Snow Days

A lot of my friends in the Midwest are having snow days today. I imagine they're home with their kids, and I hope they're enjoying some hot chocolate.

In the meantime, it's business as usual in the Big Apple. I love it when it snows here. There's something so magical about how the snowflakes blow about the city and then settle in piles. When the sun shines on them it's like walking on glitter.

Growing up in the desert of southern CA, snow was unusual and didn't appear unless you went into the mountains in search of it. So now, to be in a place, where winter truly drags her long white coat over the land, is always a marvel.

This is not to say that I'm impervious to the cold. On the contrary, I've spent many a day out in the cold, waiting to get into an audition, and I have to say that I think actors are as dedicated as the postman, because when it comes to auditions, we'll show up in rain, sleet, and snow. See, here in NY, even though an audition will be listed with a start time of 9 or 10 AM, people will show up as early as 6 AM to make sure they get an audition slot. Some of us are pretty driven when it comes to getting out product out there, and we'll run all over town, hitting different audition spaces at different casting offices or rehearsal spaces, to hit as many auditions as possible.

I've become a lot more focused over the years, targeting specific auditions, and fortunately, I've reached a point where I've been getting called in directly from the casting director or director for specific appointments, which is great. Still, I go to the general Equity auditions when there's something that really grabs me.

Tonight, I'll be hiking across town to The Atlantic Theatre Company to start classes with Karen Kohlhaas. I've been interested in her monologue class for quite a while, but I've been so booked up with gigs that I haven't been able to jump into it til now. So tonight's the night! I'm so excited and have been enjoying the preparation for the class, revelling in the homework.

When I was in CA, my brother and I talked about how every class we take adds to the whole package of what we bring to the table as artists. He's a drummer who also plays gorgeous acoustic guitar and is an incredible writer. He went back to school after years of working solely as a musician, and I'm so inspired by his choice to take classes that stretch him. He could argue philosophy with the best of 'em! And the cool thing is that musically he keeps growing too.

So I'm off to class! Tell ya about it later!