A video from tour

I just found this in my iMovie archives! I wish I'd put it up earlier. This is from a dressing room in-- somewhere either in Canada or Georgia, I want to say (I know, they're so similar, right?) but anyway, I decided to make myself a Korean pop star for some reason. This is before Act I, I think we're at ten or something. Seems it, since we're all in full costume/makeup. Anyway... here goes.

Thoughts of a non-equity actor at an EPA

5:00 am
*Korean pop music begins blaring from phone*
SHUT UP SNSD IT'S EARLY AS BALLS zzz
5:10
...damn, I guess I'd better get up. Sucks I have to wake up the poor sleepy boyfriend to drive me to Flushing. I'd have stayed at my apartment for a shorter commute but we got home so late from the trip upstate that I crashed... Wait, what? He's already ready? How does-- nevermind. Where the hell is mah metrocard? Let's rock this shit.
6:30
Wow, I'm the only one here. This is weird. The doors are locked. Am I even in the right place?
6:40
Oh sweet, someone else. I guess we're supposed to form a line outside the building.
6:45
Yup. We do form a line outside the building. Now I feel bad texting Jen at the crack of dawn.
7:00
Need Starbucks. Need yogurt.
7:15
I made a joke about getting out of line and now I'm number four instead of first, but none of these other three girls laughed. I think they think I'm being passive aggressive. Now I'm self conscious. I will no longer try to make conversation and crack open a book instead.
7:30
I like Tolstoy. I'm going to tweet about Tolstoy and auditioning and how I'm sitting in the street.
7:35
Great, I'm that girl. The one obnoxiously curling her eyelashes. In her phone reflection. In the middle of the sidewalk.
7:42
Wait, there's dudes here too. I thought this was just a female call. Now I'm confused. Maybe they're having a call for another show today as well.
7:46
Talked to the girl behind me about how neither of us have been to an EPA in ages. ...great, now I have to... Er... well, uo yao bang sai. Bu hao. Very bu hao. (for those who are unfamiliar with the Chao Zho dialect, "bang" means to, er, "make" and sai is... well, "shit".
7:48
Can't get outta line, but desperately need to bang sai. Considering running back to nearest Starbucks.
7:55
I am entrusting a complete stranger with my stuff while I run south two blocks to the Marriott Marquis. It's bringing back a lot of memories of when I used to come here as a little kid with my grandma and mother. ...geez, what a spoiled kid. Aw look, tourists, how adorable, they look confused.
8:00
Returning to line. Bang sai completed successfully! Ten points for Ravenclaw!
8:01
Omg we're going in
8:05
AAAAUGHH I SIGNED THE 'CAMELOT' FORM INSTEAD OF THE RIGHT ONE AND CROSSED MY NAME OUT and now they're going to think I am sufficiently mentally handicapped that I can't read the right form. Maybe I should bring in War and Peace to prove that I can read big words and am not actually mentally handicapped.
8:06
I'm first in the list for this show! This never happens. Maybe this is an unpopular show. Wait, it's brand new.
8:10
Sitting next to the same girl I sat next to at the Godspell open call. What is my life
8:15
Holy balls she's from Texas and has done Casa Mañana work. WHAT IS MY LIFE
8:25
I am slowly realizing that I'm way too young to be auditioning for this role. Why can't I be like those girls who look thirty and sexy in their teens? I'm doomed to play preteen roles for eternity.
8:45
And now we play the waiting game.

Simple wisdom from an outsider

Back in the saddle, y'all.

It's summertime, and that means lots of auditions for those of us who didn't get summer stock jobs (or, if you're like me, never, ever seem to get a summer stock job. Ever.) which is really great because it opens up lots of opportunities. It also means, though, that now I have to actually go on said auditions, and it has been more than a year since I've been to any audition. The last audition I went to was for the Wizard of Oz tour.

So I found some auditions, unearthed and brushed the dust off my rep book, and found my go-to dress and whatnot.

I started talking to the boyfriend about going to four auditions in a week. (Mind you, if you are new to this blog, my boyfriend is a science major. He has no knowledge of theater, nor does he wish to, to any extent. I think that's just fine.)

Me: "Wow. This will be my first audition in more than a year."

Him: "Hm, back in the saddle. How does it feel?"

Me: "Feel? Uh... kind of strange, I guess. Maybe I should be a little nervous. Like I'm out of practice, you know. I'll be rusty."

Him: "What? You're just going into a room and singing. You do the same thing at karaoke or the shower."

And then I laughed because I realized, yes, it's true, that's all auditioning is. You just walk into a room and sing part of a song. When you think of it that way, it's the simplest thing in the world.

Simple wisdom from someone who has never been to an audition and never will. (But if he does, it would be hilarious.)

Time to start singing again.

Apologies

I'm sorry, I've been doing some serious blog neglect.

But I'm back, all four readers! Or three.

Anyway.

Currently I'm in Texas. I have been for a while. After tour, I spent a lot of time apartment hunting, then moving in and getting things settled. Now I'm spending a month with my family and my boyfriend here where it's roughly 101º every day and there are killer wasps the size of chihuahuas.

More later. Peace.

Fun with Decorating (How to torture your roommate)

Hello all! I've been quite busy recently. You see, I am moving with my friend Lauren into a beautiful two bedroom apartment in Queens. It's a very exciting time, but moving always comes with a lot of stress, not to mention expenses.

Today I took a little break from furniture shopping and getting our electricity provider set up to play the Sims. But you see, this was not to play the Sims just for fun. I had the idea to recreate our new place in this little virtual world, make characters of ourselves, and to experiment with decorating. Because, if you've never played the Sims, it is TOTALLY possible to recreate your own life and living space, and then mess around with it. Which is awesome.

Before they let you make a Sim house, you have to design characters. I gave myself messy brunette hair and the traits "childish, excitable, bookworm, artistic, virtuoso." Lauren, with her blonde locks and Flight of the Conchords vest, is a "neat, vegetarian, bookworm, workaholic genius." My career goal is to be a composer and Lauren, an author.

Here in our front lawn, we seem to be discussing vegetables.

And then I tried to make the general layout of our apartment.

Err, it isn't exact. But whatever, I do wha' I wan'!

So first I recreated our kitchen, which isn't quite this huge, but left an accurate amount of space in this little nook we have back here. I put a little black table there to see what it'd be like with an Ikea breakfast table there.

Unfortunately, this left no room for chairs, because Sim people apparently can't shimmy into a small space. So I took that out, decided we don't have to eat and put in a sweet sound system for dance parties instead.

*UNS UNS UNS UNS UNS*

Moving on! I then made my bedroom, which, in retrospect, looks a little like a prison, and the living room

Which left only one room.... Lauren's.


Now, I have known my roommate for quite some time, and know her tastes in decorating. However... she is not in control of her bedroom in this virtual little world. I am. So, what is a good roommate to do?

Heh heh heh.

Oh yeah. This isn't the real world. This is Sim world, and I am God.

At first, I just filled it up with garden gnomes

but then decided I could get a little more creative with it. So, I transformed it into a pond! Because who doesn't want a pond in their apartment? Nobody, that's who.



Or a zen garden!



How about a gym? Lauren can just sleep on one of the treadmills. I'll even lend her a towel.


Or, you know, she might have a baby one day
Never hurts to be prepared, y'know?


Ok, ok. Time to be serious.

And make the room how she obviously would decorate it herself....

TADAAAAA!!!!!

PINK FRILLY GOODNESS!!!

Because Lauren, the communist hipster tomboy, should obviously want to live in something that makes the Barbie dream house look like a tool shed. I am just the best roommate ever. Look, even the lamps are pink. And see? There's a pink teddy bear! I think I'll name him Tiffany.

In the end, all that matters is that you know your roommate. I've made the best room for my best friend, all that she could ever ask for.
And as you can see, my character promptly started writing her theatrical memoir

and Lauren is happy as a clam with her surroundings. See, she's even cuddling Tiffany. And all is well.
:)

Book

Hello everyone: It is here that I shall announce it officially.

I am writing a book! A memoir, to be precise.

Yes, I am going to compose a memoir of my travels on the yellow brick road. I don't have a working title for it yet, but I do have a general outline and very good idea of how I want the book to be. The title must be something snarky and comical, perhaps even a pun (the lowest of all types of humor) but, regardless, I am writing a memoir.

I figured if people buy boring autobiographies all the time (the most narcissistic type of book out there, gotta love 'em) then why shouldn't I write one? I know there's lots of books out there about the journies of working actors, including one by my professor's wife and another by a Producer's tour ensemble member... But anyway, there should be more. I've got two friends in my class who went on actual equity tours, Hair and In The Heights, and I'm thinking of letting them write passages too. Perhaps we can write a collaboration memoir. I'll propose the idea.

At any rate, yep, I'm writing a book.

Granted, I've started books before. There's one quasi-novel idea I've been flirting with for a few years-- a post apocalyptic world in which the female heroine travels to what is now "Old York" to live with her bohemian professor uncle, and they have to travel the world in search of the last remnants of nature and eventually find the "Orca Sanctuary", an underwater garden below the massive steampunk city in which a bunch of flying orca whales live who are actually reincarnated ancient philosophers. ...Yeah, you can see why I've only flirted with it.

A memoir is much easier. And who knows? Maybe trying to get this memoir published will pave the way for me to finish this Orca Sanctuary philosophers-reincarnated-as-orca-whales book. Or something.

Until then, I've got a lot of things I've been doing with my life. I'm trying to move into an apartment with my friend Lauren, so I've been alternately packing my things into boxes and looking up how to feng shui a place. It's gonna be good, y'all.

K

Oh, and

P.S. my hair is brown again. You're welcome, mom.

And thus it ends

Almost as quickly as it began, my friends, my leg of the Wizard of Oz tour comes to a close.

I have so much to write about the entire process. And believe me, it will come.

It began with the audition: just another playbill.com open non-equity call, which my boyfriend encouraged me to go to.

Then callbacks. I got bronchitis, and the boyfriend's mom made me some kind of magical Chinese crack tea which made me sing well.

Then the call that I never expected, which changed my life entirely.

Then waiting for the contract, which almost drove me nuts.

Then rehearsals, which were a challenge, mentally and physically, and an adventure all in themselves.

Then the leaving, which was sad and exciting all at once. Then the great process known as the tour.

I am so, so lucky to have known with all of you wonderful actors and become your friends. I am a better performer and person after this wonderful, insane, sometimes awful, sometimes hilarious, crazy time of my life. Thank you to all of you.

fin.