Sunday, February 20, 2011

A Starving Artist and "The Card"

Thursday afternoon, I grabbed my bags and my checkbook and a pristine looking application, boarded a train to just north of Times Square, and marched my way into the Actors Equity-offices with the world's stupidest grin plastered across my face. 

There were people there paying dues.  Reluctantly.

There were people there just waiting, looking generally disgruntled and/or bored.

And then there was me.  Giddy me.  Strolling up to the woman behind the counter who looked at me bewildered like "What precisely could you be so happy about?"  when I shrieked:

I'm here to turn in my application to become Equity--I'm turning Equity!...Eeeeee!!!

She smiled.  And I knew that the world was about to become so so right. 

Actors Equity is a union--but to me, it's about 70 million different greater bigger more exciting wonderful things.

To me, this means bigger auditions.

To me, this means bigger pay (...if and/or when successful at said bigger auditions).

To me, this means (potential) health insurance.

To me, this equals a feeling of legitimacy and professionalism that I have been waiting oh so patiently for for the past five years.

It.  Feels.  GLORIOUS! 
I will shamelessly tell you that just simply holding this freaking card feels amazing.  To me.  It does.

To "turn" Equity, one needs to have accumulated 50 weeks of work between any number of Equity houses within (X) amount of time. I was racking up weeks at a pretty nice rate, considering that the bulk of it was done while I was in and immediately following grad school.  So I was getting excited, so excited--I was going to move to New York with my Equity-card in tow and hit the ground RUNNING!

And then I sat at 48 weeks for over a year and a half.

...So, that was frustrating. 
You're so close to being a Unionized actor, and yet you can't guarantee that you'll be seen at the Union-calls. 

You're so close to being a Unionized actor, and yet you can't walk into the Al Hirschfeld clinic and get seen.

You're so close to being a Unionized actor, and yet so many agents and casting directors still don't think you're legitimate enough because you have the letters "EMC" at the top of your resume.  (They're wrong, you know that, but still.)

You're so close to being a Unionized actor, and you're working just as hard as the Union actor sitting next to you--and getting paid half as much.

...I now have 57 weeks.
...

I got my card just too late to attend the auditions for Fat Pig on Broadway--Fat Pig, which is one of my favorite contemporary plays, and the audition specifically being to cast Julia Stiles' understudy.

Now.
I have nothing more in common with Julia Stiles other than the fact that we're both blonde, we both act, and we both have alabaster-borderline-translucent skin.  But, there's something really great about knowing that I could have walked into that audition, and would have gotten seen...and would have kicked ass.  And that feeling is just kind of amazing right now. 

I know that a Union and a "card" doesn't guarantee you a damn thing in this business, or anywhere, for that matter.  But I just.  Don't.  Care.

All I know right now right this second is that to me, it means the culmination of a really long hard journey, and the start of something really exciting and brand new and promising...and real.  This feels real for the first time, in a very very long time.

And it's kind of all I need.

So now, a year and half later than expected--I'm running.

...Try and keep up.

Thursday, February 17, 2011

A Starving Artist LIVE In Front of a (Workshop)-Studio Audience

If ever you're looking for a sure fire way to get yourself feeling horrified over...
yourself, I got one:
Get on film, and watch the play-back tape.

Now.

Now:
I've been on camera before.  I actually really like it, and I actually think that I typically am pretty stupid good at it.  Not to toot my own horn, but yeah.  I do.  It's fun.  It's a challenge.  And I think that 9 times out of 10 I rise to it pretty freaking well.

But.

"Good" things have this crazy little tendency to go bad on occasion.

And yikes.

...

I started a new job today (job #2 SUCCESS! SO! EXCITED!), and I was having a good ol time, buddying up to these new fun spunky co-workers of mine and tipping this ridiculously good locally-roasted coffee back like it was my job--because it kind of is--when it happened.  The thing that inherently always happens whenever I meet a whole new group of people who know virtually nothing about me all at once:

"Hey, Angela--are you an actress?"

Ummm...yes.  (Aw god, aw crap.)  Why?  

"Oh no, nothing.   I could just tell."

(Yikes.)  Oh no.  How?  What do you mean?

"No no, you're just veryyyyy--"  (argh, here goes)  "--exuberant."

...

Over time, I've come to interpret such a phrase to mean something like You resemble a whirling dervish with a rubber face....and talking hands.

Other such terms that frequently get thrown my way:
--animated
--expressive
--caricature-like
--charactery
--big
--not subtle
--not shy
--theatrical
--Italian.
...And yeah, ok, all of these things might very well be true, but godDAMN it's like a curse.   When I was young and entirely too insecure, I thought that I scared enough people away with some of my physical attributes--and now that I'm older and essentially over all of that stuff, I'm suddenly keenly aware that I have this overwhelming expressiveness about me.  This entirely genuine uncensored-like expressiveness.

Eff.  Is that off-putting?

And if it's not necessarily in life, is it professionally?

I'm smart enough to recognize the fact that there is an ENORMOUS difference between how you play things on stage versus how you play them on camera.  On stage, you need "big" because the "big" helps your every thought read to the 600 people sitting a half-a-mile away from you--staring at you with their binoculars, drinking their boxed white zin and feeling uber-proud and cultured that they are taking themselves out for not just a night at the theatre, but a night of SHAKESPEARE!  SHAKES! PYAHH! ...Goodness me, that blonde corseted-thing has her iambic pentameter down!  And she is awfully animated...

Versus on camera, where your thoughts and actions have to be much more real because your audience is so much closer, and they could--therefore--see you lying that much easier.  The world is much more contained, so your thoughts and actions should be equally as contained.

Well.

I guess I just threw allllll of that crap out the window last night, because there I was:  rubber-facing.  RubberFace.

See RubberFace walk into a workshop.  See RubberFace see a friend, and shriek with glee.  See RubberFace size up the competition around the room--RubberFace has this in the bag.

See RubberFace beam at the casting director as he walks into the studio, and then watch as RubberFace charms him with her bubbly "Hello!" and can-do candor.  RubberFace is ready.  RubberFace is set.  She is so. completely. money, baby, she's money.

And then:  action.

...

I looked at the play-back, and I could see the wheels turning in my head, I saw where the crap I was going emotionally when I wasn't even moving (gooood...)--and then I decided to express it further by making my eyebrows dance.

DEEE-zaster.

Why do I jump to this?
Is it that I don't trust enough in the fact that I am a completely and utterly transparent person (because I am, I so am), or is that truthfully just how I operate?  Am I really like this wind-up toy of a girl, gesticulating and rubber-facing my way through life?  ...Is that ok?

Can I calm the eff down?
...Or do I even want to?
Could this be my niche, or my crutch?

And, honestly, maybe I don't even have to decide.
I have bounded my way into the world's arguably most subjective industry.  My expressive nature could read as "DEEE-zaster"-like to two dozen people--and maybe even two dozen really impressive people--but then, there could be one person who sees it as just that:

"Expressive".
"Not boring."
"Not stiff."
"Not subtle."
"Big."
"Charactery."
"Animated."
"Exuberant."

And maybe that'll be great.

But, for real.
I could at least attempt to tame some of this, couldn't I? (With some discretion...maybe...)

Sunday, February 13, 2011

A Starving Artist Shows You Love.

I can truthfully tell you that there is nothing in this world that I favor more than Love.

You could try and argue.
You could say "Oh.  Well what about Passion?  What about Pride?  What about Hunger?  Lust?  Generosity?  Compassion?  Perseverance?  Those things."

...Those things all have a common thread.
And they all help to create this quilt called Love.


About 40 of us collaborated to create a segment on Love through my friend's online audio-theatre company, the link of which was released tonight.  There are thirty-some-odd vastly different autobiographical pieces and, therefore, vastly different perspectives on the topic.  The result:

Candid.
And gorgeous.
...And Love.

So, this is for you...from one hungry Love-sick ball of passion to another.

Happy Valentine's Day
xo
http://www.chatterboxtheater.org/node/1267

Saturday, February 12, 2011

How A Starving Artist Crashes Into A Celebrity.

There are roughly 8.4 million people living throughout the five boroughs of New York City.

Most of us:  Commoners.  Little People, Nobodys, The Anonymous...Worker Bees and Starving Artists.

There's that good chunk of the population who can afford the world but have no real notoriety:  Blue-Bloods.

And there's "Them":  the Celebrities.  A-Listers, D-Listers, Legends and general Tabloid-Fodder alike, this city is crawling with them.  Crawl-ling.  They're everywhere.

It is, therefore, not uncommon for a Commoner like yours truly to experience some kind of run-in with a Celebrity.  I, in fact, guarantee you that every single citizen of the city has more than one run-in story.

What you'll notice, however, is the fancy way that the storyteller (be it Commoner or Blue-Blood) plays off the story of such a run-in.  In most cases, they play it off extraordinarily cool, discuss the run-in as if it really wasn't that big of a deal and that, naturally, that simple interaction turned them into besties.

"Do you know who I met today?"
No.  Who?
"Oh my God."
Who?!
"Wait for it..."
Ew, STOP! Whooo?!?!
"I met.  Matthew.  Broderick."
No.  No!  Get out!! Where?!  Oh my GOD! What happened?!  
"Oh.  Oh no.  Totally not a big deal.  Just, you know, on the street.  73rd and Amsterdam."
Just, like, on the street?  What HAPPENED, though?!
"Oh, I mean.  He was just, like, walking.  With a coffee.  With his head down, or something.  But we were, like, really close, because of that corner of 73rd and Amsterdam where's that all that construction?  You know?  So it's kinda tight?"
Right.
"So, we were close.  And he looked up at me and kinda smiled so I said..."
Ohmygod...
"No!  All I said was, 'You have to know that I still watch War Games all of the time.  It's so incredibly profound and ahead of its time.  So, thank you for that.' "
Wow. 
"Right."
So...like, was that it?
"...Yeah.  I mean, no, not really.  He totally said 'Thank you' and smiled at me again."
Oh.
"Yeah.  ...Matthew's hair is so much grayer than you think."
Really?
"Yeah.  But, like, it looks dashing on him. ...Matthew's totally nice."

This happens.  All.  The.  Time.

Because the New Yorker doesn't want to admit that they get starstruck.  The New Yorker doesn't want to admit that they might act a fool in front of a celebrity.  They want you to know that they are 100% cool 100% of the time.  Commoners and Blue-Bloods alike.

I have been dumb.

I've had a couple run-ins with a couple pretty famous folk, and I legitimately kept my cool around them because, you know, "They're just people" and they have to attempt to lead a normal life sometimes, too.   I was all sorts of proud of myself.

However. ...

So, John Oliver of "The Daily Show" used to come into my old work-place every single weekend to have brunch with his fiancee.

(I.  Love.  "The Daily Show".)

But, there was a good long while that I never got to effectively serve him anything, someone else would have already gotten to him before I could.  And so one day, there I am, taking out a coffee and a darjeeling oolong to a table, and I get there and I look up, and there's 7-foot 3-tall adorable hilarious British John Oliver staring me in the face, with his precious lady-friend sitting across from him looking at me like "Umm, just set that crap down and leave us, please.  You oaf."

So I said Oh! and smiled and, before I knew it, the following came out of my mouth (complete with British-accent--I have NO idea where that came from--and a head-bobble, because I'm awkward and ridiculous):

Your coffee, Mr. Oliver, and I do hope that you have the loveliest morning.  Thank you, Sir.

He looked at me like I had seven heads (I deserved that), I was horrified at myself and ran away.


...The opposite of cool.  Hilarious in retrospect, but the 100%-opposite of cool.

And then, there are also occasions when an embarrassing run-in happens and there is simply nothing that you can do about it.

I've been filling-in at my old job the past couple of weekends (they put me "on-call" which was entirely nice).  At said old job, there is only one bathroom, which we rightfully have to leave for the customer's usage only, and so we are forced to run next door to the ridiculously posh and over-priced tanning salon and use their facilities.  Fine.

Yesterday, my one server-friend ran up to me and grabbed by the shoulders, her face had turned white.

Sweet Jesus, what's happening?
"I ran next door to take a pee."
Ok...
"I didn't lock the door. ...Kim Kardashian walked in on me."
...
...Honey...
"She had her head down, she said she was sorry.  ...She's fucking beautiful. ...I'm sorry, I just don't know what to do with myself."

...HILARIOUS!  Hilarious, but the 100%-opposite of cool.

 And then, there are stories.  There are stunning stories.  Stories where the Commoner didn't lose his cool, but where the Celebrity put the Commoner in his place.  These are gems.  And these 100% most definitely happen.

And this is my favorite:

A friend of mine and his buddy were lurking around in some dark back alley of SoHo really late one night, having a dandy of a time with their friend MaryJane.  They're chatting it up.  They're feeling glorious.  And then they look down the alley and see a dark figure sauntering towards them.

"Is that Bill Murray?"

Sure as shit, it's Bill Murray.  And Mr. Murray, saunters directly up to them and says:
Excuse me, but are you boys smoking weed?

My friend hands him the joint.


And so there they are:  two Commoners and a Bill Murray in some dark back alley of SoHo really late one night, having a dandy of a time with their friend MaryJane.  They're chatting it up.  They're feeling glorious.

Twenty minutes into the conversation:
So.  I bet you're going to tell all of your friends that you smoked a joint with Bill Murray tonight.

"...I mean, probably.  Yeah."

Well, would you want to tell them a better story?

"...OK."

OK, then.
And he reaches for my friends hand.
Tell them that you smoked a joint with Bill Murray, and then he stole it.

...And off he went, leaving two Commoners in his dust, abandoned, weedless.  Schooled.

But with a glorious glorious story to tell.

100% Hilarious...and I dare say 100% Awesome.

It's an interesting world, this city where there's so many different kinds of people living on top of one another.  I think that too often, we don't take enough stock in just how cool that is.  But, I don't know, maybe that should keep us on our toes, too.  Everyone gets caught with their finger up their nose every so often...when you live here, however, you just have to assume that the person catching you may or may not be a Gyllenhaal.

Maybe that's legitimately not a huge deal to you.  Maybe it's the biggest thing that's ever happened.

Either way--at least you'd have a story to tell.

Wednesday, February 9, 2011

A Starving Artist Climbs Behind the Table.

Facilitating over an audition is seriously one of the best lessons an actor can have in... yeah, acting.  And professionalism.  And control.  ...Lots of things.  One of the best lessons in lots of things.

And it is one of the best people-watching experiments, to boot.  For.  Serious.

I am a chronic people-watcher, I actually fancy myself a bit of a professional at it.  There was a good long chunk of time that I was keeping a people-watching journal, and I carried it with me everywhere that I went--taking notes on any and every fascinating character that crossed my path. 

There were, you know, lots.

I do, in fact, live in a city where it's a given that I will never ever ever ever ever be the craziest person on the block--or on the square foot.  Ever.  (Quick and dirty lesson in this:  riding the subway.  I dare you to set aside an entire day to just hop from train to train and see what you come across...Meh.  But this is enough fodder for an entire other volume of posts altogether...I digress.)

Actors are pretty much never quite as altogether transparent as when they're at an audition.  You hang around these kinda scenarios long enough, and you can like smell who's genuinely confident, who's totally unprepared, who thinks that they're above the material, above the process...

And if you're the one working the audition (ie: Me.  Tonight.)...ho-ly crap:
                                                                                             Prepare to get your ass kissed.

Why is it that we as actors assume that whomever's ushering us into the audition has ANYTHING to do with whether or not we get cast?  Let alone that we have all of the answers to all of your questions...

"I didn't memorize this.  Should I have memorized this?"
I mean, I don't think so...

"What can you tell me about the Kid Sister?"
Ooh.  Nothing.  Only that it's a role in the play. ...I'm sorry.

"Should I wear my hair up or down?"
Ummm.  However you like it better...?
"No, but really though."
...Yep.

"How bad is it that I have an accent?"
Ohhh...
            "Oh, me too."
                                "And me."
Ummm...
                                              "And me."
Wow.  Um, you know--(a million and seven terrified gaping stares bore through my face with these pleading looks like "Please don't tell me I'm going to fail because of my speech.")--I don't think it should be too much of an issue, no.

So.  Many.  Sighs of relief.

It is a great wonderful thing to feel that you're actually providing confidence to these actor-guys.  Relaxing them, putting them at ease...some of them really truly need this.  Right now, some of them seem to really truly need you.   ...Damn, you're nice!!!

"Oh!  Hey."
Hey!
"So, I got called-back."
Ohhh, congratulations!!
"Yeah, I hate that role, though."
Oh.  (blink. blink.  blink.) You know, Sweetheart, I don't know what to tell you.  (blink.     blink.)  Try and find something you like about it.
"What if I can't?"
Well, I mean, I'm sure you can...
"...I really wanted this role, though..."
(blink.     blink.   blinkblinkblink.)  Honey, I don't know.
"Oh.  OK."
...
...
How about this:  See what you can find to like and connect to with this character, and maybe the director will decide to read you for the role that you like, too.  Who knows!
"Yeah.  OK.  OK.  ...I like your boots."
Oh!  Thanks.  (I like em, too.)

Poor poor girl.

I have to wonder if I do that on occasion--like come across as the needy actress.

Eeeee, I hope not.

And then, my paranoia sets in:
How did I conduct myself at my audition today?  Did I get up to read the break-down post too many times?  Was my calmness off-putting?  Was my hair off-putting?  ...Guhhhh, did I sound too Western New York?  Midwestern?!  I so sounded Midwestern...

Were my boots too cute?...

NO!  STOP IT!  Why?!  Whyyyyyy do we actor-people (maybe it's primarily we chicks...no.  It's all of us.)  WHY do we do this to ourselves?!  This second-guessing crap--So!  Dumb!

So dumb.

I want to hug these guys.  I want to tell them to be nice to themselves, starting right now right this second and continuing always.

But, that'd be awkward.

I'll shake them by the shoulders with my eyes(ish) instead, and ish-say:  I am just a messenger, I swear to god, that's it.  But, I am very familiar with the shoes that you're in...And I don't want you to embarrass yourself. ...So don't.

Sunday, February 6, 2011

A Starving Artist's Relationship With "Size" (Definition A)

If we're choosing things here, I prefer being the small fish.

93.7% of the time, it just feels better to me.  The other 6.3% of the time, I'm just caught up in whatever's going on around me, and lost--not remembering that I'm better off.  And then I remember that the smaller fish is always better off.  Always.  What the small fish knows, the big fish can't always see.

As a small fish, I am cognizant of the fact that there is always something bigger than me:  bigger intellectually, bigger talent-wise, bigger heart, bigger persona, bigger wealth.  Bigger bigness.

Good.

And I guess, now that I think about it, that's a huge part of the reason why I initially moved here to New York.  Because if you live here, you have no choice but to be the small fish.  And if you have no choice but to be something small, you find yourself settling with things less.  Because you have to fight for everything.

Good.

But, when you're "small", things tend to become a far bigger deal always than they ever really need to be...the small little dramas in your life tend to get blown-up in your brain as something far more large and intense than they really are.  I.E:  The stresses of my life over the past month.  In reality, these things weren't all that deterimental, all that problematic, all that huge.  There are things that are worse.

There always are.

...

This is an incredibly round-about way to get to the crux of this thing.  (I've had wine, and there's a reason, so you're going to have to bear with me.)

I lost a friend last night.  I lost a beautiful friend, one of the loveliest people I've had the privilege to know, in an entirely tragic awful way.  I only know so many details, and I'm quite certain that I don't want to know any more of them.

He was the brightest sunshiniest burst of a guy, always up, and perky, and essentially dancing his way through life.  And sassy.

Sassy. As. Hell.

We worked together.  Well, not "together", we were actually like two barista-ships passing in the night, but we clicked in a huge way, and it was glorious.  Glorious.

He had been a musical theatre-guy once upon a time, but had aspirations of going to nursing school.

And he was in love.  He and this guy had spotted each other out a bar one night, and then just got separated having never exchanged names, numbers, nothing.  Somehow, they both had the presence of mind to place an ad on "Missed Connections" on CraigsList.

...And they had just gone apartment-shopping together.

...

My lovely friend and I would occasionally stage fights.  He would either prank-call me at work, or show up during my shift, and frequently what would go down was a semblance of the following:

Hello?
"Hey, Girl, hey."
Ooooh, hey.  Hey.
"You a bitch."
Ooooh, what?!  
"You heard."
No.
"You did."
No.  I did not.  No.
"You did.  Too.  You did.  And yo man said the same."
Bitch.  You are not tawk-een.  Bout my man. 
"I am.  Cuz last night, he told me you was nasty.  After we did the nasty, he told me you was nasty."
You did what?
"Nasty."
You did.  WHAT?!
"Nasty.  We did.  That shit.  And he said you gross."
Bitch, you gotta leave him alone. He tole me you gave him enough shit down you-know-where to last him a you-know-HOW-long...
"Lies."
Bitch, I don't lie.  It's what I heard.
"Dirty. Ass. Lies."
I heard it.
"Well, I heard about ya weave."
Yeah?
"Discount-rack. Conway."
Mandee.  Git ya facts straight.
"Con.  Way.  I got cameras...And if you need a good weave, you should just dig through my shit, I stocked-up last year after taxes."
Yeah?!
"Bitch, yeah! Here, touch that shit, it's soft."
Ooooh.  Olive oil?
"Yeah.  I gave ya man some olive oil last night, too..."

...Such conversations would go on for no shorter than 10-15 minutes, and if we were face-to-face, they were followed shortly thereafter by a dance party-microburst.  Always.  ...No matter how crowded the restaurant.

And then hugs.

And then an "I freaking love you, let's play soon."

...

And now, he's gone.  Without a warning, without a reason, gone.

...

There is always, always something bigger.  Than you.  Than your shit.  Than your successes.  Than your anything.  There's a bigger thing.  Sometimes it's there to just offer you some perspective, sometimes it's there to lift you up.

Occasionally, however, there is nothing you can do to stop it from breaking your heart.

Wednesday, February 2, 2011

How a Starving Artist Can Lose the Funk.

(That is the one that she's in as opposed to the one that she feels..for that one will never be lost, friends.  Never.)

I think that it's important to remember that no matter how bleak things may seem, there is always some kind of light to be found around you somewhere--eventually.  I try to remind myself of this often, and maybe I should do so more often, but still.

I woke up this morning far earlier than I would have liked as I had the day off from work--which meant one day less money, which meant that I was not thrilled.  I spent the next five hours applying for more jobs than I could count and then, before I knew it, it was already Noon.  ...Not ideal.

But then, I received two job interviews for later in the week--and two job interviews of which I was actually really excited about.

And then I snagged another audition.

(And then yoga, which is--naturally--always a good thing).

And an impromptu happy coffee date.

...And then I came home, and I found this in my mailbox:


...And there, right there in that little envelope was all the light that I needed.