and you find yourself wiggling for thirty-two counts before you've run out of appropriate wiggle and you both look at each other with an awkward grin that says, "There's a downbeat coming up soon. How about we hit that?" and then you get back into the dance, completely self-conscious and afraid to try that again. At which point, inevitably, the teacher walks by in the workshop and encourages you to wiggle and you're back where you started.
All of this could have been fixed if the dancers knew what they were doing in the first place, and then tried to expand on that knowledge.
I think the same applies to theater.
In one of the first classes I took at the theater where I am now taking classes, we would have to come up with some activity that was difficult to do (but not impossible) and of the utmost importance. One woman decided her activity would be writing a suicide note. Which could be a great exercise, or it could blow up in your face, as the teacher pointed out. If you choose to be a character who really wants to die, then there is nothing to prevent you from just offing yourself at the top of the scene and bam! You're done. Scene over. If, however, you happen to want something from the other person in the scene, no matter how minor that thing may seem, but you really really want it, then you have a scene. If you want to die, but you need to have one last cheese sammich first and your scene partner makes the best cheese sammiches in the world. Or you don't really want to die and the whole thing is really just a cry for attention - the attention of the person in the scene with you. You can still be the super depressed character who sees no other way out of this situation, but there is something more to that character. There is something that makes us, as the audience, want to watch. We want to know if he'll make you the cheese sammich, knowing that as soon as you eat it, you'll die. Or we want to know if she'll confess her undying love for you, thus preventing you from kicking the chair away. That one little glimmer keeps you alive on stage as an actor. As opposed to the actor who just doesn't care about anything. What is the point in that scene?
But I think the problem starts in our very first acting classes. We are told to relax and get comfortable on the stage. This often leads to slouched posture and aimless meandering around the environment. When you think of relaxing, that's what you think of, yes? Sitting comfortably on the couch, maybe kicking off your shoes, getting to a place where you could easily fall asleep. What I think the teachers mean (I could be wrong, this is just a theory) is that we should not be nervous or self-conscious about being on stage, not that we should lull ourselves to sleep. It is possible to be comfortable and still alert. It is possible to be comfortable and still engaged. I think the direction to "relax" is a suggestion that we not judge ourselves, that we just let the moment-to-moment of the scene happen. I don't think it is a direction to check out. But I see that happening all of the time. People on stage just being, for lack of a better word, floopy. In an empassioned scene, they stand with one hip cocked lazily out, doing the head bobble, and when they can't take the emotion of the scene anymore, they turn slowly and take a couple of steps, dragging their feet a few inches to the left of where they had been previously. The passion is indicated by the loudness of their voice, not by their actions or behaviors. Is that how you fight with a loved one? Is that how you seduce a potential lover?
(The teacher called me out for hiding my face when the emotions got too intense in a scene I was working on. I know I do it, too. I know I go for the comfortable instead of the risky, so I'm not trying to point fingers here while I paint myself as perfect. I have found myself bending at the waist to scream at someone instead of walking toward that person, which is one of my biggest actor pet peeves and I yell at myself in my head for it afterward. This is a reminder to me as much as to anyone else that energy is a good thing and it can take many forms. But you gotta have it.)
I think I'm mostly saying that I see a lot of actors who need to get their bodies involved in what they are doing. If you keep your center and keep your core, you can still be relaxed and comfortable on stage, but you will be engaged in what is going on. You will have life and energy and be compelling to watch. Even if your character is apathetic and blase about the world around him, most apathetic people secretly really want something. To be loved, or to be noticed, or to get out of this stupid po-dunk town. And it is the want for those things and the frustration of not getting to have them that leads to apathetic behavior. But as an actor, you need to have that desire and that frustration living in you before you can be properly apathetic on stage. If you just aim for the blase, your audience is going to tune out before you say your first line.
It's like trying to put the wiggle in the dance before you know the steps.
I don't know. I could be talking out of my ass. Or this could be lesson #7 in my self-taught class on how to be more like David Tennant (who is not a perfect performer, but almost every time I watch him, I'm inspired to go out and live and perform and feel and love and let myself be ripped open with heartache, so at the moment, he's who I'm looking to for inspiration as a performer). Hamlet's soliloquy, for example. He's contemplating suicide. But he's hurt and confused and feels betrayed and honestly doesn't know if he is more afraid of continuing in his current state or of the unknown thing that happens (or doesn't happen) when you die. It's a speech about suicide, but it's a speech about so much more than that, and that is why it has stood the test of time. Can you imagine Hamlet going out and delivering this speech as blase dude? There'd be no point for the rest of the play. He is despondent, but that doesn't mean he doesn't care. It is because he cares so much that he has become despondent.
Wow, I'm sounding like a pretentious windbag now. Sorry about that. I did have a moment in class last night where I was feeling pretty good about myself (as I have been for a couple of days) and then it all kind of caved in and my humility kicked in and said, "You don't have all of the answers. You've only been studying this for fifteen years - what could you possibly know about acting?" and the little self-doubt demons came creeping back up my spine. I would like to say that I think I know something. And I think that thing that I know is that acting is living truthfully under imaginary circumstances. And in order to do that, one has to live truthfully on stage. It's not about being cool and blase - it is about being truthful. And there is so much more to being cool and blase and apathetic that you as an actor need to know before you can get up there and be those things as a character, none of which are really cool or apathetic or blase.
I guess I wish I saw more people being passionate about what they do instead of flippant about it.
I'll stop being whiny.
08 November 2010
Twofer
I had two auditions this weekend and got two callbacks out of the deal.
Hooray!
I don't mean to boast - I know that boasting is distasteful - but I have to admit that in my book, it is a little personal victory to be called back from both auditions. One was monologues, and while I don't think I nailed my pieces, I think there were good elements in them and at the very least, I wasn't scared. The other was readings from the script and I think I did pretty well. Largely because they had me reading for a supporting character, but then the director asked me to stick around and read for the lead, and when I was done, the director said, "Good read." And now I've been called back for the lead.
I'm trying not to get my hopes up too high for either show because as we all know, I've been called back for other shows wherein I am ultimately not cast. But I have to admit, it is a confidence boost to know that I went in to two different auditions this weekend and didn't fuck either one up. It goes back to that whole trusting myself thing I was talking about a couple of weeks ago. I feel like I am in a place where I can say, "I'm good at this. I'm damn good at this," and believe it. Being damn good doesn't always mean you'll get cast, but I can hold my head up high and know that when I am cast in something, I will bring so much frickin' life to that stage they won't know what to do with me. Again, I don't mean to boast; I just have confidence that I don't think I had before.
The weird thing for me about the one callback (the one where I am being called back for the lead) is that I had sort of relegated myself to playing supporting characters. I don't know if it is because I don't think I'm thin enough or because my window of opportunity to play the ingenue has passed, or if it is because in all of my years with the theater where I was a company member, I was always cast in supporting roles, but I had sort of decided that I am a supporting character. Which is totally unfair. I could carry a play. Where I am, right now, in my journey as a performer, I could carry a play. I think I have the strength. I think I have the stamina. I think I have the courage to go all of the various places that a lead character would need to go. I know I have the drive and the determination to put in the work to make it happen. Maybe that is the next step in my development - to embrace myself as a lead actress.
Or not. I could be talking out of my ass.
But have you ever wanted something so badly that it hurt? I loved going into these auditions over the weekend and getting up on the stage for three minutes at a time and acting. Putting everything I could into these characters I'm just starting to get to know. And I have to admit, it's hard to come home after that and be...not acting. That's the frustrating thing about where I am right now with trusting myself and whatnot - it's great and I want to do it all the time, but until I'm in something, I'll just get to do it in fits and spurts once or twice a week. What can I say? I'm an addict. I love the connection. I love the emotion. I love the freedom and the conflict and the study and the work and the release in the end. I want to do that all day every day.
And maybe one of these days, I'll rock a callback as much as I rocked the initial audition, I'll be cast in something, and I'll get to do that in more than fits and spurts.
Hooray!
I don't mean to boast - I know that boasting is distasteful - but I have to admit that in my book, it is a little personal victory to be called back from both auditions. One was monologues, and while I don't think I nailed my pieces, I think there were good elements in them and at the very least, I wasn't scared. The other was readings from the script and I think I did pretty well. Largely because they had me reading for a supporting character, but then the director asked me to stick around and read for the lead, and when I was done, the director said, "Good read." And now I've been called back for the lead.
I'm trying not to get my hopes up too high for either show because as we all know, I've been called back for other shows wherein I am ultimately not cast. But I have to admit, it is a confidence boost to know that I went in to two different auditions this weekend and didn't fuck either one up. It goes back to that whole trusting myself thing I was talking about a couple of weeks ago. I feel like I am in a place where I can say, "I'm good at this. I'm damn good at this," and believe it. Being damn good doesn't always mean you'll get cast, but I can hold my head up high and know that when I am cast in something, I will bring so much frickin' life to that stage they won't know what to do with me. Again, I don't mean to boast; I just have confidence that I don't think I had before.
The weird thing for me about the one callback (the one where I am being called back for the lead) is that I had sort of relegated myself to playing supporting characters. I don't know if it is because I don't think I'm thin enough or because my window of opportunity to play the ingenue has passed, or if it is because in all of my years with the theater where I was a company member, I was always cast in supporting roles, but I had sort of decided that I am a supporting character. Which is totally unfair. I could carry a play. Where I am, right now, in my journey as a performer, I could carry a play. I think I have the strength. I think I have the stamina. I think I have the courage to go all of the various places that a lead character would need to go. I know I have the drive and the determination to put in the work to make it happen. Maybe that is the next step in my development - to embrace myself as a lead actress.
Or not. I could be talking out of my ass.
But have you ever wanted something so badly that it hurt? I loved going into these auditions over the weekend and getting up on the stage for three minutes at a time and acting. Putting everything I could into these characters I'm just starting to get to know. And I have to admit, it's hard to come home after that and be...not acting. That's the frustrating thing about where I am right now with trusting myself and whatnot - it's great and I want to do it all the time, but until I'm in something, I'll just get to do it in fits and spurts once or twice a week. What can I say? I'm an addict. I love the connection. I love the emotion. I love the freedom and the conflict and the study and the work and the release in the end. I want to do that all day every day.
And maybe one of these days, I'll rock a callback as much as I rocked the initial audition, I'll be cast in something, and I'll get to do that in more than fits and spurts.
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