Half Speed on Vaycay

Three weeks ago, my summer plans were founded on hauling kayaks and babysitting, with little theatre work beyond reading AT and various plays. Today, I am writing in a cabin in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado during a week-long counselor training at Perry-Mansfield Performing Arts Camp. While I would make more money fitting life vests and tying down boats, my Sagittarian restlessness had definitely become overwhelming and while I love Todd, NC it's pretty devoid of people to talk theatre with. Here, I'm surrounded by people who speak Actor, by horses and mountains that still have snow in June. Not to mention my enthusiastic campers who will be showing up on the 24^th. I'm bracing myself for the Beiber Fever. The food is delicious, the air is clean, and while I'm positive my cabin is haunted, this little Sagittarian is very content.

However, I do regret to say that Half Speed will be put on temporary hold, or at least have much less frequent posts. Between wrangling 12 and 13 year olds, riding horses and enjoying the mountains, there really isn't much room for walking down to the office to steal WiFi. Regular posting will resume when I return in August and I hope you will all come back then to hear about my Colorado adventure.

Thank you all so much for reading. If you all have any ideas for posts for when I return, stick them in a comment. Until then... have a wonderful summer!

Bunk Beds

I have found my summer opportunity in an unexpected place. I know I whined about seven rejections, and got defiant, deciding to make my own summer training program. But post-babysitting exhaustion and the desire to snuggle my cat has left me without that curriculum I promised a while back. So when my friend Heather mentioned that the Perry-Mansfield Performing Arts School and Camp still needed a counselor, it was pretty natural for me to be on that like spots on dice.

On Wednesday, I called to see if the position was still open and talked to a lovely lady named Sophie Aikman, who asked me to email my resume to her. I had already written the cover letter and gathered the contacts requested on the website, but I realized quickly that I had no idea how to write a normal resume. By which I mean one that is not covered in theatre and film credits. I highly recommend getting one together before you need it, because I was scrambling to put one together in a pinch. I had to get my friend with a normal degree to email me hers to use as a template. I was scheduled to have a phone interview with Sophie on Thursday, but had to move it to Friday when something came up for her.

The interview lasted about 45 minutes. It started with questions like, "What experience have you had with kids?" and "Have you ever been to summer camp?" which were followed by "What would you do if..." questions. It ended up being a very enjoyable conversation and I had a feeling I had it in the bag when I said I'd always wanted to go to Colorado and she replied "Oh, you'll love it here!" She offered me the position at the end of the conversation, just two days after I initially called her. Of course, I accepted it!

My Summer Home. No Big Deal.

I will be making less than I would working full-time at my kayak outfitter job this summer and I won't be performing, but I think there is something to be learned from managing middle-school girls for 2 months. (Check back here for revelations and frustrations.) Not to mention the fact that all of the teachers are potential professional contacts and there are a bunch of horses available for me to ride. This is not at all what I expected to be doing this summer, and I didn't think I would be spending it with any performing artists, much less a whole camp full of them! I'm seriously thrilled. And kind of terrified. Middle-school girls. Just sayin'.

Since some of my girls won't be in sessions long enough to produce a show, they don't have anything scheduled during evening rehearsal times. I'm coming up with ideas of things to do with them, either performance related or just campy. I'm thinking: capture the flag, foam sword battles, maybe a play reading. Any suggestions out there? It would be much appreesh!

So there it is. Colorado, here I come!

Lovechild

One of the the newest professors to the performing arts department of my alma mater (Did I really just use "alma mater"? Who even does that?) shifted gears in her career after being a highly successful casting director for CBS-NY. This woman knows her stuff and is a lot of fun to boot. Unfortunately, I never had the pleasure of taking one of her classes, but she always had her Audition Techniques students do some digging and find out who they were in the industry as far as types were concerned. Recently, I decided it was about time I did the same. I even used the same approach that I had seen my friends use: the ever-effective Facebook status.

Well, maybe not ever-effective. Probably because I added a qualifier to my first call for suggestions, which was: Ellen Page and Anne Hathaway don't count. You all have no idea how often people tell me I'm like these two ladies. I just wanted to branch out, but apparently branching is not allowed in this investigation. I had one response, which ended in a question mark and was also a point for musically-inclined Julie Andrews. I am not musically inclined. In the least.


So I tried again, this time without the qualifier. First response?

Anne Hathaway. And this was from a girl I haven't spoken to since high school. Okay, am I really going to fight being compared to someone as charming and gorgeous as Anne Hathaway? I think not. Although I'm not sure if I will ever be that fearless about my boobs. Girl's got some good'uns.


Second comment?

Adorable, versatile, I-wish-we-could-be-friends Ellen Page. Can't complain about that one either.

In conclusion, I give in. I am officially the lovechild of Anne Hathaway and Ellen Page. I have never really considered myself to be a strong comedic actor, unlike my lovely type-based mothers. Maybe I misjudged myself and I need to redirect, to work my comedy muscle more. And apparently I need to have a Red Riding Hood role. (Hathaway was the voice of "Red" in Hoodwinked and Ellen Page's "Hayley" in Hard Candy has been compared to the character.)

Other actors have been suggested to me in the past, such as Audrey Hepburn, Tina Majorino ("Deb" from Napoleon Dynamite, and recently on the season finale of Bones) and I have a doppelganger in Emily Mest ("Thea" in the national tour of Spring Awakening). And then there's Andy Serkis.

I used to have a killer Gollum impression, but that's all we have in common.

I swear.

This precious totally knows what taters are.

Post-Graduation Productivity: Addendum to "On(Line)" and a Tangent Into Finances

Back at the end of March, I wrote an entry into the post series "Post-Graduation Productivity" about your online presence. (Read it here.) I added on to that post with a link to a similar discussion over at Playbills vs. Paying Bills because A) those guys are great and I want to tell as many people about them as possible and B) I draw from all kinds of places to give myself and my readers good information and reading material. Which is why I'm making an addendum to the "Let's Get it On(Line)" post. (Don't you love the word 'addendum'? Trippingly on the tongue, indeed.)

LearnVest did one of their many quick articles on building your online brand, which gives some additional ideas and is also a bit more eloquent than my post. LearnVest is a site with tons of information on finances, saving money, and ideas of how to live frugally, as well as tips for entrepreneurs. It is generally geared toward women, but often has information pertinent to men as well. If you dig this article, definitely poke around a little more, maybe sign up for their daily newsletter. Because don't we all know, money is in short supply for most actors. Another financial site that is designed specifically for artists is Abundance Bound. We need to use these resources to our advantage. They can't hurt. And most importantly, they're free. And I love free.

The Discouraging Start

I had every intention of spending this summer with one theatre company or another, continuing my training and adding a little something extra to my resume before I move to Chicago in the fall. Unfortunately, things have proven to turn out a little differently. Out of the seven companies I auditioned for, I have received four rejection emails. Some of them were expected. Some of them were encouraging. And some of them couldn't even manage to put a "Dear Elise" at the top and a "Sincerely" at the bottom. The remaining three, in my mind, boil down to one "not a chance," one "not likely" and one "still reviewing."

It has been frustrating to know that my start out of the gate has been slow, that I spent money and time traveling to auditions in which the people behind the table hardly paid attention. That I will never know just what went wrong, and if it was anything I could change. Watching my peers excel while I warm the proverbial bench this summer is going to be tough, but the disappointment and comparison of myself to others is something I can deal with. However, being so removed from the acting world has already had an effect that has caused my very patient and supportive boyfriend to recently say he's wondered where I've been lately. I think my restlessness, lethargy, lack of motivation, moodiness, etc stems from my 5 month-long detachment from the thing that has propelled me for the last few years. I guess reading the New York Times and American Theatre just ain't cuttin' it.

So I chose April 30 to be the last day that I look for responses from the summer opportunities that I applied to, which makes today the first day of defiantly planning an artistically productive summer. In other words, its time to quit moping about rejection letters and do something with myself that will make me more "hire-able" next time around. Might as well make my own opportunities. I'll design my own daggum training program. Curriculum on its way soon.

As they say: slow and steady wins the race. Half speed, full intention.

Guild Card Secrets

You know those little ads on the side of the screen when you're on facebook? You know how they're usually to meet Jewish singles or to turn yourself into a baby? Well, this one popped up and I had to take a gander. I can't tell if this is a totally sketchy scam or if it is a legitimate way into SAG:

http://guildcardsecrets.com/

Basically, this guy claims to have found a loophole in getting into the Screen Actors Guild through a contract by becoming a SAG New Media Signatory Producer for a small project of your own. I was a little wary of the "have my DVD for just the cost of shipping" idea, but my Spideysense tells me he's an honest guy trying to help actors into the union.

Say this loophole really is a way into SAG. Do we use it? It's a total pain to get into the union, but I almost feel like I would be cheating if I got in as a "signatory producer" (whatever that means) and used my membership as an actor. Then there is always the question of when is the right time to get into a union, which involves evaluating whether or not you no longer can or want to work on non-union projects, if you can pay the membership dues, etc. If an actor has come up against a wall where they aren't getting work outside of a union and can't seem to get into a union, I say this might be worth a shot. And it gives you a reason to produce some of your own work.

I'm more of a theatre kid and I'm not sure how the film kids roll when it comes to getting into the union, but what do you think? Sketchy? Worth a try? Both? Check it out for yourselves and tell me what you think!

Dropping Like Flies?

As a young theatre artist, my blood pressure rises every time I read about the financial crises that are causing theatres on both coasts to send out SOS calls. After reading in American Theatre that Actor's Express in Atlanta would need "$200,000 by the end of July to stay afloat," I had to consider it against the travel expenses to audition for their internship program. In the end, travel expenses won. (Read their distress call here.) Just now, I read in the NYT that the Intiman Theater in Seattle (whose troubles were also highlighted in AT) has canceled the rest of their season as well as the jobs of the staff. I even got an email a few months ago from the Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey, where I was an apprentice last summer, that they had not met their fund raising goal and were looking for donations.

While New York theatres seem to be holding on okay, (with Spider-man: Turn Off the Dark bringing in well over a million every week without having even opened yet) I think that regional theatre work is essential to our community, especially to those of us who are just joining. Not only does it give us newbies a place to start without trying to jump into the deep end that is the Big Apple, it also provides an outlet for regional voices that may one day make it to the big city.

I don't think that the floundering of two theatres means the death of the regional circuit. However, with government funding for the arts dwindling and possible donors and patrons feeling pinched for money due to the still-recovering economy, thinking about it makes me a little queasy. It makes me feel like it's not quite as strange as I once thought when my friends discuss survival plans for the zombie apocalypse.

Okay, the zombie apocalypse is silly, but how do we approach this possible conundrum in a way that will benefit us as artists, both individually and collectively? I'm all about donating time and work to the betterment of a theatre (I was notorious for devoting myself to a zillion projects at once in college), but at this point we all know:

Can we promote our favorite companies in a way that will convince audiences, donors, and sponsors that theatre is a worthwhile place for the money that they are clutching to during this economic struggle? Maybe there is more to be mined from the ever-expanding world of social networking and the iPad, since technology is something people are unafraid of spending time and money on. Or perhaps it's time to stop waiting for patrons to come to us and take theatre to them, by which I mean focusing on even smaller communities than regional theatres. Each community has a story that could potentially be told on stage. AT even had an article on a puppet theatre that did shows in people's backyard. Is it possible that traditional ways of doing theatre have become old hat to the point that it's difficult to fund anymore? Is there any one change in theatre that will bring audiences back and define the newest generation of artists? Just some food for thought.

On the other hand, I could be freaking out too much and every generation of artists coming into this crazy world have been faced with one problem or another. Either way, from what I've seen of my colleagues, I think we'll come up with something.