Oh, how I hate thee acting. Or rather not hate, but love, hence the problem.
I have been reading a lot of classical things lately… :-p
So I know I Haven’t blogged for a while; so much for catching up instead I’m more behind than ever!
I just came from an audition that I do not feel was one of my best; one where you leave feeling crappy and frustrated that you didn’t do as well as you could have, and like I really need a “do over” right now.
My stupid nerves got in the way, and I tried not to be but I have a feeling that my stuttered and nonsensical rambling with the word “nervous” and “trying to not be nervous” and “need to overcome the nerves” and “shake the nervous” might have failed me….
Oh well. It was my first theatre audition in the state for literally years, four or maybe even five??? (I’ve had two random commercial auditions through my agent here during visits back home as well.) It was to work at an outdoor Shakespeare company where my family’s summer cottage is. I was going to try and get to Minnesota to audition before being back, but they told me that with my experience level I’m more at the intern level and that sending something through via video would be fine. Then I ended up having to extend my stay at home not once but twice thanks to the plane ticket costing $1,000 more, (sadly I missed out on what was supposed to be my first Australia Day for bitter cold temperatures that literally reached -20 to -30 Celsius,) but the good thing was I was able to meet and audition for the director in person today.
I didn’t find this out though until 6:30 or 7:00 last night driving up to the cottage with mom, so it’s been a rushed preparation. I stayed up learning two monologues that I really love, and then when I got there ended up not doing either of them since I wasn’t as familiar with them and I was afraid my nerves would make me lose the words. (Hey, there’s that word again!)
I want to aim high and I want a company position not an intern, especially as I was an intern with their sister theatre that does original musical theatre productions five years ago. I’d like to take I’ve taken a few steps forward since then, although I wasn’t on stage that year. I understand though that I haven’t had as much classical and Shakespeare experience, although I have thankfully had my voice work with Melissa. (I’ve been so super diligent with my exercises beyond five minutes a day lately on the off chance I did get to meet with this director! I get comments about my voice ALL the time, and I know I am soft and this is an outdoor theatre not miked for Shakespeare so projection and clarity are pretty key.) Even an internship would be a good experience if it meant being on stage, although sadly I don’t know if I would even be in the Shakespeare show since they are doing Pride and Prejudice and The Twelfth Night, and they gave me the impression that if I was a part of the company I would more likely be in Pride and Prejudice with one of the smaller female roles.
I just hate how I handled and carried myself at the beginning and let my nerves take control. I wasn’t as professional and “cool, calm, and collected” as I would have liked to be. I’m sad too because I seriously LOVED these two monologues I learned and didn’t do, especially the Moliere one from The Misanthrope. Celiene (hope I spelled that right...) is gossiping about all these people at the party and it's so funny; I really want to do it! I'm mad at myself for not memorizing it sooner, although I had to order the book as its a Richard Wilbur translation and copyrighted and I did only get the book on Thursday! I just love acting so much and this monologue I really want to do it for him and show him the fun I can have with it. My momentary scatterbrain may have shown a bit when he was asking me which monologues I had prepared I was so flustered I couldn’t even get out Moliere’s name; let alone the character or what play it was from!
I also realized a big difference where I have adjusted myself to screen. After my first monologue he asked if I had any others with more movement. I did this Nicky Silver one that I really like where there is some movement, but not a lot still. I've gotten used to the camera doing the work of moving for me, and staying more still for close ups and camera shot sizes and to stay in frame for screentest situations. It makes me want to work on keeping up both my theatre and screen skills more so that I can quickly adapt and jump from one to another for whichever situation I'm in. At least I got to work on that Nicky Silver monologue with Tony a little bit. He gave me an ending for it that I really liked. I couldn't completely remember everything since it was kind of last minute that I did it; I went over it a couple times to kind of have in my back pocket in case I needed to pull it out. I only found out last night they didn't have to both be classical pieces, but I wanted to do two of them since all the theatre does is classical work.
I did get to work with him on a small portion of the Twelfth Night at the end. I’m very fortunate that I did; I don’t know if others will get the time to work with him as much as I did, but he took the time to meet with me early since I’ll be leaving the country on Monday. They still have auditions in Minneapolis, Milwaukee, Chicago, and Door County, so there will be quite a few performers to choose from! Such is the world of acting.
I enjoyed it when I finally figured out the little nuances of the text and what he wanted. I just hate this part trying not to analyze after an audition, because there’s no point in it. The first monologue I did for him was Ophelia from Hamlet, (which I accidentally said was Portia first, whoops, at least I caught myself as soon as I did it,) and it was such a struggle to get through. There were people talking in the other room and I’m in my head going “Ignore them, focus, be in character, think about the text,” but then I found myself thinking about the light and shade I wanted to put into it and then that voice on my shoulder going “you’re not in the moment, you need to be in the moment, that sucked, your pace is too slow….” Blargh. Afterwards I absolutely knew it wasn’t my best and I wanted to tell him that, but at the same time you hear time and time again even if you thought you sucked don’t say it because they might have thought it was brilliant, and if you put that negative thought in their minds then they’ll start to go, “oh maybe that did suck…” and then think about your confidence and everything too. I felt so sure that I could do so much better though I mentioned it to him, and he just told me not to go there so I did my best not too.
This audition was harder because of all the pressure from my parents. I like to keep my theatre life pretty separate from them, I’m not sure why, some reasons are known and some are unknown I think, but because dad was with me to print out my headshot last night and he went and printed my resume this morning and mom ironed my dress for me and all this stuff it was kind of involved with them. Plus they really really want me to do well and get the part and be in Door County with them for the summer, like crazy want that.
I worry about leaving Kalon for that long though, especially for an internship no a full position, even though I know it is still a step in my career and something I can learn and grow from. I enjoyed talking with the director and some others who were in the office about my business ideas and I think they were interested in me for the business intern position, but it’s frustrating because I’m pretty far ahead of an intern position with my business skills. I’m not trying to sound conceited or anything but it’s true on many levels, it’s just set aside because of acting and it’s hard to be taken seriously for it.
Augh that leads to another million questions about what to do for work and some actual income when I get back to Sydney and timing and contacting all these people and the acting and marketing work I have to do for my acting school and feeling crappy about missing three and a half weeks of my twenty week course. Boo.
Oh well; I’m excited to see my class but sad to leave home; it’s that constant push and pull that’s always there fighting, but I feel like I can’t talk about with my friends because they must be so sick of it.
Anyway, time to go and try and get my suitcases under 50 pounds and write some letters I need to mail and all that other good stuff to do before leaving. I hope I get it done with enough time to enjoy being with mom and dad and at the cottage, and hopefully not be too sad to say goodbye. Wish me luck in my packing; I have so much more than 50 pounds per bag I want to bring!!! (Hey, and it’s for acting, I mean, wardrobe for auditions, sunscreen for anti-aging, skincare products for clear skin, acting books….any chance I could write off baggage fees on my taxes?) ;)
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