Curtain Up. Light the Lights.

I just made my first appointment in New York.  As excited as I am, I feel like I kind of cheated since she’s technically part of my family.  She’s my uncle’s sister; you probably say Well isn’t she your aunt? which is a valid question.  My uncle Terry married my aunt Patrice, who is my mom’s oldest sister.  Christine is Terry’s sister; ergo, she’s technically family, though not by blood.  She’s been in the business for around 30 years or thereabouts, so it’s going to be incredibly interesting to talk to her.  I’m definitely hoping I’ll hear from some of the younger actors since that’s where I am.  After this I’m going to continue to search for people Off and Off Off Broadway, since they’re probably closer to my level.

On another note, I got an email from Kim Renz, the executive director of Lime Kiln, a theatre in Lexington, VA, which is about an hour from my home town.  It’s a really interesting theatre, and I emailed her a couple of days ago to see if there were any opportunities to be had there.  She said that they’ll soon be casting a new play for their summer season, and there are other things I could do down there, and that she’ll let me know when she looks at my headshot and resume, which I just emailed to her.  I’ve been researching what to do after graduation pretty much since the summer before my senior year, and I’ve found some really interesting things, and I need to get on that because a lot of the due dates are coming up.  Last night I was also talking to Carolyn Myers, who’s been working pretty consistently lately, about moving in with her in May.  We’ll see, I suppose.

This morning I woke up in Norfolk, VA. It’s okay, I meant to go there. Saturday night, at approximately 1034pm, I got on 95 south and began my journey. I finally arrived at my good friend Steven’s apartment around 1am, and, after a short catch-up session with Steven, who I hadn’t seen in 5 months, I went to sleep. At 10am I was up and getting ready for my audition with the Virginia Stage Company. It actually went really well, which made me really happy. Apparently people were right when they said doing something over and over again makes it easier. Auditioning all alone in front of two men I’d never met was a lot easier than I thought it was going to be; I thought I was going to be incredibly scared. The theatre is absolutely gorgeous; you can look at it here: [http://www.vastage.com/] I won’t hear anything about call backs until about mid-March, since they also cast from SETC. This experience made me think about my mini-digital story project. I have come a ridiculously long way from the first time I auditioned at at Mary Washington. Looking back on it, I shudder a little bit. I’m glad I did it, but I wasn’t prepared, I wore what I was wearing on campus during the day, and I really had no idea what I was doing. Now, after 4 years of auditioning for both Studio and mainstage productions, I think I have a much better idea of what needs to be shown in an audition. As I’ve heard many people say, auditioning is a completely different skill set than acting itself. I think it’s interesting that in almost all other professions, a job interview can last anywhere from 5 minutes to a couple of hours, whereas we get up to 2 minutes, and that’s absolutely it. Where did this come from? Why is this the way that we decide who gets the part? I’m sure I could find out, but if anyone has any ideas, I’d love to hear about it.

I’ve started watching Quarterlife online, after reading an article about it in the New York Times. It’s about 20somethings out in the real world for the first time, trying to get their first jobs or working in a job they never thought, in the glittering world of college, they would have to have before getting what they really wanted. Of course it’s part soap opera with all kinds of quirky relationships and unrequited love. The episodes are less than 10 minutes long each, and they come out at 12am Pacific time each Thursday and Sunday. I like it because it shows that not all young people have a clear goal in life, and don’t get their dream job on the first try. Also, it gives me something to look forward to during the week since the writers of my favorite shows are still on strike.

Superbowl!