Confessions of a Chameleon

I recently had new headshots taken by the wonderful Ben Strothmann, whom I met after he took production photos of The Tragic and Horrible Life of the Singing Nun for BroadwayWorld. He captured almost every moment of that musical so beautifully, so when I found out he also took headshots, I had to meet him.

Almost any actor will tell you how excruciating headshots can be. I know, it sounds bizarre, because as actors we want to be in front of the camera, especially for film and TV, but it's usually while we're in character. It's a strange and funny thing that many actors are actually quite shy. I've even read about how some A-list actors will adopt a sort of red carpet persona in order to deal with the pressure of walking the red carpet. Yet as true artists we want to get our art out there, and we are our art, so we have to get out there!

Our calling card - especially starting out - is our headshot. This picture functions as our business card, a visual introduction to casting directors, talent agents, and just about anyone in show business. So getting a headshot that captures your essence is key. That's why I like working with Ben. Taking photos with him is like having coffee talk with an old friend, full of laughter and fun, all while sharing dreams amidst clicks of the camera. He's a delight to work with!
I recently went from being a blonde to a redhead, hence the reason I'm feeling so chameleon-like. Why red? Why not? My family has the genetic code of graying early - I started getting silver hair when I was 16 - so I've tried just about every color out there. I went blue- black for a role, and that color stayed for quite a while. Boy was it hard to get out! Then I went blonde, and it was fun to play the roles that went with that like the mobster molls and ditzy dames.

But my friends and cohorts in the biz kept saying there was more to me than being a blonde, and that they missed the earthy sassiness that seemed to emanate from me when I sported a darker look. Amazingly, quite a few of them urged me to go red. So I have, and I like it immensely. I've also noticed a stronger receptivity to my look in auditions. Towards the end of being blonde, there almost felt like a disconnect, because I'd get such high praise for my talent, but there was also that feeling that something about my product wasn't quite meshing. But now with red, it seems like people are really looking at me, and they have that look in their eyes like they want to buy my brand, so that has been very encouraging.

So now I start rebranding, continuing to hit auditions, work out at the gym, take classes and work on my craft. We'll see what this new 'do does. :)

Feeling Bold

Think bold. Be bold. This has been my mantra today.

I had an awesome audition yesterday for the Judith Shakespeare Company, a very cool company in Manhattan that is known for non-traditional casting for women, specifically with Shakespeare's works. Women are often cast in the male roles, and vice versa. Their productions always sound amazing and I would love to work for them.

It's a wild thing, auditioning, and great courage is required. Almost every famous actor will say how glad they are NOT to have to audition any more, because it can be really nerve-wracking. But I'm getting to the point where I almost love that adrenaline rush that happens when I walk into the room.


Yesterday's audition was at the Abingdon Theatre, and I've always enjoyed that space, walking through the darkness of the wings (backstage area), moving onto the little stage in the round, stepping into the light, seeing the auditors and welcoming them to take the ride with me. It's an exciting feeling and I love that I'm learning more about the characters and the playwright's intentions, serving the play itself, every time I do a monologue or sing a song. It's a connection to the material that I've never felt before. I feel like I'm really getting to perform the roles I've chosen for my audition pieces, and that's a thrilling feeling.

It's taking 2 minutes and turning that into a mini theatrical experience and enjoying it, being in it, breathing it.

Art can happen at any moment, and those 2 minutes that we get to audition can be the beginning of something incredible.

Looking ahead

It's such an interesting time. There's a lot of change in the air. Can ya feel it? Just things shifting. And it's a good feeling. It makes me think of something my friend Tina and I talk about. We often compare our businesses to surfing. She's a small business owner of an herb magazine she created 7 years ago, and I'm the owner of my "company" as an actress, both of us wearing the hats of product development and marketing, among many others.

Anyway, we've often said how any kind of business is like surfing. You start on the beach, surveying the sea and then you throw yourself out there. Sometimes you catch an incredible wave, sometimes you wipe out, but you get back on your surfboard and try again, knowing the reward will be truly sweet.


Sometimes you get out there and ride between the swells, gauging when to move towards what might become a big wave.

I feel like that right now, that I'm not just sitting on my board between the swells, but that I'm maneuvering, moving towards something that could be incredibly cool.

I have classes planned for the summer and auditions on the horizon. My friend from Hell's Belles, Deb Radloff, and I are going to revisit our idea for a cabaret with my Singing Nun musical director, Robby Stamper.

So good stuff is in the works! :)

Dedication

As I watched the Tony's last night, something that rang out for me about the whole thing was dedication to one's art and to one's family. Nearly every winner thanked his or her family and friends for their love and support.

Marcia Gay Harden thanked her mom for helping her lug suitcases up several flights of stairs when she first moved to New York.

The 3 boys who won for alternately playing the title role in Billy Elliot (David Alvarez, Kiril Kulish and Trent Kowalik) thanked their families and teachers and the entire cast and crew, including my Kaboom director, BT McNicholl, who's resident director for the Billy's. I was so jazzed that they gave a shout-out to this great man and fabulous director whom I've also had the pleasure to work with.

Gregory Jbara, who won Best Featured Actor in Billy Elliot, brought his wife onstage with him, which was so very cool!Geoffrey Rush, whom I saw last week in the incredible show Exit the King, thanked "Manhattan audiences for proving that French existential absurdist tragicomedy rocks."

It truly was an incredible play, and I'm so glad I got to see it before it closes. Likewise with 33 Variations, which was also up for some Tony's, and which I hoped would get some recognition because it truly was an exceptional production.

I still can't stop thinking about either play, and I'm so glad I was able to see these productions with friends.

That's something I've really been doing this year more than any other: seeing Broadway and Off Broadway shows. Part of it's because I did 2 Off Broadway shows last year and it really hit me what an incredible community this is, that we all must support each other and encourage growth through art.

I've also been taking a lot of classes this year, and it just hit me, I live in New York City and I have the ease to see all of this amazing theatre, to learn from master crafstmen like Geoffrey Rush and Jane Fonda. So I'm doing it!

Seeing Angela Lansbury in Blithe Spirit was also like taking a master class, because the entire cast, the entire production oozed the style of the period, and it was so cool how the whole production was designed.

Likewise, Exit the King. I'm sure people will be grabbing up tickets like crazy, and I love that! Exit the King is such a comic "think" piece. Boy, did it make me think!

And I love that theatre can do that! It can teach, it can amuse, it can move you, it can make you go, "What was that?" It can make you look at life and the people in it and just make you marvel at it all.

I'm glad to be a part of it.

Congratulations to all the Tony winners and nominees. You rock!

A Glimpse of Greatness

My sweetheart and I tend to stay in the city over Memorial Day Weekend. We've always enjoyed the quiet feeling that pervades the city when everyone rushes out to go to the beach. And it's been such a beautiful weekend! So we've spent a great deal of it, strolling about.

This morning, on our way to the gym, we passed the Eugene O'Neill Theatre where 33 Variations had played, and I was sad to see the show had closed. Apparently, it was a limited run, and boy, am I glad I got to see it last weekend before it closed!

Seeing that closing notice posted on the theatre doors reminded me what a fleeting treasure theatrical performances are. With film, we're able to view and review something a million times until we're spent on it. But with theatre, it's often a one-shot deal, and yet there is something so visceral about live theatre, so tangible. It is such a connected experience between the performers and the audience, and that experience is often kept alive in our memories.

I'm still amazed by folks I've met who've seen a show I've done and give such generous accounts of their experience. A casting director I met recently saw The Tragic and Horrible Life of the Singing Nun that I did a few years ago, and an actress I met at Actors Equity saw me in Johnny On A Spot, which I did last Fall, and both ladies were full of very kind compliments.


I love how people are moved by theatre! And sure, I remember my first big theatrical experience. It was Beatlemania. My parents took me to see it in LA when I was a kid, and I was absolutely mesmerized. I cried and cried when it was over. And interestingly enough, with 33 Variations, that too had me sobbing at the end. It was such a wonderful production!

Jane Fonda played a musicologist, searching for clues as to why Beethoven (played with great ferocity by Zach Grenier) wrote 33 Variations on a simple waltz by Anton Diabelli (played by the delightful Don Amendolia). Some of these variations are considered to be Beethoven's last pieces of work, and the playwright/director Moises Kaufman wove together this story of a woman coming to terms with her illness of Lou Gehrig's disease while also juggling a distant relationship with her daughter (the tenacious Samantha Manthis), who unexpectedly find's love with her mother's nurse (Colin Hanks' Broadway debut, and boy was he wonderful). Intertwined with this modern tale is a fictional account of Beethoven's last years, coming to terms with his deafness and the new discoveries it gave him as a composer. "And, even though they're separated by 200 years, these two people share an obsession that might, even just for a moment, make time stand still."

Indeed it did! There was a moment where Jane Fonda's character, Katherine, is having x-rays and you can see the pain this woman is going through, yet she leans back, and there is Beethoven, her solace and her inspiration to keep going.


The characters come together in the final scene, meeting in Katherine's mind, and it was such incredible work! The acting, the writing, the directing, the scenic and lighting design and the music (beautifully played by pianist Diane Walsh)! The cast was rounded out by the fabulous Susan Kellermann, whom I loved in Queen Latifah's film, Last Holiday, and Erik Steele as Beethoven's right hand man, Anton Schnidler.

The whole production reminded why I love theatre so much and why I want to do work like this, to work with incredible artists who tell stories of such depth and beauty. It was first-rate, and I'm glad I caught it because it was gone. It will definitely live in my memory forever.

The Drive

I've been thinking about this since last week when I saw Speed Racer. It really was a fun movie, and at the heart of it, a movie about family and what brings people together.

I never was a Speed Racer fan. It was before my time, and even when I'd hear older boys talking about it, I just didn't get it, but the Wachowski Brothers' film really got me. The graphics were breathtaking and the actors weren't eclipsed by it, which can happen in some graphic-heavy films. The whole film was an effective, united effort, and everyone and everything in it was quite wonderful!

Some of the writing was really beautiful too. Susan Sarandon's speech as the mother, saying that watching her son race was like watching a master artist paint made me think of watching my little brother play the drum-set for the first time. He was 16, but had been playing since he was 12 while I was away at college and art school, and I was astounded watching him. It was just like watching a master painter at work.

And Racer X, the mysterious mentor figure in the film, gives great encouragement to Speed Racer, asking him what drives him. "We drive because we have to," he says. And it made me think of my friend, Tina, who started her own herbal magazine 7 years ago, and who I always encouraged to write, just as she encouraged me to act.

Whenever we had rough days, we'd always ask each other, "Well, what else would you do?" And we both agreed and still agree we HAVE to do our art, because it satisfies us like nothing else can.

So when I got off the elevator yesterday, going to an audition, and the maintenance man in my building said, "I wish I was like you....When you get old, you lose The Drive..." I looked at him, he who seemed so young for his 50 years of age, and I said, "Hang in there, man. No matter what, you gotta grab each moment."

And he said, "That you do!"

Cool Connections and Callbacks

You know, I didn't want to get up this morning. I was in class late last night, working on Shakespeare with Deloss Brown, which of course was invigorating and got all my senses a-whirling, so I didn't go to sleep til about midnight. Thus, when the alarm went off this morning to get me up early for audition sign-ups for the New York Stage and Film 2009 Season, I was a little groggy. But it's my biz, and I love the line-up of plays and musicals for the season, so I had to go.

The great speech from Henry V kept me going:

"Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more..."

It's that never give up attitude, ya know?

And I'm SO glad I went!

Robert Marra, the director who brought me in for final call-backs for the Off Broadway revival of Snoopy, was there as an unexpected guest of the general manager. It was great to see him, and he was all waves and smiles, very encouraging, and it was a joy to get to show him my work outside of Snoopy, mainly rocking the house with a sexy pop rock song. It was a BLAST!

Then when I got back to my computer, there was an email from a lovely casting director whom I met a few years ago at callbacks for Wine Lovers, The Musical. I decided to submit for a new project she's working on for The Midtown International Theatre Festival, and lo and behold she called me in! I'm so excited about this opportunity! And it just amazes me to think that I almost didn't send my info out to her. Well, I've certainly learned to release my limitations and make a commitment to myself.

Again, a Shakespeare play I'm working on is brought to mind:

"Our doubts are traitors,
And make us lose the good we oft might win
By fearing to attempt. Go to..."
- Measure for Measure

So no matter what, show up, do your mailings, and invest in yourself and your craft. Ya gotta keep on trying!

And keep your fingers crossed! ;)

In honor of my Mama

My beautiful friend, Tina, recently wrote this lovely post about her mother, and of course, it made me think of mine.

I got to see my Mama at the beginning of the month when I went to CA to see my little bro perform with Hippie Cream. And the cherry on the cake was that mom decided to come to the show too!

The gig was at an old hippie commune in LA. It was actually an old USC frat house that had a history of being a hippie commune in 1969, and Hippie Cream was invited to play at their 40th anniversary/reunion. So there we were - my Mom, me, my brother and the band, surrounded by hippies, old and new.

The old-timers were a really groovy group, I must say. Lots of silver hair and an absolute effervescence in spirit! And the newer group of hippies were more like goth kids mixed with hipster punk. It was such an interesting group and made me think how we are all unified in our search to express ourselves.

My Mom was 17 in '69 so she was more of a woman in the disco era, but she fit right in at the Hippie Cream gig and got along great with everyone.

I was so proud of her for coming along. It was a late gig and she didn't get home til 2 AM, but boy, was it cool that she was there to see her son drum! And I loved getting to hang out with her in this very groovy kind of way.

She actually is probably one of the reasons Sean and I are so artistic. She and Dad would play the Beatles endlessly - even into the 80s - so Sean and I grew up with some very cool music in our ears.

She also was the first one to encourage me to "live out loud" and she was so supportive with all the things I wanted to do as a child: ballet, gymnastics, acting and singing.

She volunteered to be a seamstress for my school plays, creating costumes and such, and I'll never forget going thrift store shopping with her at the age of 10, finding this gorgeous old prom dress that she turned into Cinderella's ball gown for my 5th grade play. I was Cinderella, and you can bet I felt so incredibly special, knowing my Mom was my very own fairy godmother, having created this beautiful dress for me.

We've always been friends as well as mother and daughter, and it was incredibly hard on both of us when I left CA to come to NY. Heck! It still is hard! But I feel like she's with me every day, sharing the highs and lows of my acting career and daily life.

She's come to NY a few times, and she especially came to see me as The Singing Nun. I tell ya, she just beamed with pride, and she was talking to everyone after the show, briefly becoming a mini Mama Rose. :) But it all came from a good place.

And it still does. It all comes from love.

Shopping and The Tonys

Happy Cinco de Mayo!

I just got back from 2 auditions (The Glass Menagerie and Seattle Rep), and they both felt really good, so that is also cause for celebration! Ole!

Every time I audition, I learn so much - about myself, the character, the process. It's definitely fascinating! And I've entered a neat realm where it feels like the directors and casting directors are really looking at me. It's like they're trying to figure out where I'd fit, how they'd cast me, and this reminds me of my recent shopping spree with my Mom last week.

Mom and I hit everything from thrift stores to major brand stores, and we had a blast doing it. We'd load up on clothes and shoes that caught our eyes, and then we'd go try them on.

Now, this makes me think of the first phase of auditions, except that we, the actors, are the clothes, and the casting people are seeing if they want to try us on. Bonnie Gillespie likened this to a wine bar, but more along the lines of what kind of advice to "drink in," which is a really cool reminder that we're all in the same boat here, meaning it's not "us vs. them" or vice versa. Every aspect of show business is a group effort - even one person shows!

And this takes me to The Tonys.

Who knows how many tryouts there were for the shows that have been nominated? Or any of the shows on Broadway! I can imagine the lengthy process it's taken some of these folks to get to where they are.

The gang from Title of Show were part of the New York Musical Theatre Festival, just like I was with The Tragic and Horrible Life of the Singing Nun, and we actually all intermingled at the NYMF Awards. They performed and I was a recipient, and now Hunter Bell is up for the Tony Award for Best Book of a Musical. Very cool!

I actually know two other people who are nominated or associated with nominated shows this year, and I guess that shouldn't surprise me because the same thing happened last year! I'd either worked with or been in classes with people in last year's Tony Awards too!

This year, Billy Elliot, the musical about the little British boy who is sent to boxing class but just wants to dance, has swept the nominations, earning 15 nods!BT McNicholl, my director for last summer's comedy KABOOM at Cherry Lane, is the Resident Director for Billy Elliot, and he was actually working on Billy at the same time as KABOOM, which had to be an intense stretch, but what a fun ride!

BT was always the epitome of professionalism and high energy, and I would work with him again in a heartbeat.

My other Tony-nom-blast-from-the-past is Christopher Sieber, who is nominated for his hilarious turn as Lord Farquaad in Shrek The Musical. I went to AMDA with Chris, and though we were in different sessions, I do remember him from when our groups would intermingle. He was very funny, charismatic and talented even then!

I believe he stayed on for a second year at AMDA, but I was offered the role of Rita in a regional production of Educating Rita, so I missed my second year for that role, but boy, it was worth it.

It's thrilling when someone you've worked with gets kudos for their work. And it's always encouraging to see one of your classmates making their dreams come true.

I know that every time I put myself out there, I'm making it happen too.

Congratulations to all of the nominees! :)

Back to Work

There's a really cool phrase in reference to art, and I don't know how long it's been around, but I really dig it. It's called "The Work," and it's usually in reference to good work, though in truth, I believe any commitment to one's craft is a good thing, and so the work that results from the effort one puts into one's craft must have benefit.

And it's is really cool when you hear someone say they liked your work. That happened today at my audition for Alan Ayckbourn's comedy, How the Other Half Loves, to be produced in CT. The artistic director was very generous with praise about my work, and I LOVE the work! :) Whether its performing a piece for an audition, class, or a show, I'm learning and growing, and I love it!

I actually just got back from vacation in CA last week, where I got to see my family and share the artistic ride with my little brother. He's a drummer for the band Hippie Cream, and they're a really groovy group of guys who make music that bounces around between lots of genres. Sean likes to say they're like The Muppets on acid, guest-starring Paul Simon.

They played for a hippie commune's 40th Anniversary at USC and man, that was wild! They made me think of early Oingo Boingo mixed with Johnny Cash and the Monkees. They also got comparisons to Frank Zappa, but truly Hippie Cream has their own sound, and they are FUN!

And you know, that's what I think good artists bring to their work: fun! I mean, you don't dedicate your life to something if you don't get any joy out of it! There can be frustrations and challenges, sure, but it's part of the ride, and it's all how you look at it.

Whether it's acting, music, painting, film, sculpture, writing, I don't know any artist who goes into their work without passion. And like a garden, one must tend to it daily.

So when I got back from vacation, I got back to work. Heck! Even while I was on vacation, I was working, reading scripts, finishing up postcards, and brainstorming ideas for shorts on YouTube. Talking with my brother always gets my artistic fire burning brightly. And inspiration abounds!

So now I'm back in New York, and I'm back to work! :)

The Bard's Birthday

Today is considered to be William Shakespeare's birthday. Ironically, it's also the same day he died.

Though the exact date of his birth is not known, scholars believe it is either today - "the date celebrated in England since 1222 as the feast day of dragon-slaying St George" - though there is also evidence that it might have been yesterday, April 22nd, since his grand-daughter, Elizabeth Hall, married on April 22nd, 1626 "in honour of her famous relation." And apparently, records show he was baptised April 26th. In any case, I feel the dear Bard should be celebrated every day!

Film.com pays a lovely tribute to films that have done the bard justice. I'm currently enjoying Kenneth Branagh's Much Ado About Nothing. Truly, Shakespeare's words are best heard, best seen, in my humble opinion, to be fully experienced.

I'm in the midst of Shakespearean studies with former Juilliard professor, Deloss Brown, who also teaches at NYU, and I must say, it is such a joy! We're working on King Lear, which blows me away because I recently worked with Alvin Epstein on the staged reading of Sin with F. Murray Abraham, and here I come to find that both Mr. Abraham and Mr. Epstein played Lear! So fascinating! How the web of life entwines!

And so, today and everyday, I hope you find your inner bard, to work, to play, to explore life and love, to hear, to see, to learn, to grow. Enjoy it all!

"There was a star danced, and under that was I born."
- William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing, 2.1

Great Works

Coming off of last week, I feel blissfully inspired. It was my birthday and I treated myself to a lot of theatre.

Actually I started this theatre-treat even earlier than last week, seeing Irena's Vow on April 1st. It's an incredibly moving play based on the true story of Irena Gut Opdyke, a Polish Catholic girl who was forced into servitude by the Germans in WWII. She had endured all sorts of horrors by the Russians before this capture, but somehow her tenacious spirit and fierce faith got her through this hellish time. And strangely enough, her position as servant (she was housekeeper to an SS officer) afforded her the ability to save 13 Jews by hiding them in the German's own villa! It's an amazing story, and I wouldn't be surprised if it soon becomes a film.

It was heavy stuff, but I was amazed at the humor that would creep in throughout the play, especially in the character of Irena herself, brilliantly played by Tovah Feldshuh. But it makes sense to me: humor can help us get through anything.

Irena's Vow is an incredible play and almost everyone in the audience was in tears at the end. As a special treat, Irena's actual daughter came onstage after the show and answered some questions from the audience about her mother. Amazing stuff!

My next show was Blithe Spirit, which I saw on my birthday with my friends, Michael and Carl. We'd been excited about this show since we'd first read it was coming to Broadway, and so we decided to catch the matinee on my birthday. The boys took me to brunch, then we walked down Shubert Alley (even saw Jeremy Irons on his way to his show, Impressionism) and had a little Wicked fun along the way.

We had amazing seats for Blithe Spirit and the crowd went wild when the legendary Angela Lansbury took the stage! She was brilliant! I loved her as child when I first saw Bedknobs and Broomsticks on the Disney channel, and later saw clips of her Mrs. Lovett in Sweeney Todd and Ruth in The Pirates of Penzance (how I wish I'd been alive to see her MAME)!

It was really miraculous to watch her work with the wonderful Blithe Spirit cast. To be 83 and still doing high kicks onstage... that's the life for me! :)

Then on Thursday I saw August Osage County with my friend Wayne Henry from Johnny On a Spot. Holy Toledo! What an amazing play! It raged like a rollercoaster from hell, and had me on the edge of my seat. I loved the dark humor, not knowing what was going to happen next!

The cast was phenomenal - it was my first time seeing Estelle Parsons onstage and she was simply magnetic! I had heard much of this "monster of a mother" character, but she made her Violet so human, so multi-faceted! In fact, each member of the cast was like a multi-faceted gem! They all brought these characters to life with great ease.

The set and lighting design, the direction, costumes, the writing... it was all truly a masterpiece.

And something interesting about 2 of these 3 of these plays was that 2 of the leading ladies - Tovah Feldshuh and Estelle Parsons - were tiny! And that inspired the heck out of me because I'm a tiny but mighty leading lady as well. Yet another reminder not to limit myself ever!

My Brother and Hippie Cream's "Life"

"I play for a living...Success is tied to a feeling of magic, which I can protect."

- M. Night Shyamalan

When I was 5, I asked my parents for a little brother or sister. You see, all of my friends in the neighborhood had little brothers or sisters to play with, and I desperately wanted a playmate. Well, my folks didn't fulfill this request for another 5 years. Being an Aries, and having a nephew who is also an Aries, I can understand this. We're firecrackers, for sure! But my folks were also young and trying to get it together, so I can understand them taking some time.

On May 26th shortly after midnight they finally brought into the world this amazing little fellow named Sean, and I couldn't wait to meet him!

I always tell my brother, "I was waiting for you to arrive," and boy, has he!

He's currently the drummer for a wildly eccentric band called Hippie Cream, and last week they filmed their first music video for a song from their latest album "On the Moon" in our hometown of Hemet, no less!

The song is "Life is Long" and the director is a young man named Daniel Philip Maggio. Dan, like myself, really loves Hippie Cream and their groovy tunes. He also seems to dig using his surroundings, and I'm a big fan of that. It's one of the reasons I love M. Night Shyamalan whose films tend to hover around Philadelphia, PA and its woodsy 'burbs.

Dan, Sean, and Wesley, who sings and plays fiddle, tie, and cowbell for the band, roamed about Hemet, filming the video. They had specific places in mind, and it's a treat to see the orange groves in there. That's one of my favorite things about the deserts of CA - the orange groves - and they're disappearing at an alarming rate! It's great to see them captured on film, and I hope they get preserved in other ways too!


The thing I dig about this video - and there are so many things I dig about it, but I love how it kicks my butt to get my own work online. Sound bites I've figured out and have no trouble with, but my career is an especially visual medium, and I need to get some of the short films I've done online.
"Sincerely Yours" would be a sweet treat, and I just got footage from the Hitchcock-inspired thriller, "Everyday" which is going to be shown this Friday night at 7:30 at the TISCH New Visions & Voices Intermediate Film Festival.

I also have decent clips of my work as Judy Garland in the musical Hell's Belles so I need to get crackin!

If you live in So. Cal and want to catch Hippie Cream, they're playing tonight at The Airliner at 9 PM.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nElYG5PLqIU

Enjoying the Process

One of my friends was laid-off from his regular job right before Christmas, and he's just been starting to get job interviews lately. He's been nervous, but has been gathering his courage, putting himself out there, and I've been encouraging him to take pride in himself and his skillset.

It made me think about how much auditions are like job interviews. Instead of talking "qualifications" (and you may end up doing that if you get to talking about your resume with the director or casting director), I perform with a song, monologue, or read from the "sides" (the script for the show). And the thing I've been discovering lately - thanks to 3 really amazing teachers (VP Boyle, Karen Kohlhaas, and Deloss Brown) - is that I now really love auditioning. It's my two minutes to do what I really love to do. And yes, I'd love to get the job, but if I go into an audition with only that at the forefront of my mind, I'd be like a lot of people out there in the job market, besieged with the anxieties that come with the "get the job" mentality.

Learning to love auditioning is like learning to love your job interview. Why not enjoy that? Why not take pride in yourself and what you have to offer? Why not enjoy the growth process that comes from every interview? Why not boost that growth rate by taking classes to nurture yourself along your path?

My friend Tina would definitely say, "Look back and applaud yourself for what you have accomplished."

It's not about "them," those people across the table, conducting the job interview/audition. I mean, they're people too, and we're all in this together. Who knows what's on their plate or what they're dealing with as they try to fill this position? We don't. All we can do is put ourselves out there and support ourselves in this brave move to "show up."



But you know what else? We can enjoy it! We can learn from it! We can let it delight us!

Each audition lately has been an absolute gift, giving me the chance to perform and connect with others in unexpected ways and giving me the chance to love and appreciate myself and my process and what I have to give!

Karen Kohlhaas taught me this amazing thing called the "Big and Slow" entrance and exit. The minute we walk into a room (and I really believe this is for any interview, artistic or otherwise), we're on display. No wonder everyone feels absolutely nerve-wracked walking into an interview room! But there is a way to deal with it, to go into the room and to exit the room "big and slow" and to create that sense that you are amongst friends. It'd be unfair to detail it here since it's part of Karen's teaching process, so I highly suggest getting Karen's book, The Monologue Audition to get the details of how to do this. Needless to say, it's a mindset. It's how we talk to ourselves before, after and during an interview.

There's also a really helpful list at the beginning of Karen's book that defines everything within your control and everything not in your control (about auditioning). It really is absolutely brilliant and I believe can be of help to people who are simply in the job interview process. Realize what's in your control and what's not and forget about what isn't. :)

There's also a really great checklist at the end of the book that allows you to give yourself healthy feedback on what you've done in the audition/interview. It helps to assess where and how we're growing and how we want to grow. It's a delicious journey!

The more I work to my satisfaction, the more I challenge myself to really bring what I have to bring to the table, and to get out of my own way, the more I am having an absolute BLAST!

I hope you are enjoying your process and find great satisfaction and success in your work.

In Love with Shakespeare

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments, love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove.
O no, it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wand'ring bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come,
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom:
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
- William Shakespeare - Sonnet #116.

I've always loved that sonnet. It has been with me since I first read Shakespeare in high school. And how much richer the words seem now!

After college, I was hired for the Shakespearean acting troupe for the PA Renaissance Faire. We were taught the Bard's language, Elizabethan history, and improv coupled with the Bard's words. Hence: Shakespearean improvisation. Very cool.


Iambic pentameter was taught to me by Vivian Hasbrouk, a great teacher and actress who ended up getting into casting. Hearing the rhythm of how Shakespeare's verse was to be metered out was such an insight! Especially since my training originated in musical theatre, I could easily feel the rhythm.

Tonight the learning continues! :) I have class with Deloss Brown, former Juilliard professor and current teacher at NYU. I began my studies with him last week, and I am enjoying every minute of it!

We're working on King Lear, and I am surprised at how insatiable I am with the material. I've always loved Shakespeare, but have tended to go more for the comedies like Midsummer Night's Dream or Much Ado About Nothing. But Lear... wow! "Lear" literally means "learning," and was olde English of "lere a lesson," meaning to teach (learn) a lesson.

Shakespeare's King Lear is filled with lessons and the tragedy of learning too late.

You'd think this would be heavy fare, but it's fascinating, and Deloss teaches with such insight and good humor. We met the royal family last week in Act 1 scene 1. Tonight we meet the villain, Edmund.

The Blue Rose

When I was a kid, I used to love to watch the Family Film Festival on Saturday afternoons. There was usually some fantastic adventure movie on, and one that I loved was a story about a princess who is cursed by an evil sorcerer and can only be saved if her valiant sweetheart finds and gives her the magical, one-and-only blue rose.

Sadly, I can't remember the name of this film, so if anyone knows it, please share! :) The story was so powerful and fantastical and the hero goes through all sorts of trials and tribulations to get this magical blue rose to save his lady and his love.

Not to be a spoiler, but he gets it and just as he's about to give it to her, the rose is destroyed. The kingdom absolutely despairs, but the princess rises up from her sick-bed, and takes a white rose from the garden and says, "If you love me, then this is the blue rose!"


Sure enough, they kiss and the rose turns into a beautiful blue rose cradled gently in her fingers.

Well, today I saw a blue rose at the corner grocery. A lot of delis in NY have rows of flowers that you can buy outside their shops, and when I saw this blue rose, I just had to have it. It doesn't matter if it's "not real." In fact, if anything, the fairytale above just goes to show that any rose has the power to bloom and be whatever we want it to be. If we believe.

And of course, I've been getting comments from strangers all over town, saying, "Wow! Is that a blue rose???"

It's magic, I tell ya.

And I feel like a rose myself. I feel like I'm blooming! With each audition I hit, with each class I take, with each show I see, with each play I read, each song I sing, I feel so full of potential and possibilities.

I feel like the blue rose in bloom. :)

This just in!

I had to post this! It's from The Producer's Perspective, an awesome blog by Broadway and Off Broadway producer, Ken Davenport.

Top 10 tips for Actors

Absolutely brilliant!

I especially like #10: Always audition.

"The best way to master auditioning is just like everything else. Do it over and over. You'll get numb to the nerves. You'll be able to be yourself. And you'll get free practice! I used to go to dance calls, because learning a dance combination at an audition is a free dance class (and I needed them). Actors who get to work on sides with directors at an audition get a free coaching." - Ken Davenport

I have to laugh because that's something I was just telling my friend, Tina. She had advised when I first came to the city to audition for everything for practice, which I didn't understand because I was like, "Shouldn't I be going for the job?"

But now I realize it's so much more than that. There are so many things we can't control about the multi-layered aspect of an audition, BUT we get to perform for 2 minutes, we get to show our work, and I tell ya, every time I do a song or monologue or read side from the script, I learn. I learn more about the characters I'm working on, more about myself, and more about the process, and it is an absolute BLAST! :)

Hope you're enjoying your process as well. :)

Spring in the City

I love this time of year! Every time I look at the trees, it seems their buds are unfurling a little further each day. The birds are singing, flower stalks are starting to appear. Some plants are beginning to flower. It is so beautiful!

My friend, Tina, put it best: With everything beginning to "green up, the same thing is happening in a certain way to me. Everything quickens and the pace picks up. Winter is over. A new year begins."

I've been feeling that way with each audition I've been hitting. Lately, I've been so blessed to receive incredible responses after each audition. Directors, casting directors, artistic directors, everyone has been saying, "That was GREAT," and then they'll talk with me further about my audition piece or a show they saw me in. One casting director even remembered me from The Tragic and Horrible Life of the Singing Nun, which I did a few years ago. And some directors are taking time to give me notes or encouragement on my audition pieces. It's really cool, because I feel like I'm getting through.

Like the little leaf-buds on the trees, I'm growing further each day and soon I'll be unfurling! :)

If you're a city-dweller like me and would like to take in some luscious sights of Spring in the woodsy countryside, check out my friend, Tina's blog: http://theessentialherbal.blogspot.com/

She's the editor and chief behind the magazine, The Essential Herbal, and if you'd like an in-depth glimpse of this delicious compilation of recipes, remedies, and delightful stories, check out the free download of last year's issue, The Victory Garden: www.essentialherbal.com/MarchApril2008forweb.pdf


Tina always rocks my world because she's a self-starter who brings people together. She's almost always all-inclusive and that's such an amazing thing for a small business owner. She always inspires me.

Here we grow! :)

Great Gradations!

gradation - noun - any process or change taking place through a series of stages, by degrees, or in a gradual manner.

I feel like I've graduated in a way, and yet it seems too early to talk about caps and gowns, especially since I have a bunch of classes on the horizon.

This just feels like such an incredible time of great change for me. Yesterday I went to an audition for the play, Speech and Debate by Stephen Karam. Because I am a petite actress, I've often played young adults for what feels like forever. And I'm not knocking this. Hey! I made it to final callbacks for Sally Brown in Snoopy, so obviously, it's a niche! And for this play, I'm probably a "tweener" (in-between the ages of the characters, and could be cast either way), so I decided to embrace my full-grown womanhood and read for The Teacher. It was a bold choice but felt... FULL. And I received great response from the director on my audition, which was wonderfully encouraging.

It was just such a cool feeling, working to my satisfaction, making bold choices for the character in the short amount of time I got to know her (we were cold-reading scenes from the script). I truly felt like I graduated from "student" to "teacher" in that moment. It was so empowering!

And yet this year I have immersed myself in my studies. It started with the Monologue Audition workshop with Karen Kohlhaas at The Atlantic Theatre School. I wanted to take more classes at ATS but our schedules weren't in sync, so I contacted one of Karen's recommendations, Deloss Brown, a former Juilliard teacher, and will be diving into his 7-week Shakespeare workshop. As one of my favorite actors from Slings and Arrows once said (and I'm paraphrasing), "If you can do Shakespeare, you can do anything." His work is timeless, and I love it!

So as I continue to "walk my talk" and put my work out there, learning from each audition, and working on new material, I have this feeling of "lift-off," of incredible growth, and it is indeed worth celebrating.

"You've got to build your foundation and get out there, because no class is going to teach you what auditioning and performing will teach you." - Karen Kohlhaas

4.........3......... 2........ 1...

BLAST OFF!!!!! :)

Life and Death

With the sudden loss of Natasha Richardson, I find this such a keen reminder how utterly slim the line is between life and death. Not to be morose... some of my friends have been facing this "fine line" daily.

My dear friend, Lisa (below), is a nurse who works in the intensive care unit (ICU), and she sees this life and death struggle daily. My Mom is also a nurse, and she works with cardio patients, and has had some heart-pounding experiences, to be sure. I love these ladies and their ability to help people in their true life-n-death battles.

Then there's my friend, Tina, who's been going through "the fight for life" with her brother, John, as he waits for a liver transplant. She actually has the incredible mindset to realize this time is precious and will someday be looked back on as The Good Old Days.

They're all incredible people.

And what does this have to do with Natasha Richardson? Well, like many folks, I was greatly saddened and shocked by her sudden death, and my heart goes out to her family.

I remember first seeing her in the film The Handmaid's Tale. I had just finished reading Margaret Atwood's novel, and was very interested to see the film. Natasha Richardson was luminous and perfectly cast as Offred, the fertile Handmaid. She was so intriguing and I kept an eye open for her other films, enjoying her work as Mary Shelley in Gothic, as Dr. Paula Olsen (pictured below with her husband Liam Neeson) with Jodie Foster's wild-child Nell, Disney's remake of The Parent Trap, and as one of the ugly step-sisters in the modern Cinderella tale with Jennifer Lopez, Maid in Manhattan. She was so brilliant at moving from drama to comedy, absolutely seamless, and I'm glad her work has been capured on film.

I didn't get to see her work on Broadway, and man, I wish I could have. I remember watching the Tony Awards and being mesmerized by her brief appearances as Anna Christie (with her husband Liam Neeson), her saucy Sally Bowles in Cabaret, and as Blanche Dubois in A Streetcar Named Desire. I'm inspired by her growth and work as an actress, going from Ibsen ingenues to Williams' tragic willow. Her range was obviously incredible.

Her passion for acting was "rivalled only by cooking," and she was quoted as saying (of acting), "The best feeling in the world is when you don't know what will happen next but you're in control... It's like flying."

I've been finding that feeling as well.

She was heralded as a "brave, tenacious, wonderful woman" and I salute her spirit. I am grateful for her inspiration as an artist and how she has made me think of all the brave and beautiful women in my life.

I pray her family will find comfort and healing during this challenging time.

Blessed be.