My Summer
Since I’ve disappeared this summer, this would be a good time to catch up on what I was doing: I was the theatre manager and production manager for one of NYC’s largest theatre festivals: The New York International Fringe Festival; otherwise known as: FringeNYC. They have about 20 theatre’s and 200 shows in the festival each year, and the festivals lasts just over 2 weeks. My job was to be in charge of one of those theatre’s and of all the Fringe shows happening in that theatre (in my case, 12 shows). Here’s the basics of what production and theatre management entails for Fringe:
– Being the certified fire guard of the space.
– Being the Liaison between the people who own the theatre, the shows in the theatre, and FringeNYC.
– Supervising & Scheduling technical rehearsal and performances at my theatre.
The Internship Experience
When I was a teenager, I took an internship with a production company. It was my first real “office experience”. I remember the night before my first day, I re-watched The Devil Wears Prada- it’s one of my favorite movies/books, and I felt it set up my first day well. I would be prepared for anything!
Even though my boss was definitely not a Miranda, she did have an image to uphold in society- and her presence sometimes felt intimidating. Overall, I feel the internship was a wonderful growing experience for me. I have a lot of funny memories. One of my favorite memories is when I attempted to puppy-sit my boss’s dog (who barked very loud every time she could not see her mommy) while she was in a very important meeting and change the batteries in a clock on the wall. I was standing on a stool, with the leash around my right wrist, attempting to lift the clock off the wall AND keep my boss’s dog quiet. I remember seeing my Boss’s assistant do a double-take through the window of the meeting room door and mouth, “Are you okay?!” Haha. There probably would have been an easier/safer way to accomplish both tasks, but at the time I hadn’t thought of one.
Okay, so the dog wasn’t that big, but this is totally what I was imagining in my head at the time!
I learned a lot of life lessons from that internship. A good portion of those lessons were learned from mistakes. Some of the lessons I learned include:
When life gives you lemons, make lemonade. I definitely had to improvise with what I was given a few times during my internship. One time my boss left me alone at the office. She told me to just pull the door shut when I left, and it would automatically lock, since I didn’t have a key. She had also asked me to tape a sign to the door instructing the Fed-Ex guy to leave the package she was expecting by the door. Well, at the end of the day- I left, pulling the door shut behind me. I was blocks away when I realized I forgot to write a note for the Fed-Ex guy. I went all the way back to the office. Since the door was locked, I had to ask the man at the front desk downstairs for a piece of paper and a pen. He gave me an ad which had a blank side and a pen. Then I asked if he had tape. He didn’t, but he found a label, which could double as something sticky to fasten the note to the door. I fixed my makeshift note to the door, and breathed a sigh of relief.
The Top 5 Classes List
In honor of starting senior year and feeling a bit sentimental, I decided a flashback, top 5 list was needed. In order of some importance, I present THE TOP FIVE CLASSES THAT HAVE CHANGED THE COLLEGE THEATRE DORK FOR THE BETTER.
5. Stage Combat. The obvious one first. I’ve been determined to study stage combat since I was fourteen. At the end of my freshman year, I organized my future semester schedules so that if I obtained permission and filled out a lot of paperwork, I would be able to take the combat classes offered (which is why I first took Voice and Movement). As a result of my unrelenting determination, I not only have taken classes and earned three weapon certifications but my theatre department now offers even more combat classes than ever! There’s even talk of offering a major in the future but I don’t have enough time to wait for that. I’m very happy to have my minor and to have helped the changes get started.
My Review of iActingStudios.com
Wow, I haven’t blogged in a month. Where did this last month go? – I need a time refresher!
I love the idea of iActingStudios.com. As a mom with limited babysitting funds, acting classes are unfortunately one of the things I’ve had to put on hold for a while. I do a coaching session and casting director workshops occasionally but am no longer in a regular acting class. A 2.5 hr scene study class plus 1hr of subway/travel time each way, would cost me a $81 each week in babysitting alone. (Yes $18/hr is normal in NYC – I think babysitting is a great survival gig for actors, but that is another blog post!)
Taking class at home after my son is in bed, “Bringing Hollywood to Me” as founders Bob Stewart and Rick La Fond say, intrigues me. Appealing to both actors just starting out, as well as more seasoned professionals, they claim to bring you the best master teachers in Hollywood and make them available to anyone, anywhere in the world. They have over 50 master teachers with over 130 pre-recorded video classes teaching everything from acting and voice-overs to networking and doing actor taxes – a very cool resource!
I chose to take 2 classes on very different topics. My first was with Joey Paul Jensen on Mastering General Interviews. I recently had some great agent meetings and feel pretty confident about my interview “technique” but was intrigued to see what else I could learn. The format – An introduction from Joey, 4 actors doing mock interviews, notes, followed by a re-do of the interviews. Because it is an area I am very comfortable with (Thank you Dallas Travers) it wasn’t a mind-blowing class for me but I would definitely recommend it to someone who has concerns about generals. I loved Joey’s focus on telling stories – Producers/Agents want to hire/sign great storytellers, and if you tell great stories/anecdotes you will make it easy for them. I also appreciated her reminder to engage people, do your homework and ask questions.
Don’t Photoshop Me!
I recently saw an article online detailing how actress Shailene Woodley told the media she doesn’t want to be photoshopped. She explained that she had seen a photo of herself in a magazine and thought, “That’s bullshit, that’s not what I really look like.” Hence, she says for the future- “I try to make a conscious effort to properly represent myself.”
Let’s face it, we live in a very superficial world. Perfection is sought after, but who really is perfect? No one is perfect. We all have little “imperfections” that make us who we are. You take away those “imperfections” with tools such as Photoshop, and we become totally different people.
Another celebrity who was recently changed drastically using Photoshop is Melissa McCarthy. The designers who created the poster for her most recent movie, “The Heat” attempted to “slim” the actress by photoshopping her until she was almost unrecognizable. I think Melissa McCarthy is beautiful just as she is, and her work as a comedic actress is phenomenal! It’s a shame that the designers felt the need to change her appearance for the poster.
Life-hacks for surviving LA
When you live in a big city and you act, you drive. A LOT.
Since June 1st of 2013 I have driven almost 6,000 miles. The longest distance of any of those car rides was 125 miles. I can’t even process the obscene amount of hours of driving that has been, when I consider the amount of those miles that were in bumper-to-bumper traffic. As I sat in traffic tonight I made this list of things that have been an absolute lifesaver to me this summer:
1) The smartphone app “Waze”. I still use my Apple maps app on my iphone, but Waze helps me figure out what traffic is like and what alternate routes I can take as traffic backs up. If there is an accident it will automatically reroute me and update me that my estimated arrival time has changed.
Waze: outsmarting traffic, together.
The Actor’s Self-Esteem
How often do you find yourself on top of the world when you book a job, only to find yourself crashing to the ground once that job is over? It’s a tough business, especially when the product you are in business to promote is yourself. How to unpack the actor-ly, business-y you from the you you is the real feat. It is hard to separate our own self-esteem and self-worth from how we are doing as a professional actor.
Figuring out how to separate the highs and lows of this business of show from our personal lives is an ongoing struggle for every theatre person I know. The ones who have figured it out seem the happiest, the most settled — and, oddly, the most employed. So how do you join that club? ‘Cause that’s the club I want to be in: happily employed, or not, and completely comfortable in my place in this business, even if I am not currently employed in it. Here are a few observations from people whose self-esteem seems not at all tied to which jobs they have booked recently.
1. Engage in something else.
I’ve read many a blog by casting directors, agents, fellow actors, and the like that recommend having something else to do after an audition, even a post-audition ritual, so that you don’t relive and rehash and re-evaluate every single moment of it. That’s great advice. Of course, since I am often traveling to an audition, the audition kinda is my day. But I have figured out how to occupy my brain with things other than the audition on the way home, and mostly that is through having lots of other things going on in my life.
You are Here ->
I’m here. Right where I’m supposed to be.
I’ve been barista-ing. Is that a word? I’ve been making friends with customers, and every week I discover new things about the handful of them that answer my questions and put up with my happy banter. This is what I’ve recently discovered: One writes music and shared some music demos with me. We are in talks for doing a gig one day, if opportunity arises. I found out another customer designs costumes and he told me about a show (that I had friends in) that he did the costumes for. One customer works at a big theater downtown… he wasn’t so talkative though. I’m hoping my people skills will get him to open up because I can never have to many coffee-loving-theater-working friends in my life! It feels like a big THUMBS UP to be connecting with people in day-to-day situations like this. And these types of natural connections are what lead to bigger and better connections.
The Green Room 