GIVEAWAY: iPhone app “Take 10” for Stage Managers!
Today, we have a special treat for you — a GIVEAWAY!
We are giving away one free copy of the iPhone/iPad app “Take 10” for Stage Managers, normally $14.99 in the iTunes store.
This app is a timer app specifically geared towards AEA Stage Managers to help them keep track of when the next break is. It’s billed as:
Performers, Pork and Pastry!
After I blogged about my favorite survival job and why I hate that term, I started hearing about all these other actors who were leading of fun tours. Meet lovely Heather Refvem who leads a Greenwich Village Food Tour – YUM!
-Is being a tour guide a good fit for an actor? Pros? Cons?
The tour guide part, absolutely! Half of our tour guides are performers of various types. For one thing, the tour is three hours and you have the rest of your day to fill as you please. Just like an acting job, we have a script for the tour but we have freedom to make it our own. We take 16 people per group, it is very intimate and whether people on the tour know it or not they are our “unassuming co-hosts.” Unlike performing on stage, we can see our audience and we use different tactics to engage them, so we have to be on! Most of the time it’s great and you feel like your showing your friends around the neighborhood, sharing amazing food with them. There are worst things you can do with your day than hand out a plate of warm chocolate chip cookies to your 16 new friends. But as I said you have to be on and even then the group dynamic isn’t always magical and while it’s a short day, even the best days take a lot out of you. The other problem is the winter is dramatically slower, so in the past I’ve had to pick up shifts at a restaurant. However recently, I began working in our office helping to set up for the tours and this has evolved into me working on social media, research, design projects etc. as well. These days I can rely on what I make working the office, but in the past winter has been stressful. One more thing, being a food tour guide isn’t always friendly for your waistline. I don’t eat while giving the tour, but part of my job is trying the restaurants on my own… or rather I get inspired by the amazing food around me and go back to “research”… it’s a blessing and a curse.
Listen to Your Mother: Dress in Layers
The first agent I worked with admonished me never to arrive at his office without several outfit choices, not only in case he disagreed with my selection for the scheduled audition, but also in case during the interim another casting arose for which he could submit me. Considering his office was a two-hour drive from my home, I took his advice to heart and always had at least three outfits in my car when I arrived for my auditions.
Years later, my agent is 15 minutes from my doorstep and communication between agents and talent has changed dramatically with iPhones on everyone’s hip. So, while I don’t necessarily take a change of clothes with me, I frequently make sure I have an extra layer or two in case an additional casting pops up while I’m in my agent’s office, or in case I need to alter my original wardrobe selection for one reason or other.
Flashback Friday: Sometimes No Means Yes
One of my favorite posts from The Underdog Actor. Enjoy!
“I hit a point within the last two years where I realized the power of “no.” Starting out, I think we actors need to do pretty much anything we can. We need to do student films, non-union, non-paying theatre and crazy performance art. We need to make connections with new young filmmakers (even though most of them won’t pan out). We need to be on stage and learn about theater lingo, curtain times and not to touch props that aren’t ours. We need experience in a business where there really is no right way to do anything. We need to become “professionals.” So the question is, when are you a “professional?” Are you ever? What the heck does “professional” mean anyway? Is Charlie Sheen and his ridiculousness a professional actor? How about Jeremy Piven and his sushi “allergy?” Is Lindsey Lohan a pro because she gets paid to, uh what does she get paid for nowadays exactly anyway?” Keep reading…
How To Live In Manhattan For Under $700 Per Month
I remember the days when living in a Manhattan neighborhood seemed like an unlikelihood.
Yet, today, I write to you from a beautiful Midtown studio apartment with the following perks:
- Walking distance to the Actors Equity Building
- Walking distance to all the major Broadway theatres
- Walking distance to numerous rehearsal spaces
- Walking distance to Central Park
- No trans-borrough MTA re-route craziness
Please welcome guest poster Jonathan to the blog! Jonathan Sanford spent 10 years as an actor and is now a Producer for International Special Attractions and The Works Entertainment, and has produced “The Ice Kingdom”, “Luminasia”, “The Illusionists”, “Le Noir”, and “Cirque Shanghai”.
April 7, 2013
To: Actor McActorson
From: The Producer
RE: Casting For: How to Succeed in This Business, You Must Actually Try
Dear Actor McActorson,
It was excellent seeing you again at our casting call for How to Succeed in This Business, You Must Actually Try. I’m glad we hired you for our last production of Take a Chance on Me, and feel you will be a good fit for this one as well. So without further ado, we would like to offer you an opportunity to work with us again in our latest endeavor.
Let me first say I know you must think it is strange that the Producer would be writing a personal letter to offer you a role. You are correct; it is strange. However, I thought this would be a good chance to explain why, after so many years and auditions, we finally hired you. Plus, I’d like to review the reasons why we would like you to be a part of our next production.
So, I hate American Idol. I realize this is shocking coming from someone who regularly watches shows about 6 Year Old Pageant Queens with spray tans and people who live on mounds of their own filth…(I mean…”clutter”…). However, it’s true.
I find reality singing competitions, in general, demeaning and I think they cheapen what we do as artists by essentially making it seem like any person singing to Katy Perry in their Prius can do what we do (maybe they CAN do what Katy Perry does but…that’s a whole different blog). Don’t get me wrong, I watched the first season of American Idol and may or may not have seen “From Justin to Kelly” IN THEATERS in high school… However, for the most part, I’ve stayed away. This isn’t to say that I haven’t loved certain performers on these shows. Kelly Clarkson is amazing. I love Ruben (wherever he may be) and I think I saw Fantasia: The Concert…I mean, The Color Purple like 5 times.
Why Your Degree Doesn’t Matter
I can’t remember the last time I went to a dance audition and the casting director stopped me mid-pirouette to ask me about my college education. I can’t think of a time in my musical directing experience in which my decision to cast a singer in a role was changed as a direct reflection of a class I saw on their resume. Come to think of it, I can’t really recall a time where my decision about my major or my college has ever truly affected my landing a job.
Don’t hate me just yet, classically trained actors with thousands of dollars in debt lined up for the rest of your life. Let me take this time to say that I too chose a university based on their theatre program, that I too trudged through a theatrical major, that I too am proud of my classically trained skills, and that I too graduated with a mountain of debt. But I can recall spending countless nights, not only tearing myself apart about where to train and what degree to pursue, but also years getting sucked into the little bubble that my college theatre program invented, forcing myself to believe that what happened in that theatre department was the “end all be all” of the theatrical world.
The Green Room 