Tag Archives: acting coach

Audition Prep (or Taking My Career Seriously)

Posted on September 14, 2017 | Comments Off on Audition Prep (or Taking My Career Seriously)

I’ve felt a bit out of the acting game lately. Doing all the work with SAG–AFTRA does help, but it’s not the same as auditioning and working. Unfortunately, I don’t control when I get auditions or work so I have to just be grateful for when I get those opportunities.

Last week, I got an email from a casting director that I know socially but have never had the chance to audition for. They had a script with a character that they thought I’d be right for and they wanted to know if I was interested in auditioning. This was the first time this happened to me and it was really exciting! I wanted to say yes right away, but I also wanted to make sure I read the script. I did, I loved it, and I told them that I would love to audition! So it was set up through my agents and I got my scene to prepare for the audition.

I’m lucky with the auditions I normally get. They rarely are 1 or 2 line parts that are actually tougher to audition for because you can’t do too much. I get bigger auditions that have pages of dialogue to work with. When I have those bigger auditions, I have started to use an audition coach. As much as I know I can work on the audition on my own, it’s so much better to have some feedback.

But I’ve never used a coach for the smaller auditions. But for this audition, I really wanted to be as prepared as possible and to take things seriously. I need to make sure I maximize each audition chance I get, and this time I felt a little extra pressure because I know this casting director as a friend but he doesn’t really know me as an actor. Plus, since I was asked if I wanted an audition versus just getting an audition made it feel extra special and like I needed to be the best I could be.

I’ve got a few audition coaches that I know and that I’ve worked with before. So I sent out some emails to see who was available and could help me out. And I’m so lucky that Marci Liroff was able to help me! I’ve auditioned for Marci a couple of times in the past and I also took her audition bootcamp class a few years ago. So she knows my abilities as an actor and I know that I work well with her when she’s coaching me and guiding me into working a script.

I went to meet with her this Monday and it was exactly what I needed to do to get ready for my audition. I was apologizing for asking for coaching on such a small part (the audition scene is only about 6 lines), but she reassured me that it is totally fine and actually it is good to get coaching on auditions of any size. That made me feel so much better. I didn’t want to feel like I needed the help, but that I was using the help to improve what I can already do. And that was the sense that I was getting from Marci when I was meeting with her.

We started out with doing the scene simply and built it up from there. I had made a strong character choice but as we worked on it we realized that it wasn’t the right choice. Those are the sort of things you can only find out if you are working with a coach or someone else. You don’t get the same reactions if you are working on your own because you need someone to bounce things off of. We also practiced in what is closer to an audition setting with me walking in so I could get the flow of things down.

I had walked into the coaching session feeling like I had made a strong character choice but wasn’t feeling too certain about things. After working on the script with Marci for less than an hour, I felt super confident about how I was interpreting things and that I could feel that way in the audition room too. It’s amazing how powerful audition coaching can be and how it really does change how I felt before going into the audition.

I really think that I need to do coaching for my auditions from now on no matter how big or small the part is. Getting to work on the script is good, but just spending some time working is even better. The time I was working with Marci felt like being in class (it pretty much is like a private acting class) and it did make me happy getting to do that. It’s not free to get coaching, but it’s not outrageously expensive either. And if this is what I do as an acting class type thing, it’s cheaper for audition coaching than an ongoing class. I would like to be in class again one day, but right now the timing isn’t right.

But besides how getting audition coaching makes me feel, it’s also a sign of looking at my auditions more seriously. I take my career seriously, but if I’m being honest with myself I probably could have been taking it more seriously before. I don’t think that getting coaching before auditions I’ve had in the past would have necessarily changed anything, but I’ll never know. But from now on, I’m going to take each audition as seriously as I would for a series regular during pilot season and hopefully I can do coaching before as many of them as possible.

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Comments Off on Audition Prep (or Taking My Career Seriously)

Posted in Acting, Fun Stuff

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Lots Of TV (or What Season Is It?)

Posted on October 9, 2015 | 1 comment

You may have noticed that I haven’t written a post about the fall TV season yet. I usually post something about how I do my research or how I feel about the new TV shows (or their trailers).

I’m actually pretty behind on my fall TV viewing this year. I haven’t had as much time as I have had in the past. It’s a combination of having my workouts in the evenings, different events around town, and the SAG-AFTRA Convention. I’ve got about 10 new TV shows on my DVR that I haven’t had a chance to check out. But I’m not as stressed as I’ve been in the past because I upgraded my DVR with my cable company so I can record 6 shows at once instead of just 2 (I rarely record more than 2, but it’s nice to have it when I need it).

I’m hoping that I’ll be catching up on my research in the next few weeks or so. But while my focus was on the fall TV season, it’s now on pilot season.

Pilot season is typically after the new year and into April or so. That’s when the networks decide what shows they want to consider for the new TV season. I’ve heard for years that pilot season is disappearing because of cable and new shows coming on TV all throughout the year. But in the past, my pilot auditions have always fit into the classic pilot season timeline.

Until this week.

While I was at Disneyland, I got a text from my agents that I had an audition for a series regular on a new pilot this week. I was a bit shocked to get a pilot audition in October, but I’m down for whatever!

As I mentioned in my Disneyland post, we left pretty early. So as soon as I got home I printed out my audition sides and got to highlighting.

Pilot Script

Since this is a very big deal audition, I wanted to take it as seriously as I could. And since I had a couple of days before the audition, I had time to get coached for it. I checked with Marci Liroff first since I have worked with her in class in the past, but she’s busy casting a new project. She gave me a referral, but I also heard back from Peggy Lane O’Rourke, who I met through the SAG-AFTRA election (she was on the other side and technically my “enemy”).

Peggy and I really connected while we were campaigning for the election and again at the convention, so I decided to drive out to her for coaching. And of course, we did 1 hour of coaching and 3 hours of goofing off and chatting. But that’s totally fine with me because she got to know me better as an actor and I think she understood my abilities better.

Audition Coaching

I think the coaching session went really well. I had some points in the script where I knew the choice I was making wasn’t right, but I didn’t know what I wanted to do either. She helped me discover and develop what I wanted to do.

And when I was in the room, I think I did a great job! One of my biggest issues in the audition room is talking too fast, but I actually got a note after my first read that I had too much air in the reading and she wanted me to speed up! That’s a first for me!

This pilot isn’t supposed to shoot until January, so even if I do get a callback I might not hear anything for a while. But no matter what, I know that I did the best that I could in the room and I have no regrets of any of my acting choices (and because I could hear through the door, I know my choices were very different from the other girls auditioning before me).

Now that my preview of pilot season is done, I can get back to focusing on the fall TV season and seeing what shows I want to target and what shows I can see myself fitting into.

Hopefully in the not-so-distant future, I will be on one of those shows. And it doesn’t matter to me if it’s a series regular or a 1 line part. I’m making strides to making my dreams come true and that’s all that counts to me.

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Seeing Signs (or How A Smurf Put Me In A Good Mood)

Posted on June 14, 2013 | 1 comment

This week hasn’t been the best week for me. I’ve been in a bit of a funk. My eating hasn’t been that great. And I haven’t worked out in a while. Part of the lack of working out was the fact that I didn’t have a sports bra for a while, but I’ve had a new one for 2 days and I still haven’t done anything.

As much as I want to get out of the funk, something is holding me back. I don’t know what. I do have a 5K this weekend, and I will do that no matter what, so hopefully that will turn my attitude around.

But this week, I had an encounter that made me smile. First, a little back story.

I studied with my acting coach, Kip King, from 2002 until he died in 2010. I had a very special bond with him (our birthdays are 2 days apart so he called me his birthday buddy). He knew how to push me but not go too far. One of Kip’s big acting jobs was being Tailor Smurf on “The Smurfs”. So when Kip was sick and in the hospital, I brought him Smurf things I found at various stores, like a Smurf Christmas ornament.

Ok, back to the regular story. I was in Babies R Us the other day getting a gift for a baby shower that I’m going to this weekend. I was walking around the aisles looking for the perfect gift when in the middle of a diaper aisle I saw this.

IMG_1938

It was a set of Smurf toys that said Happy Smurfday! on them. Technically, none of these Smurfs are Tailor Smurf (who has a needle through his hat), but it still felt like a sign to me. Why would there be a bunch of birthday Smurfs in the middle of the diaper aisle (and yes, I know the reasonable explanation is that a kid put them there)?

I saw those toys and I smiled. I thought about Kip and how much he believed in me no matter what. He saw me lose and gain weight all the time and loved me no matter what. He said that he knew that I would make it as an actress as long as I was patient enough to wait my turn.

Maybe I need to have that same mentality to my weight. I’m not going to sit around and not do anything, but I’m not going to let myself get this upset and in these slumps again like this. Right now might not be my turn to lose weight, but if I keep working at it like I do with my acting, eventually it will be my turn and things will fall into place. If I’m willing to work hard and be patient with my acting career (which I’m more than happy to do), why am I not allowing myself to have that same mentality to everything else in my life?

So thank you to Kip (or the kid that stuck those toys there) for helping me to see things a little differently when I was in a low spot.

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Posted in Acting, Fitness, Health, Tough Stuff, Weight Loss

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Finding Soul Mates (or Why I’m Having A Tough Time Finding An Improv Class)

Posted on November 15, 2012 | 1 comment

I know that some people don’t believe in soul mates. I do. But I don’t believe that you just have one soulmate that you are supposed to marry and live happily ever after with. I feel like you have soul mate for all different parts of your life.

I know that I have friend soul mates. I have a friend that I’ve known for 20 years. She and I have stuck it out throughout the years, and I know that she will always be there for me. I have another friend soul mate who I think of as my nerdy friend soul mate. They just get all the weird stuff about me.

I have soul mates in acting too. I truly believe that the agents that I am with now are my agent soul mates. They get me, care about me, and work so hard to get me amazing auditions.

There is one acting related soul mate who has passed away and I’m still not totally over it. My acting coach soul mate, Kip King. I studied with Kip for about 8 years until he passed away in 2010. He was such an amazing teacher. I felt like all of my performances got so much better under his guidance.

Kip was a founding member of The Groundlings so his classes were very improv based. And since he passed away, I really couldn’t see myself going to another improv class.

Why am I thinking about this now? Last night, I went to a show at The Groundlings. Kip’s funeral was held there (the day of his funeral happened to be my birthday). This was only the second time I’ve gone back to the theater since the funeral, and I can’t sit where I sat then. It’s too hard. But the show was absolutely amazing (thanks Amir for the tickets). And it made me miss improv so much.

I don’t know if I could take classes at The Groundlings. At Kip’s funeral, they dedicated a classroom there to him. I think taking classes in the Kip King Classroom would be far too difficult for me. But I am finally starting to think more seriously about going back to improv. I know that Kip would want me to. Right now with my day job schedule, it’s a bit tough to add in another class, so I’m looking at taking some classes when the season ends for work. Hopefully then I’ll have made a decision on where to go.

And just because, here’s one of my favorite pictures with Kip. This photo was taken at Kip’s birthday in class.

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