Progression

So the topic of this blog is Progression! This and Personal Growth are the main focuses of me for 2011. I want to progress financially, professionally, artistically, physically, emotionally, personally, etc. etc. The hard part is...how. That is what i'm trying to figure out before the new year. I'm hoping i'll just have some epiphany or it will all show up to me in a dream, but that's highly doubtful.

I do have a good bit of auditions lined up to help with the professional progression. The first being for Glee on this upcoming Saturday! I'm excited but extremely nervous. Gotta go in there and just do what I need to do and show them what I got. um... yeah that's it.

Children's Theatre and Underwear

I am now going into my fifth week at Lexington Children's Theatre and it has been an experience to say the least. Our first show is an original piece entitled "I Dedicate This Ride: The Making of Isaac Murphy" and has solidified that I would never like to work on a new piece without the writer being there to guide and rewrite and help in creating the final product. The "script" at first was, as Celie from the Color Purple would say, "a dusty old mess," but I feel like through a lot of hard work and creative freedom we edited it down and cut and paste the script into a workable play. But through all the cuts and edits that were necessary I still feel some form of regret because the author wasn't there to put his input in. Anyways, yesterday was opening day and our first public show and the adults seem to really enjoy it and think it's a great story. I think majority of the kids were lost though, but we'll see how they really feel starting tomorrow when we have school performances.

Other than that I have created a new word, Kentuckedy. It's the Southern Baptist Preacher way to say it. I had to record the curtain speech using a Southern Baptist Preacher accent, and needless to say I need to work on that "character" a little more. Not that it's bad, and the people who told me to do it are displeased, I am not happy with the overall product. I guess that's what you get when you only get three takes and have to say a page long speech in under a minute.

Something way more exciting than all of that is I will be a make-up artist for an underwear fashion show in October. I'll basically be contouring abs and thighs as you want to draw focus to the underwear, and I'm not usually a fan of being that close to people's crotches, but I think it's a great opportunity and it's for a good cause since the show benefits Lexington Fairness, a gay rights organization. We'll see how it goes!

I should finish watching Go Diego Go since I'll be essentially playing him in Junie B Jones.

Peace and Love

Auditions

What is an actor's job? Auditioning

It's a blessing that I have a performance job until May of 2011. God has been truly good to me, but there are also tons of shows and places and things that I would like to audition for, but can't/won't because they only last 2 to 3 months. So it's like i could give up a 9 month job for a 3 month job that pays better, or have job security and not pay for housing. I'm choosing job security and not pay for housing. But maybe I'll submit my headshot and resume stuff anyways just to see what happens. Couldn't hurt right? And it's always helpful to know what kind of jobs are out there and I find stuff that's good for my friends all the time so that's nice for them.

Also troubling is audition material. I've decided to add Gnarls Barkley: Crazy, Jason Mraz: You and I, and The Darkness: I Believe in a Thing Called Love to my audition book which currently really contains nothing. Trouble is finding Sheet Music 1. and 2. finding cuts in the songs that work for 8 bar, or 16 bar auditions. Good thing I don't really have to start auditioning again til after January right? God is good. hope yall are also blessed.

Growth/Negativity/Mainly for my recollection

So looking back on previous post, I was such a negative bitch!

That is over.

So I spent the summer in Ohio (like the Last 5 Years song) and I'm still not sure how it's effected me. I'll just start at the beginning.

So My Fair Lady was my first professional theatre show (my first ever professional show was Die Fledermaus in St. Augustine) doing costumes, hair, and performing. In summerstock you only have two weeks to produce a show. Coming from not having done a show in over 6 months, and before that having well over 6 weeks to produce a show, I naturally panicked and worked myself crazy!

Next I did costumes and supervised hair and makeup for Miracle Worker, which is a great show and gave me a decent amount of time to really get my barrings for how summerstock worked. It was a really hard show though because the director and Weathervane Playhouse's Managing Artistic Director, Matthew Trombetta died in a car accident after strike for My Fair Lady, which was only one week into rehearsal for Miracle Worker. It was especially stressful because he literally created what Weathervane has now become and was special to everyone there. But we pushed through and moved on to Producers.

Producers was an interesting experience. I started off doing costumes and 2 days before tech rehearsal I was put into the show because an actor dropped out. This meant learning music, choreography, lines, literally 2 days before tech. It was nice that they had enough faith in my skill and talent to put me in with so little time, but it was an incredibly daunting task. Looking back on it I'm really grateful for that opportunity because it assures me I can still function under stress and frustration (as i was frustrated at the time over the entire situation).

After Producers came Alice in Wonderland...which I have my opinions on but in my new motivation to stay with the positive I'll simply say it was an "interesting" production. It was definitely a highlight for me as it was my first Professional Hair and Make-up design credit (the previous shows I basically was given a picture and was told to make it happen). I think the over all looks turned out gorgeous, but wish I had a budget and supplies to really achieve the abstract and fantastical looks I had envisioned (think Cirque de Soliel). I also had an interesting experience I hope to never have again. I was TweedleDee and the tweedles have a 6 minute song about The Walrus and The Carpenter. towards the end of the run I found myself getting bored while performing the songs, and if the performer is bored, the audience is definitely going to be bored. So I jazzed it up and took the ending note (which originally was in unison but I decided to do a lower harmony) up an octave from the original unison note and riff. Well Chasdan Mike who was Dum liked it and we decided to play with the end again on the last night. Lesson 1: actually rehearse musical changes. L2: practice harmonic riffs before hand. L3: notify the sound designer before you go from singing bass to a soprano F (which is what I did when Chasdan took my octave note, which resulted in me overpowering the speakers). Lessons learned.

Finally the end of the season: The Ohio Premiere of Hairspray! it was great. Shook and shimmied the best that I could while belting Tenor 1 tessitura. Around this time I found myself getting extremely on edge with people. I mean you live and work with people for 2 months straight, tension is bound to rise and spill over but Thankfully I was able to restrain from cursing anyone out. But these tensions and negative feelings really made me look at myself and how people may perceive me and how I feel I should act and Positivity just seems like the way to go. We'll see how it goes.

I have three weeks until Kentucky so I'm using them to hopefully overhaul my lifestyle and prepare mentally and physically and financially for what I feel like is going to be 9 months of what I just went through (with hopefully more rehearsal time). If you made it through this congrats. It's mainly for my memory bank but I appreciate your effort!

So this past week I got a chance to see some spectacular theatre...and some dreadful theatre. 1st. I saw The Taffetas! It was alright, nothing to write home about. There was this one loud bitch who couldn't seem to blend, and as we all know in 1950's music it's all about the blend! So sad. Then I went to see High School Musical starring the wonderful Renee Freeman. She was fabulous of course and I was pleased with the stamina of most of the cast to be able to sing and dance the very energetic choreography and surprisingly difficult music! The Sharpay was DIVINE! She was definitely the best. I also liked how they didn't just create carbon copies of the people on the movie, I actually felt like these were there interpretations of the characters, especially considering majority of the dialog is taken directly from the movie.

So after seeing those two good shows, I went to see my first Shakespeare show, Two Gentleman of Verona! I can't remember when last I saw a show that bad. Maybe The Boyfriend? But I think that high school production of a shitty show was better than this. I'm especially upset because there are very talented people at J.U. who would have been stellar...if given the opportunity. The fact that casting is done on a "friends" basis is absolute bullshit and the proof is in the shittastic "production" (i can't even dignify this travesty with such a term) put on by the Film Department. It really disgusts me to no end, and makes me all the more grateful I'm done with that hellacious school.

So after that travesty I saw a mostly lovely production of Henrik Ibsen's Ghosts featuring 2 JU faculty and 1 JU student and two random people who weren't too good. Deborah Fucking Jordan. That Bitch know she can act! I much prefer her as a performer and director than a teacher. She knows what she is doing when she directs and its evident when she performs. Oh how i missed good theatre.

Not to say that college can't produce some stellar shows (Ragtime (for the most part), Grapes of Wrath, Lysistrata) but I feel like the caliber of students who are truly driven and want to learn and grow, and I'm just going to say it, Talented, is waining more and more as the years go on. So sad.

Hm, Lessons for Me

As I am laying writing this, exactly 1 week since my graduation from Jacksonville University, I think about the road ahead. In this past week I applied for one job, auditioned at Disney, had a call back (will be discussed later) and was finally able to catch up on sleep at the beginning of the week.

SO what I learned from this audition at Disney:

1. The biggest lesson of all: Even if you mess up it's not the end of the world. So I sang "Can't Take My Eyes Off of You" from Jersey Boys because it's poppyesque without resulting to Backstreet Boys (which one guy did and was really good and got a call back!). I knew I could act the song and the song shows off my top nicely. So what do I when I'm in front of the casting directors? Sing the ENTIRE SONG Under Pitch! KARMA! I'm not sure what happened but the guy was like "Are you nervous" and of course said "YES!" and he was like "Ok. Don't be just breathe. You have a great voice but you sang the song slightly under pitch. Do you have anything else you could sing?" Praise Jesus for being on side and helping me be prepared, and for Dr. Tudor for always saying "BE PREPARED!" so I had My Girl by the Temptations that I bought for Josh Guilyard like a year ago, and I sang that and was good apparently so I got a call back! for High School Musical?

Lesson 2. BELIEVE! So I was expecting to be looked at for Lion King so when they said "High School Musical" I was flabbergasted to say the least. But that goes to show, and points back to being prepared in a way, Expect the Unexpected! So they give me the callback material which has The Boys are Back, High School Musical (with a B flat at the end) and I Want It All (with a B Flat at the beginning!) Then they add to the "excitement" with "Callbacks will be at 10:00 a.m." I'm like are you serious?!?! One I've never trained as a tenor (stupidly) and just by the grace of God been able to make it through the past 3 shows I've been cast in as a tenor, and that was just with a A's, not even B flats, so of course I panic and freak out inside! So in the afternoon I look over the music get comfortable with it as much as I can, but can't really belt it out like it needs to be so it's easy to say the next morning I'm feeling ok..but not super confident! So what does Nina say, "Believe!" and as cheesy as it sounds I really thought about it and after reflecting on the prayer I had with my mother over the phone in Dunkin Donuts...I started to believe that whatever happened is in God's hands and if he wants it to happen it will. So I believe and I go in there and I do my thang! AND, of course, I mess up on some parts. My high notes aren't all there, I mess the rhythm but you just keep going and STAY POSITIVE! Which goes back to Lesson 1: just because you mess up doesn't mean its the end of the world. SO they call me back to dance! AND I'm the only they had to sing I Want It All...either because they realize that is mean to make someone sing that high before lunch, or because they liked it, or because I was so bad they didn't want hear someone butcher that song again. So two other guys get called back to dance with me.

Lesson 3 The Dance: SELL IT BABY!

So I always say I'm an actor first and everything with performing I come at it from an acting point of view. This is true with dance or "movement" as the Disney people called it. In this part I was of course worried because dancing is my weakness and this just pushes me to work harder at it, but I realized, selling it makes it easier! If you approach it from your best side it automatically becomes easier for you to handle. So that is what I did. The moves technically weren't that difficult. The pacing and the length of the piece was! So I got the steps and I could do it all, but I knew there were some parts I wasn't exactly comfortable with but you just got to keep on moving and keep on selling it. Unfortunately I don't know if this "technique" has worked out yet because I haven't been called with "Congratulations YOU GOT THE JOB!" but having reflected on it, I think it's a useful technique.

So if you read through all of this I hope you took something useful out of it! As the Title says this is mainly for me to have some documentation of my first audition after College Graduation, so as I prep for more in the near future, I can keep growing, because that's equally as important as booking the job in my book!

Preparation

Preparation.

How does one Prepare for anything? Planning? In a little over a month I will be 21...21...21...and in a little over 2 months I will be graduating from college...college...college...where was high school? I feel prepared in I know what to expect from the business and what I need to do to get where I want to as an actor, and the most obvious step is to audition...but that's not the most economical step...so what do I do? Well prepare. Prepare for the best (I book a job from the auditions I have lined up, or get a tech job doing costumes or hair and make up somewhere!); and prepare for the worst (prepare for the GRE and look into grad schools and jobs in Jacksonville.) Either way lots of planning and lots of work needs to be done and the time to do it currently non existent. Time to get on the ball, this is ridic!