HELP!!! I am gonna be so poor!
For the final project in this course we were asked to compose a 15 minute digital story. Here is what I came up with. This project has had a few incarnations, most way more sophisticated and flashy than this, but this is what I came to love. To play my project, click the photo below.
Well, so much has occurred since Spring Break that I should have blogged about, but I just found it hard to keep myself seated long enough to do it. But here we go.
New York has left me with lots of loose ends in my life that need to be braided into a rope that will be strong enough for me to swing into the next part of my life on. The decision to move to New York has required some rearranging of my life. I must now pack up my stuff to go into a storage unit for the summer while I am subletting. Originally, it was going to be a move from Fred to DC, one apartment to another. I now have to go through my life’s collection of stuff and decide what merits retention and what should meet the garbage heap. I also have to figure out what is worth taking to New York immediately and what should wait until the fall.
With this move comes the necessary emotional inventory. I need to spend some time with myself to figure out what business is unfinished here and is worth completely or what should just be left to be blown away in the wind as I walk away from Mary Washington. It all is very draining amidst the continuous stream of work that must be completed for classes and productions.
In the past two weeks I have been to two auditions. I did one in New York for Maine State Music Theatre and the other was in DC for Signature’s Overtures program. The Maine State audition felt very awkward for me because I made a quick decision together and just had not quite settled into it. It was a great experience. I spent my morning in the holding room watching the other people. Looking for little things like: what they wore, how they prepared for the room, appropriate holding room etiquette, the overall tone of the room. I just sat and drank in the experience. It probably may have been why I just felt unfocused by the time I got to the room because I got lost in watching the people. I didn’t have a bad audition by any means. I just don’t think I was what they needed. Fine with me. Moving on.
I went this past Saturday to Signature Theatre in Shirlington to audition for the Overtures program. This audition I was prepared for. I went in and I just let it go. I sang my heart out. I had had a rough morning vocally and was concerned, but as soon as I opened my mouth all of that disappeared and the sound was clear and wonderful. I was just able to kind of sit back into my audition with new confidence and could put focus less on producing the sound and work on doing something with it. I then waited around for the dance portion, which was not bad. I was a little slow to process it because I was just not very awake. My mind was not ready to be fully engaged in the action. I figured it out finally. It was fine. Overall, I feel like I did a really good job and was proud of my work that morning, which makes me feel a little more confident about my future auditions.
Coming out of this time also is my lighting design for the final show of the season. This has sadly felt more like a burden than anything else for me. I just have not in the midst of my other insanity found the energy to prioritize this project anywhere near the top of the list, but it is coming along and I think will be a fine product. I just wish I had put a little more thought into it, I guess. It looks great to others, but to me I know there is so much more I could have done.
I just need to survive. I find myself checking out more and more from this place, and I have to constantly keep myself in check in order to continue here. It is just hard. Senioritis is working really hard against me. No self, keep trucking.
Saturday, March 8
This morning it was over to Shetler studios to meet with Natalie and her fabulous voice teacher, D. Michael. He was so excited to work with us and I was super excited to work with him. We warmed up and got cracking. Jon was the first to go. D. Michael introduced to us to some new things. He told us to throw out what we think we know about breathing and taught us to breathe all over again. He also told us to make the song do the work for us. Use the consonants to re-tank with air and then you will be prepared to begin your new phrase. It really makes a difference. He also told us to throw away the idea of fixed vowel placement. It is good that we have the training, but we need to make ourselves free to doing what is best for us in terms of singing the song. Adapt a vowel sound if need be. Put it in a different place to make it more clear. He also worked with me on my tension. I have always had this jaw tension. I just wish it would go away. I work and work, but it doesn’t seem to go away completely. I have made strides, just a little further to go. D. Michael told me to think of it differently. Instead of always thinking about the lower jaw releasing think of it as the upper jaw lifting. I will try that and see what happens. I also need to work on my alignment while I am singing. I should get mirror to keep in front of me during lessons.
After the voice lesson with D. Michael, I ran down the street to the corner to meet Zak Edwards at the Starbucks. He was so friendly. He was a 2006 graduate of the University of Oklahoma. It was funny, one of the first things he said to me was, “I am so broke.” Just pure honesty. I loved it. He told me about his career since coming to the city. He did a small tour on a cruise ship as a performer, which was good money. He got back to the city and booked The Wild Party at the Gallery Players. He did temp work. He ushers for Young Frankenstein. He constantly auditions. Talking with him I think I got the first real sense of what it is like to be a young actor in New York. He that day was actually on his way to a callback for the national tour of A Chorus Line. He told me he would keep me updated, so I am excited to hear about that.
After our matinee of Sunday in the Park with George, Gregg, Jon and I went to check out the newest Apple Store on 14th Street. It was huge. Three stories in this old refurbished warehouse it looked like. Of course beautifully tailored in the Apple look. From there we went to a sushi buffet for dinner and then caught a cab up to see Paradise Park at Signature Theatre Company. Somewhere in there the city got super windy and by the time we were walking home it was horribly windy and I felt like I was going to be blown away.
Friday, March 7
One. A rainy day. Boo!
The morning started out beautifully. I got up and ran over to the studio of the photographer that took my headshots to get the file on CD. Then I met up with Jenn and Sommer for a sushi lunch. From there I went to Reproductions to get my headshots run off. This was quite a process. I put myself in queue by entering my name into a computer (kind of like the Apple Store) and then I waited. When I arrived there were only two people helping customers, but as the lunch hour wrapped up more and more people came and the line began to move finally. I began my consultation and decided I should get some retouching done, so I got put on a walk in list for a retouching appointment. I waited about 25 minutes and someone came and got me. He had a print of my headshot. We went back to his station where he began to analyze my face under the light and mark up the photo with all the things that should be touched up. I then sat with the actual retouch artist and whizzed right through my marks. It really made all the difference. It just made the photo look more alive. Then I was put back in line to make my order. After giving them $180.00, my headshots should be on my doorstep by next week. Exciting to finally have them ordered.
The headshot endeavor took much longer than I expected, but I just needed to get it done. It made me like an hour and a half late to the group interview of Natalie and her agent. I was really sad about that, but I know I will get to see her again sometime in the future. 
I caught the tail end of it and it was just so interesting. Natalie has a fabulous captivating personality. She just draws you in. I need to find that part of myself. Put it on the to do list.
Jon and I headed over to Vynl on 9th Avenue for a quick dinner. The bathrooms. AMAZING! Jon used the Dolly (yes, Parton) bathroom and I tried out Cher. We also peeked inside Nelly (the rapper). After a great dinner, Jon was dying to check out the Elvis bathroom, so he went. The bathroom each feature a mosaic of the person in a caricature style and plays that person’s music. Its quite beautiful.
From there we walked in the rain (ugh!) and caught the 1 train uptown to 66th Street to go to our vocal coaching sessions with Michael Lavine. His studio features a long wall of floor to ceiling bookshelves/filing cabinets. This is why he can have it all! They are all full of music. It is probably an uncompared collection. Michael begins his first coaching session with a few words of wisdom.
After his talk, he had me sing a little bit, and he just worked some things in the song. We worked the song in units and found the changes in thought. Then from there he worked with Jon. After he finished working with Jon he pulled some stuff from his library to give to us. All of it is new stuff by new composers. Really exciting material, or so I think. I can’t wait to work on it. After leaving his place Jon and I rushed to the subway to go back downtown to the Ethel Barrymore Theatre to see November with the class.
Thursday, March 6
I started my day off bright and early. I walked over to Grand Central Station to catch the 6 train uptown to 86th Street. Grand Central really is beautiful. I didn’t think it could be as impressive as everyone kept saying. The constellations painted on the ceiling are amazing. The whole place takes you back a bit. The only experience I have ever had with huge, old train stations like that is in the movies, but the are breathtaking in person. I had a little trouble finding the subway at first, but I finally located it and went uptown. I walked up and over a couple blocks to arrive at my intended destination, the Guggenheim museum. When I arrived at its front doors, I found that it was closed. Someone please tell me, what kind of a place closes on Thursdays of all days of the week? I was very sad, but determined to go to a museum. I decided I would bypass the Metropolitan Museum of Art and walk the 35-ish blocks downtown (short blocks, mind you, so not as bad) and head to the MoMA.
This was just a great morning by myself. I threw in the iPod and walked around the city taking in the sights all around me. I noticed that a lot of New Yorkers keep their iPods at a really high volume, but I wanted to keep mine low so I could still hear the city in the background. It reminded me of a movie montage a little bit. I walked down to the museum on 53rd St. I bought my student ticket (holla! or I guess better yet challah!) and began to peruse all the museum had to offer. I have never really spent a lot of time with modern art because frankly, it scares me. It always feels the most elusive to me, but I decided to go in and tackle it head on. Maybe if I just spend some time silent, observe and make myself vulnerable I would find something in it.
I will admit, there was no life changing experience, but I really enjoyed browsing their collections. I think one of the highlights of the trip was a little corner of their design collection that was devoted to the history of the typeface known as Helvetica. This little piece of the exhibit drew me in. I didn’t realize how old the typeface really was. Incredible how long it has survived as a modern font. I guess that just speaks to it being well designed.
After I left the MoMA, I walked down to Broadway and 49th and went to Colony Music. This place is really impressive. It is a small little shop, but has a gigantic inventory of all kinds of music, karaoke stuff, CDs, posters, memoribilia. Just incredible. I spent some time just walking down each aisle and then gave particular notice to the Broadway/Off-Broadway section (of course). A little fact I learned later in the week is that this place will soon become a sports memoribilia shop. They aren’t going to do away with music completely, but the front will definitely feature sports stuff. Sadness.
From there I walked down to the Drama Book Shop. I had been there before, but not to browse. So I just took about an hour and walked along the shelves pulling books that jumped out at me and seeing what all there was to offer. I bought a copy of The Little Dog Laughed because I have wanted to read it ever since writing to Eric Rosen about his production. I also picked up two monologue books to aid me in my pursuit of building my audition repertoire.
I had about an hour to kill before my appointment in the afternoon so Steve and I spent some time on Fashion Avenue and hit an H&M. I spent somewhere in the ball park of 300 dollars. Bad David! Exercise better self-control. I needed the stuff though. It is time for a small wardrobe purge.
This afternoon I met with Ben Crawford (Thanks Chris!). Ben has been living in New York for just a few years. He graduated from college and kind of did the regional circuit, and then decided to make the move to New York. He had his Equity card from his regional work already when he arrived, so that put him in a great place for auditioning. He also had already been nurturing a relationship with an agent who had come to see his showcase at college and they had kept in touch during his years between college and the city. When he got to the city he was cast in Les Miz as an ensemble member and the Javert understudy. After 10 days in rehearsal he was in the show. He stayed with the show until it closed in January of this year. He has been most recently cast in Shrek: the Musical, although he does not know in what capacity yet. It has been a long trying audition process for him. He went in orginally for Shrek. Then they brought him back for Lord Farquaad. He was probably seen around 7 or 8 times for this production. Finally, he got the call that he would be a part of the show in its cast, but that they did not have any specifics decided just yet. So right now he is waiting for that day when they finally call to tell him what he will doing. It could a range of things from swing to ensemble to Shrek. After telling me about his successes in New York, he punctuated it with, “You can’t expect to have my success immediately. I had some freakish things just line up, but it will happen for you if you want it.” He told me I just have to get out there and get seen by some people. A running theme for the week. Do the little readings and cabarets. Someone is bound to see me at some point and take me on. Just keep myself busy.
After meeting with him I met up with Jon at the Cry Baby stage door at the Marquis Theatre. We were meeting Nick Blaemire there. Nick is a New York actor who was in the first national tour of Altar Boyz and wrote the music and lyrics for Glory Days. We went to grab a light dinner at the Europa Cafe in Times Square. We just sat around and chatted for a while. I spent my time just listening to his stories of working on Cry Baby and living in New York. He told us about the dressing room assignment marathon, where the principles were all choosing their dressing rooms and then the ensemble being re-arranged at their stations to suit the choreographer. He was talking about new material he was working on writing. Moving in the midst of technical rehearsals for a Broadway show. Trying to fit in time to rehearse with his group of guys who do a show called GuyTunes. It was just great to talk to him and hear him just talk about his life and all its craziness. Without needing to ask questions I was able to learn a lot about his life in New York because just casual conversation revealed stories to us about what is was for him to be a New Yorker.
From there I jumped on the 1 train uptown with Jon and Lucia to go to the Performing Arts Library at Lincoln Center. All I have to say is awesome. They have so much music. Pop, rock, country, classic, jazz, broadway…you name it they probably have it or can get it I am sure.
Looking at this post’s length I am just amazed at everything that got accomplished today. Good God! I even left out some things. Big city. Fast pace. And still a couple more days to go.
Today was a very exciting day. It began with me waking up and going to meet with Tom Burke at Singer’s Forum for a mini-master class type thing. Tom is a vocal coach and speech pathologist. He works to help you find the ways that you can make your voice the best it can be. He takes your technique and plays with it and gets you to have a sound that will hopefully knock the socks off of those you are auditioning or performing for.
He worked with me on my tension and helping me create some really wonderfully full, rich sound without tensing anything. Well, I won’t say that. He helped me dispace my tension elsewhere where it could help me. We spent time playing with me using tension in my lats and pecs to help get it out of my throat and jaw. It really helped me. With this I was able to ground myself and put myself in a upper body position and just let the sound flow out of me. We were working with a piece from Children of Eden called “Lost in the Wilderness.” The song has a section with some in the rafters riffing and then ends on the gorgeous high note. I have always found it hard to soar up there without tensing up and losing it. My fear and anxiey about the note and its position in the voice causes me to lose my placement, tense the jaw and pinch off the sound. Today I hit the high riff for the first time ever. It just felt good. After working with him I had a renewed sense of confidence in my voice. I am definitely going to continue to work with some of the things he told me to work with.
Probably one of the funniest things he said was about my lack of confidence that was coming through. He told me that I needed to create a desperation and take control in the song. It isn’t the song of a victim, it is me pulling myself up from the oppression and taking charge. I was the alpha male. He also had me do crazy things like bench press a chair over my head while singing.
I rushed out of my meeting with Tom Burke to the subway going back uptown to catch the matinee of In the Heights. The show is wonderfully conceived. The story had its thin moments where it was predictable and at times lacking some really deep substance, but this was made up with by the gorgeous music and choreography. The show is set in a latino neighborhood in Washington Heights. The music is all based on hip hop and latin rythms. The main character, Usnavi, delivers most of his music in the form of rapping. This sounds like it couldn’t possibly be a good idea, but it worked. It was so captivated by what he had to say, I never once felt like it was out of place. We saw the understudy for the lead man. The guy who usually plays this role is also the conceiver and composer for the show. His understudy did a flawless performance. I didn’t actually realize at first that it wasn’t the normal person doing it.
The choreography was beautiful. It was all salsa, hip hop and crumping. It created such a beautiful aesthetic. I could have watched these people just dance to the wonderful score. It was that interesting. I wish we had seen it as a class. I think it really would have struck a cord with us in the hip hop generation, or who knows maybe it was just me.
I was so interested in the audience as well. It seemed as though there were two very distinct groups, old white people and people from the Heights. The audience was very enthusiastic, screaming and clapping ecstatically after the numbers. It was really excellent. They were so into the story they would ooo and ahh and gasp. There was just a great energy in the room from both sides of the proscenium.
This evening we saw August: Osage County. This is the longest play we have seen thus far at 3 hours and 20 minutes, but it just seemed to fly by. The acting was just superb and the script was so phenomenal. The story tackles some really tough issues, but it is all handed in a wonderfully dark comic way. I laughed through so much of the play. The fabulous comedy of the story is what kept me awake and with it. There were these great moments where twists were introduced and you could hear the audience, as a whole, gasp at the reveal. I just really enjoyed myself. It has been a good day, but now it is time for bed because the city is beginning to wear me down and I need to get up in the morning and do some things.
A lion in front of the New York Public Library.
I visited the Jack Kerouac exhibit about his journey to writing On the Road.
This afternoon I met with Bryce Ryness and brought Steve along. We met him at the GE Building in Rockafeller Center. Today has been a truly beautiful day in the city. The temperature has been in the upper 50s and the sun has been shining. This made Bryce want to get out on the streets and walk during our interview, which was fine with me.
Bryce was a very different perspective and he wasn’t that different at the same time. He graduated from USC as a business major with an emphasis on entrepreneurial busines s. He had always sung, but acting was not really part of the picture in college. He didn’t even do any shows in college. His senior year, he became part of Groove 66, an a capella group at Disney’s California Adventure. They grew to be the most requested performing group in the park and were soon performing multiple shows a day, four days a week. The group disbanded and he was in search of a performance opportunity. He sought out theatre because it gave him that outlet. He was cast in Floyd Collins and was well reviewed in the title role. From there he just kept moving forward in his career until he was cast in the 2006 national tour of Rent. During the tour, he and his wife decided that they just wanted to take the leap and come to New York. They saved up money while he was on tour and moved out right after the tour ended.
He came with no promise of a job. He “hustled” his way during the first few months while hitting the audition trail. He worked catering, bar tended and worked coat check at theatres, basically working anything that would allow him to audition during the day. He was cast in a few off-Broadway shows and moved to catering in the day to perform at night. His next big break came when he was cast in the Public Theatre’s 40th anniversary concert of Hair at the Delacorte Theatre in Central Park. From there he was called in to audition be a replacement in the cast of Legally Blonde.
It was great to hear his story of how he was kind of thrown into the process of Blonde. He had 10 days of rehearsal in which to learn the character Aaron’s tracks as well as pick up the Emmet tracks he was understudying. His first performance with the Broadway company was January 2 of this year. A month almost to the day from his start he had to go on as Emmet for four performances.
I think the most memorable portion of our interview was when he was talking about how he feels the casting process kind of works. He described it in terms of a painter beginning work on a blank canvas. Actors are all various pigments and they are mixed together to make the pigment that will end up on the canvas. Some get used, some don’t. It doesn’t mean that there is anything wrong with the unused pigments, they just aren’t right for the particular painting. He said that thinking like this helps him ground himself in the face of a “no” from an audition. He is not less talented or less capable of playing a particular role, but he is just not the right “pigment” for what the painting needs to be the work of art the painter (director) is looking to create.
His relaxed demeanor just put me at ease. He was eager to speak with Steve and myself. His experiences he described were not so bad. He made it sound so doable. He also had interesting thoughts about Broadway. He believes that there is important work being done everywhere, and most of it being done off Broadway somewhere, whether in regional theatre or off-off Broadway. He told us he enjoyed Blonde or else he wouldn’t be doing it, but was looking forward to the opportunities the future may hold doing something truly creatively satisfying. It’s fun and all, but he wants to sink his teeth into something more.
He also has been invited back to reprise his concert role in a full staging of Hair coming up this year. I hope I may get to come back to the city and see him in it. I am just so thankful that these people are willing to share their lives with me.
After meeting with Bryce I met up with Latera and Lindsay and we headed over to the studio to watch a taping of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. That was very exciting! Although the main thing happening for me was the need to get a hot dog while waiting in line from the vendor outside the studios. Only way I made it. Okay, that’s a little dramatic, but it did make it a more enjoyable experience. It was great to see Jon Stewart work live.
St. Patrick’s Cathedral on Fifth Avenue at 50th St.
Patti LuPone signing my program at the Stage Door of Gypsy.
This evening I had my first interview. I had a lot of nerves going into the interview because I didn’t want the actors I was meeting with to feel like they were wasting their time. I wanted to ask intelligent questions and wanted to make sure I listened to get the full experience I should from my discussion with them.
My first interview was with Christian Borle and Michael Rupert of Legally Blonde. I was so excited they agreed to meet with me. They both have thriving careers on Broadway and I was very interested to hear their stories. Christian came from Carnegie Mellon to the city in 1995. Michael is a longtime veteran and I would say a sort of Jack of all trades. He writes, directs and teaches. The energy in the room was so exciting.
I met Natalie Joy Johnson at the stage door this evening, which was another exciting moment because I have been looking forward to meeting her for some time. She had set up the interview for me and greeted me with a huge hug, which just put my nerves at ease. We then headed upstairs to Christian’s dressing room. This room was much more comfortable and larger than I ever thought it would be because I have always heard of the spaces in New York theatres being so cramped, but it was so homey.
They both were interested in who I was, but I was most interested in hearing them so I talked for a brief moment about where I am on my journey and then moved in to ask them about themselves. They had such interesting things to say. I asked them about their lives working in New York and what it was like starting out and how they find the drive and motivation to do the work they do.
They spoke about the need to really love this work because there is no other way you will survive. They told me to go for anything. I should do any work I can because even while working on something, no matter how small, it is an audition. You never know who is in the audience and who will remember you for a role. That is how they were found to be in Legally Blonde. They both had done work with the director or he had seen them in work somewhere and he remembered them and thought that they would be good for their respective roles. Christian was seen in a reading that he couldn’t believe the director found him interesting in, but was so honored to be asked.
These actors of course are at a very different place than I will be in a few short months, but to hear them speak of their struggles was cool. Christian told me about how I should I remember that everyone is on a different timeline in the business, and I shouldn’t get discouraged if there are successes around me and I am not finding work immediately. If I want it bad enough and I pursue the right training and I put my best talents forward it will find me someday. This gave me a great sense of hope. Michael also spoke about the need for me to establish a support system wherever I end up, which was an interesting point. He said that it was so important that you have people there for the good times and the bad times, people in the business and some outsiders because they will help you keep your motivation and keep you grounded. This made me think of Jon and Lucia who I am moving to DC with at the end of the semester.
They also said that I should spend a lot of time with myself. I should know myself really well. They said that they have heard so many times how important it is to casting directors and directors that an actor appears to know themselves when they walk in the room. I should know who I am as a person and I should know myself as an actor. I should figure out what kinds of roles I am built for and I should use this knowledge when I choose auditions. This is not to say I should stretch for roles, but that I will probably find more success if I can find the opportunities to show my true strengths. As a person I should have a good sense of who I am and what I want. It is like discovering a character. I need to know the ins and outs of myself and be able to show these people who are looking to hire me that I understand myself because it gives them faith that I will be able to discover the desires of the character I am playing and their essence.
My discussion with them was wonderful. I wished I could have had even more time with them, but the half hour they spared for me was worth more to me than any words I can find. I thank them so much for doing it.
Tomorrow, Steve and I will meet with Bryce Ryness who is an ensemble member of the show. I am greatly looking forward to it.
