Updates and Aplogies!!

Hey everyone! Sorry I haven't written in a bit, but when I got home from vacation, I found out my aunt had passed away while we were gone, and now rehearsal has me all swept up and such..but! On with the show! First, I'd like to thank everyone for voting in the Rent video competition. At the end of voting I had something like 355 votes, and a 1.8 rating. Now, while that's nowhere NEAR what the winner ended up getting, I am still so thrilled, and honored to have gotten those votes, and a decent rating! You guys are awesome! I took another leap of a faith this past week, as well. Around last Friday/Saturday, a friend of mine sent me an audition notice for a program called "Making it on Broadway", a one-week musical theatre intensive in NY. After researching the program, I realized that this is a program I have been looking to do for the past 3-4 years. After getting my headshot and resume and a short cover letter together, I sent it to the person running the program and got an audition time 5 minutes later! This program only has 40 spots for the week, so everyone has to audition in. I was more than stunned to get a reply and an audition time so freakin quickly! So this past Wednesday, I got my music together, my headshot and resume stapled together, and made my way into the city for my 2:30 audition time. Before I went to the audition, though, I made a stop at my spot :The Drama Book Shop, and purchased the newly released libretto for "The Addams Family". Apparently it came out about a month ago. I go into the audition and sing my prepared song "Superboy and the Invisible Girl" from Next to Normal. When I was done, both the piano player, and the person running the audition smiled at me, and the piano player, in all his enthusiasm asked me "Do you have anything else?!" HELL YES! I bought a brand freakin new libretto before I came over! So I ran out to my seat and got it, handing it to him. I told him I had been working on "Pulled" with my vocal coach, and he began playing the song-from the middle. Now, for anyone that's never auditioned for a musical before-being asked to sing more than your prepared piece is a huge deal! Always go into a musical audition with 2 songs. One prepared (obviously) that you'll need to sing 16 bars from, and another, just in case they want to hear another song, song. Until this audition, I've never been asked to sing 2 songs. Having them ask me to sing another song, that I hadn't really prepared (I had never heard the song played on the piano-my vocal coach and I were using the CD to work on the song), was a wonderful sign! I sang the song through to the end, not missing a beat, and if I do say so myself, completely blew the song out of the water (I could play Wednesday Addams!). When I was done, both of them looked at me with these huge smiles. The woman running the audition then goes to me: "Okay. The program runs Aug 8th-13th, 10am-6pm everyday and from 5-6 you have a master class with someone working on Broadway right now" Now when she says 'someone working on Broadway right now', she means Gavin Creel, Aaron Tveiet, Stephanie Block, and Cheyenne Jackson (to name a few people who will be teaching that week). I'm sorry...did she just say I got into the program?! That I have one of the 40 spots?!!! She then told me that they do have a payment plan in case I need one, and that she would e-mail me all of the information that night. Today is Monday, and I have yet to get that e-mail. I think if I don't hear from her by Wednesday, I will e-mail her and ask her when I might get that information if I did in fact make it into the program. Onto "The Heiress"! Rehearsals are going well, and we expect to have the set up by the time we come in for rehearsals tomorrow! I have half of a costume (need a long sleeved black shirt), and need to learn my lines for Act II (much harder than Act I). We open in 3 weeks and I need to have everything memorized by Saturday!!! Yikes! Time to kick my own ass into overdrive and get to these lines! My major challange is going to be learning my cue lines. Now, this has never been a problem for me, but with this show, I'm on and off the stage so often, that I need to know what lines bring me onstage, so that if one of my fellow actors misses a line (it happens ;) ), or if a sound effect doesn't work or something, I know where I am. Looking forward to opening night, and getting this thing going!!! Hopefully for the next blog update, I'll be able to post a picture of myself in costume or a picture of the set or something. If you're interested in coming to the show, and you're local (NY/NJ), let me know and I'll get you all the details! Until next time....... :D

Another leap of faith..

Tonight, I took, what might be the biggest leap of faith yet. I submitted a video for the Off-Broadway production of RENT auditions.

Here's the link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uniFcO1Rv7Q

Now, I'm going away for a week-so what I need all of you wonderful people to do is go to: www.siteforrent.com and wait for them to post videos of whatever they're going to do, and then go VOTE for me!

If I get enough votes-I get to go to the audition!

Now, you may ask, why can't I just go to the open call and skip all of this voting nonsense? The answer: I'm going to be away while the audition is taking place (unfortunately). So this was the next best thing.

So go, vote for me, help me get this audition :).

My sincere thanks to you all if you go vote, and if I get the audition, you all get a hug! :D

Until next time...

Connecting with the character

Sorry I haven't been around for a few days-rehearsal and babysitting are eating my time like woah.

Anyway...on with the show!!!

Let's do this slowly because a lot happened this weekend, and I don't want to forget any of it, otherwise one part of the story won't make sense to the other part.

So over the weekend, I was in the city for a friend's birthday party. After the party was over, I cabbed down to where La Cage Aux Folles is currently playing. Harvey Fierstein is in it right now, and if you've been paying attention-he's one of my heros.

I didn't get there in time to SEE the show, so I stagedoored it and waited for him to come outside. Now, he wasn't the only reason I decided to do this. Currently, a friend of mine is in the show as well, and I wanted to see him too.

When they came out, I said hi to Harvey (nothing like hearing my hero's voice live in front of me, talking to me and other people. This made me smile SO huge!), and grabbed my friend. While we walked, he was giving me some theatrical advice (Never, ever turn down advice, wisdom, or otherwise when it comes to the craft!).

Here's basically what he told me:

1) enjoy the journey
2) Own every moment you're in onstage
3)don't take lessons just so you can perform them. Take what you enjoy, and learn what you enjoy.

We said goodbye since he had to go home, but he had defenitly planted those seeds in my head that I took to rehearsal the following day.

Now here's where the story makes sense. I'm sitting with my script in rehearsal, and I can still feel the wall between myself, and my character. Since this is only the third rehearsal, this doesn't scare me as much as it bothers me.

I did my character development for her, to make her more real to me. I delivered the information to the rest of the cast, as we were told to, in the first person, telling the character's autobiography. But yet, I still find myself struggling slightly to connect with her.

While I was in school for theatre, we lived by the way of Stanislavski, and basically his take on it is: if you can't connect to a character for the exact situation that they're in, find a situation that's similiar in your past, and connect to the character in that way.

In my life, the only time I've really had to take on the type of role that my character has, is when I'm cleaning and stuff around the house-but when I do it at home, these are things that just need to get done, not because I'm getting paid for it.

I had this problem when I was in Charlotte's Web, too. It took me a few rehearsals to really get into and connect with the character.

The good thing about Maria, though (the one I'm playing now), is that I was able to make her closer to my age and give her this entire real backstory. Where as with Wilbur, he starts the show as a baby with no backstory whatsoever. So when I did my character development for him, I had to go from mid-show and work my way through the rest of his life.

With this, I'm able to do the character's entire past.

I may actually sit down and re-examine what I did with her, and maybe give her a better backstory to help myself connect more to her. I'll also be rehearsing lines in the next few days before the next rehearsal as well.

Whatever I do, I need to make sure I'm at least somewhat connected to this character by my next rehearsal on Monday, or learning my lines will be a bit difficult.

Until next time....

Possible audition?

Today, as I was sitting at the computer, just hanging out after my morning workout, a friend of mine sent me a link: To the open call for American Idiot's national tour!!

WHAT?!!!?? Open casting call!! I'm totally totally there!!!!

But-it's on April 9th. The Heiress (the show I'm in right now) opens on April 29th, so I just need to make sure I don't have rehearsal on April 9th. If I do, obviously The Heiress takes priority and I'm right there at rehearsal. Not a big deal.

If we don't have rehearsal that day though-I'm totally at the open call! It's in Boston, which isn't that far if you think about it, and I would totally be willing to go ahead and go there for the audition.

My only problem now remains to be finding an audition song. Hey, whether I can go to this thing or not, I need to have a rock song for an audition piece, because it's called upon more often than you'd think!

I have two options in my mind that I've been kicking around:

1) Pat Benetar- Hit me with your Best Shot: I used this song when I auditioned for a local production of "Rent" back last May. It was before I started voice lessons, and it wasn't my best performance that I've ever given.

While I do have a vocal coach now, this song proves harder than it sounds, and I learned that the hard way when I attempted to sing it, solely based off of her recording.

2) Black Velvet-I have a long history with this song. When I was younger (like 16), my friend recorded this song on her old demo CD. But, we were always singing this song. And it reminds me of her, and its a lower song.

The problem I have with this one is that I'd need to brush off the part of my voice and brain that does rock songs. All of my training that I've receieved from my vocal coaches (now, and when I was a kid), were all classical Broadway songs, or pop songs, and just an edge of rock- that I had to teach myself, using the tools of the other two styles.

But I haven't had to perform a rock song in a bit, and this is defenitly a rock song.

Opinions are welcome, and all that stuff.

Either way, I'm excited!!!!!

until next time....

The Table Read..

So this past weekend, we had our first rehearsals for "The Heiress".

I love this process, so so much. This is where the work is, kids! Right here is how we actors make it look effortless onstage-because we rehearse it, and feel it out, and make it our own!

We got together twice this weekend. Saturday afternoon, we sat onstage, just a few of us in the cast since the whole group couldn't be there, and read through just some scenes that we were in.

Sunday though, was when things really started to kick off and the rehearsals, in my mind, actually began.

We had to be at the theatre for 7pm so we could all be together, and record the reading so that we could all get tapes to practice our lines (I will not be using this tape-I don't learn my lines like that, but to some actors in the cast, I know that tape will be GOLD!).

I got there late (not my usual habit-I find it rude, disrespectful and very unprofessional to show up to call late!) due to a family dinner that was mis-timed.

Anyway, when I got there, all the chairs were in a circle and a recording device was on a small table in the middle to record us.

This is when magic happened! Being able to hear everyone's voices, to see them breating life into these characters for the first time together. It was a bit of amazing!

As the reading went on -and it was a bit rusty, due to the fact that it was our first reading-, I could see us all getting more into our characters. We directed our voices to each other, and tried to make ourselves blend into this world that we have to re-create onstage for an audience at the end of April.

Listening to everyone, I could tell we were going to be a good group. The director of this production absolutely cast the show correctly (and believe me, I've seen performances, and been in performances where roles were terribly mis cast). And I can't wait to keep going, to get to know my character, Maria, better, and better yet, to get to know my fellow actors better.

Acting is funny- You go into a project with a group of essentially complete strangers (unless you've worked with them before), and by the end of the run of the show, you are a family, with a bond possibly stronger than the one you have with your own family. You have inside jokes, funny moments, memories, and stories that you tell with your theatre family year after year.

That's the great part about rehearsing, you get to mold, get to know your character, the world your character lives in, and get to play with them for as long as you'd like-until the end of the run.

This is just the beginning of a long road-we still have 2 months before we open for 4 weeks and 15 shows. By then..we'll be ready. And I'll keep everyone in the loop of what's going on and everything like that. Maybe I'll even put some pictures here, too :).

Until next time...

I hope I get it...OMG! I GOT IT!!!!

So every actor waits for that moment...the moment after the audition is over, where they hold their breath as the phone rings, or the "you've got mail" voice is heard on their computer...

I've been SITTING on this information for weeks, because I wasn't allowed to say anything until tonight when it was finally announced.

A few weeks ago, I went on an audition for a show called "The Heiress", and am absolutely THRILLED to announce that I GOT THE SHOW!!!!!

My role is the role of the maid, Maria. I do what every maid does- serve the people she works for. But, its a substantial enough part :)

I actually start both acts! I'm very excited! We open on April 29th and run until May 29th-this means I have a project until the first week of JUNE!

When we start rehearsals on Saturday, I will blog and post all of the information about the show-how to get tickets, the playhouse's address, and maybe even ticket prices.

If anyone is interested in coming to see the show, please let me know, and then go ahead and order tickets! :)

Very excited and I just couldn't wait to share the information! :)

Until next time....

To Eat..or not to eat?

To eat or not to eat...that's always the question!

Sitting here, looking at the clock, I know have to be at the theatre do some backstage work for a production of "Barefoot in the Park". And, my refridgerator is empty, as is my freezer (I ate the last lean cusine at lunch time).

So here's my dilemma: What in the world am I going to eat tonight?

Anyone who's been following this blog, knows that I'm on a mission of sorts to lose weight, even going out and buying a Nintendo Wii to work out with.

I'm happy to report I've lost 8lbs so far, and that number of pounds lost I hope keeps climbing in the next few weeks.

Here's the problem though: With nothing in the house to eat for dinner...all I'm left with is picking something up on the way to the theatre-something, undoubtedly no damn good for me, or my goal, or my waistline, my pants..etc! You get the picture!

So what to do? Well, obviously this is going to take some careful planning. As I wasn't expecting to be working 'Barefoot..', I didn't carefully plan out how I was going to deal with the not being home at night to eat blah blah blah, and the whole, being on my own for dinner thing.

I had a plan for "The Heiress" that I auditioned for (more about that in another post), but not for this.

I'm flying by the seat of my pants here, kids!

Tonight, I succumb to my vice: Dunkin Donuts, as a source for my meal for the evening. But, I know that if this weight loss thing is going to work-that I need to cut that out!

Tomorrow, after babysitting (I picked up an early morning babysitting gig), I'll come home, nap, work out, and then carefully plan how I'm going to get through dinners on my own for this run of the show.

I do feel like all actors face this at some time or another, and I've seen pictures that prove this: What in the hell do you eat during show runs?

You can't eat anything heavy before a show-you just can't! Your nerves are in knots, and so is your stomach, your one focus is getting out there to entertain the people, and to have fun. Most of the time before a show, I'm just thinking of a quick snack or a small meal to hold me over so I don't pass out onstage from lack of anything in my system.

In a rarity, when I tech a show, I do like to eat before hand. If I'm not onstage, but am working at the thearte-which again, rarely happens because I keep myself ONSTAGE rather than OFF, I eat beforehand because it's just another part of my night to me.

That's just my take on it. With it being 5pm now, I need to get ready to go and then stop and get my dinner for tonight.

Until next time....