So, over the lovely 3 day weekend I managed to finish off my project about the Houston/Austin theatre scene. It's not as in depth as I'd like, but I think it's fairly well done. Truthfully, it was difficult to answer some of the questions because the markets are so small that they don't offer up a lot of information about theatre. It's difficult to even find pictures of the theatres, because they aren't known on a national scale. I've tried to figure out how to upload it here, so you could look at it if you'd like, but I'm not sure this blog has the capabilities. I'll look into it!
Also over the weekend, I started watching the television series
The Tudors which is about the reign of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn. It's mostly fictional, but all the characters are historically accurate. It's very well acted and well scripted, then again most Showtime shows are. It's made me think a lot about classical acting in my future. I really enjoy the classics and I think I'll definitely take the time to train for those somewhere. The University of San Diego has an incredible graduate program geared towards the classics, and they study abroad at the Globe Theatre. On a side note, I discovered that Austin has a replica of a Shakespearean outdoor theatre. I must go.
Speaking of classics, Shakespeare Acting has been going well. We performed our 10 line 'midterms' and I received good feedback. Now we've moved onto soliloquies. I'm performing Queen Margaret from King Henry VI Part 2. She's a very powerful woman, and I'm excited to be playing her! I did a lot of research on the play so I understand all of the historical context. That's the problem with Shakespeare's Histories: they were automatically understood in his time, because everyone knew the back stories. These days, very few Americans know about many of the English Kings aside from Henry VIII. There's a lot of names to keep track of, and lineage to check out. I wish I had the time to read every Shakespeare play we receive scenes from this semester. We're supposed to, but realistically it's impossible.
I'm taking Shakespeare Literature too, and we have a new play to read every week in there. The plays we receive in acting class are different Shakespeare plays, and there's no way I could read and digest 2 Shakes plays every week around all the other homework I have--plus rehearsal!
Because I got cast.
I'm so excited! Monday we had auditions for Collected Stories in the Warehouse. We have a new student director, Michelle, and she did auditions and callbacks in the same night to ensure that rehearsals could start on Tuesday. We're already a week behind in rehearsals because of midterms last week, so we'll have 2 weeks of rehearsal and 1 week of Tech. So I performed a new monologue that I had prepared over the weekend for auditions and received a callback. Collected Stories is a 2 women play that we fought hard to have in our season. We thought that is was an important piece of work that needed to be done, and the ladies at this school should have an opportunity to play these intelligent and mature characters.
At callbacks I read for the older character first, and then the younger character. I ended up getting to read for the younger character several more times before she released everyone except 5 of us--to stay and read for the older character. I've been wanting a younger character on my resume to even it out. It's difficult to explain to theatres that are interested in you why your resume consists of characters that aren't your age. So the more younger characters I can get on my resume, the better, because those will be the roles I actually get called back for in the real world.
All in all, the callbacks were really fun. We did separate reads with out partners for the first half, then the director brought us all in and picked pairs to perform scenes in front of everyone to move it along. It's very rare in an audition here that we get to watch each other perform, and it was very useful. It was interesting watching how the first years would get nervous to perform in front of everyone and I had to remind myself that they weren't used to it yet. It made me remember how scared of performing I was when I first came here. The 3rd years were so talented and that was daunting. I had a first year scene partner in one of my callbacks, and she did a great job being courageous. Now she's an understudy!
So callbacks lasted until 11 pm, then I woke up, went to class, and then the cast list was up! I'm playing Lisa, the younger character! I had class right up until rehearsal and then the read-through sped by. It's been a crazy couple of days, that's for sure.
I had voice midterms on Monday; that went well. I ended up singing my 16 bar cuts Acapella for memorization purposes. Then I turned my Houston/Austin project in to be graded. I received my grade for my Ethics midterm. I got an 86%, and I got a lesson about education. My Professor had created a test that was impossible to make up answers on. We were really angry at how specific he was because we had had to study so hard and then we still weren't able to answer some of the questions which made us look like we hadn't studied at all. However, he told us that education shouldn't be about the grades you make, it should be about what you learn and the knowledge you retain. We had to admit that we had learned a lot in his class and through the studying that we did for the test, so he had done his job, even if we didn't test well.
In Professor D's Nuts and Bolts class yesterday we talked about Ancillary Acting work. He gave us a list of entertainment jobs that we could do instead of performing on a stage or in film. We talked about: Theme parks, stunt work, cruise lines, industrial shows, industrial films (like the training videos at every workplace), voice overs, and being a reader in auditions.
My two favorites were being a reader and voice overs. If you're a reader it means that you're an actor's 'scene partner' in their audition. You read the other characters lines, usually while sitting down with the casting director and director, while the auditionee performs. This is a great way to watch what makes an audition work and what specific casting directors are looking for. Casting directors are your big in, in this industry and it's important to know them and know what they like.
Voice Overs can be done anywhere and everywhere. There are so many opportunities to do voice overs, and if you're lucky you can get a job that pays a ton of money! There are some people that do just this for a living. They have recording studios in their basement and they receive scripts, record them, and email them off and they're done for the day. They take special microphone training and you need to have an array of voices at your disposal for specific radio ads or television commercials. Voice Over artists are the highest paid actors in the business. This is a great supplementary job that I would love to do.
Cruise lines are also of interest to me, and Professor D promises that we'll interview some of his friends that work on cruise ships about their experiences. These jobs can be horrible if you aren't careful choosing the line you go on. Some cruise lines offer a weekly meal schedule, and it can be hard to eat the same thing every Wednesday for 6 months. You also have to be careful of who's giving you insurance. Cruise lines are all non-Equity (the stage actors' union)and so you have to make sure of who is taking care of you if you break your leg. Who flies you home, the ship, or you? Another thing to be careful of is who is paying for your visa? If your visa costs $30 to get off the ship at every country and the ship is going to 10 countries, you should probably make sure that the ship is paying for it. Or the theatre company you're working for.
The downer is that there are very few straight play cruise lines, which is what I'm interested in. And the other downer is that you're away as long as the ship is away, so if something happens at home it's really difficult to make it back.
Next time in Nuts and Bolts I'll be presenting my city research with my partner. I'm really excited about these presentations because I'll get to learn about the theatre markets in a lot of cities, so I can find a city that fits me that I could potentially move to. Top of the list right now: Seattle and Chicago.
I have a Warehouse Board Meeting today to approve the poster I've made for this show. I have afternoon and night rehearsal, and somehow in there I also have to find time to make an appointment to cut my bangs before headshots next week, and to plan my presentation for Nuts and Bolts. It's going to be a busy day! Good thing I had the morning off!
And for my sake, some notes I received at the read through yesterday:
* Think of different ways to end all your sentences with question marks
* Work on using a higher register for your voice, you sound too similar to Rhea
* Dye hair light? Highlights? We need to see a visible distinction between Rhea and me (both tall, both brunette)
Oh! P.S. I've started a guest blogging series on the Warehouse Blog, meaning I've contacted people and interviewed them about things I think the students here will be interested in! I'm really excited about it, and the first interview is up! It's not letting me add the warehouse link, so you should scroll down a couple posts to where I added it before!
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