Tag Archives: acting

200 Episodes (or We Managed To Throw An Amazing Event!)

Posted on July 2, 2015 | 3 comments

This past Monday was the live recording of the 200th episode for Inside Acting. I still can’t believe it. It doesn’t feel that long ago that we did the 100th episode.

This time, we did another event at SAG Foundation. They are really awesome to work with and they are so helpful. We were able to set up at Q&A with the creative team from the show “Defiance”.

For the past month or so, I’ve been sending so many emails and texts trying to get this organized. I’m sure I panicked more than I needed to, but I’m a perfectionist with anxiety. I had to make sure that everything was going to be ok.

As soon as I got to SAG Foundation, I started to relax a little. We had a line of people waiting to get into the room for the Q&A! There were a bunch of listeners as well as several past podcast guests there to support us! While everyone took their seats I was hanging out in the green room with the panelists and hosts of the podcast. And before we knew it, it was their turn to head on to the stage!

During the live recording, I hung off to the side monitoring our twitter account to see if anyone was tweeting questions that they wanted to have Trevor and AJ ask the panel. And every so often, I glanced over to the audience and was so amazed at everyone who showed up to support us.

The recording went great and I think that the panel and the audience had an amazing time! And once we finished some technical stuff at SAG Foundation, we all headed over to the after party at The Parlor.

The after party was something that caused me a ton of anxiety. This was going to be set up without anyone from the podcast there. But we were fortunate that some great friends offered to get there early to set up and help our sponsors get their things set up as well.

And as soon as I got there, I breathed a sigh of relief. Not only was the after party exactly what I was hoping for, it beat my expectations so much! The place was packed and everyone was having an amazing time!

As soon as you walked into The Parlor, we had a photo booth/red carpet setup with photography from The Headshot Truck.

I know that before the event some people wondered about if the red carpet and photo booth setup would be cool together. And I’m happy to report that everybody loved it! There were some traditional red carpet photos taken, but there were way more fun photo booth style photos taken with the props that The Headshot Truck had brought for us to use.

I definitely enjoyed the photos. And since there was wifi at the venue, the photos were added to Facebook immediately (you can see all the photos on their page). I really feel like that having them there turned the party into an event!

We also had some amazing treats that Brandi from Sugar Swag Bakeshoppe made! We had some regular cookies that everyone was eating all night. But the coolest thing was the custom logo cookies that Brandi made for us!

I think those cookies were the most photographed thing at the party!

I spent a lot of time at the party running around making sure that everyone was having a good time. I wish I was able to relax a bit more, but that’s just not who I am. But from everything that I heard from everyone and that I read on social media, everyone had an amazing time.

I still can’t believe that we pulled this off. It really turned out better than I ever could have imagined. And because I feel like things need to continue to get bigger and better, I now have to top this for our 300th episode.

At least I’ve got about 2 years to plan it.

Seriously, I’m so incredibly lucky that I get to be a part of the Inside Acting Podcast team that has created an amazing community around it.

(we left a space in the middle because one of our team members was out of the country for the 200th episode)

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Posted in Acting, Celebrations, Fun Stuff

Tagged acting, celebration, event, Inside Acting, party, podcast

Finally Going To Staples Center (or VIP Status)

Posted on June 17, 2015 | 1 comment

I’ve lived in LA for almost 14 years now. I’ve done a lot of stuff in those 14 years of living here. But until this past weekend, I had never been inside of the Staples Center. I’ve been near it and have gone to LA Live and the Convention Center. But I’ve just never seen anything at Staples Center.

So when one of my TIU friends shared online that they had box seats for a Sparks game, I jumped at the chance to go! My friend had gotten the seats through her job, she’s an assistant at CAA (for those of you not familiar with CAA, they are an agency that reps a lot of actors, musicians, and athletes). So I knew that the seats would be pretty awesome!

I took the light rail to Staples and my friend met me near by so we could drive in together (we didn’t want to not be able to find each other). We got there early since we were told that the doors opened 90 minutes prior to the game and lined up outside.

We kind of got the run-around by several employees of Staples Center. We switched where we had lined up 4 different times. And then we were told to finally go back to where we started, but we weren’t allowed in. They ended up opening the doors a little less than an hour prior to the start time and we headed up to the A-Level Suites.

There, we met Cruz, who honestly was the best employee at Staples Center! She gave us a little tour of the suite level and some of the different places we could hang out (sadly, many of them were closed since the game wasn’t that crowded). Then she led us to the suite we’d be sitting in. And I was shocked by how amazing our view was.

We were pretty much dead center with a perfect view of the court! And we had the option to sit in regular style seats, at the bar seating, or a couple of different couches (there was a tv near the couches so you could still watch the game).

My friend and I were the only ones in the suite at that point and we knew it wouldn’t be catered, so we went in search of lunch. We ended up going back down to the main entrance where there was a CPK. We got a pizza and salad to split and went back up to the suite.

Eventually, a few other people joined us in the suite, but in total there were only 8 of us and I think the suite is meant for about 20.

Besides being my first time at Staples Center, this was my first professional basketball game ever! I have been to multiple college basketball games but never a professional one before. So I was pretty excited to watch the game. I’m still not 100% sure on all the different penalties, but I still enjoyed it.

Plus, we got some pretty awesome hats as a giveaway for attending the game. We had to search for the hats because they didn’t give them out at the VIP entrance, so we went to the main entrance and found some hats for us.

I think we looked pretty good in the hats.

In the end, the LA Sparks lost, but they played a good game and were winning until the last few minutes.

I had such an amazing time at the game. It was so nice being in the suite and having space without feeling like I was in the middle of the crowd. We were able to stand up and walk around if we wanted to and not worry about getting around other seats or blocking other’s views. I joked to my friend that by getting to sit there really did ruin me for any other events that I might go to in the future.

I’m so glad that I was able to go to this game with a friend, plus I got to know my new friend better. We had a really nice chat about the entertainment industry and her job at CAA.

This has motivated me to start making a list of other LA things that I haven’t done yet. I don’t know how many things I haven’t done yet, but I’m going to start looking around at lists of things to do in LA and see what I’ve missed that I really want to do (I think I’ll skip those bus tours of celebrity houses).

Maybe I’ll be able to create a nice LA bucket list that I can start checking things off of!

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Posted in Fun Stuff

Tagged acting, Los Angeles, sports

Another Evening Of Mentoring (or Having Faith In My Agents)

Posted on June 16, 2015 | Comments Off

Last week was another meeting of my WIF mentoring circle with our mentors. I’m really enjoying seeing almost everyone every month (and my mentors every other month) and I really do feel like as a group we have really bonded.

At this meeting, we updated our mentors on what we had gotten accomplished since our last meeting with them. I had known a bit of what my fellow mentees had done since we had our potluck last month, but everyone had some really great updates.

Some people had booked some amazing work in their fields since even our meeting last month. I love to hear that they are all doing so well and that they are moving forward in their careers. Sometimes I feel like I am so far behind in my career compared to all of them, but it does inspire me to see what is possible.

For my update, first of all my mentors asked me to log all of my auditions between our last meeting and this meeting (so 2 months worth). I had 4 auditions, and I was pretty happy about that. My mentors seemed a little surprised by how few auditions I had, but they also understood that the industry is a bit slow right now. But they still questioned why so few auditions when the other actress in the group had about 10 times the number of auditions as me. But you really can’t compare us since we are totally different types and she is non-union while I am union.

My mentors did ask me about how I feel about my agents. Honestly, I love my agents. They have worked so hard for me and truly believe in me. But I think that since I know them so well it might be tough for others to understand why I believe in them so much. It probably seems like blind faith.

But not all agents would have worked as so hard for me as they have. They have stuck with me through lots of weight changes (and some hair changes). Not all agents would have dealt with that. I bet that most agents would have dropped me for gaining weight.

But my agents believe that I can book work at whatever weight I happen to be. And they know that it’s just a matter of time before I book something great. And they know I work really hard all the time. When I’m not auditioning, I work hard at building my reputation in this industry as a good, reliable, and knowledgable actor. And hopefully with that reputation casting directors and other industry people will remember that and bring me in for parts that are right for me. And many of my auditions are at casting offices that I’ve auditioned at before. So it’s not that I’m not a good actor, it’s that the part I auditioned for wasn’t right. And hopefully those offices will keep bringing me in until the part is right for me.

I know that it’s tough to understand sometimes why I’m being so patient about lack of auditions. Or why I trust my agents so much when I don’t have dozens of auditions each month. I guess it’s because I have faith in myself and my career. I know that when it’s my time to shine, I’m going to be totally ready and prepared for it. And all I have to do is keep getting prepared and be patient because eventually it will be my time.

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Posted in Acting, Fun Stuff

Tagged acting, audition, mentoring, Women in Film

Celebrating 200 Episodes Of The Podcast (or Come and Celebrate With Me!)

Posted on June 12, 2015 | 2 comments

Remember a while ago how I shared that the podcast I work for was celebrating 100 episodes? Well, enough time has passed now that we are now getting ready to celebrate our 200th episode!

200 episodes of a podcast is a rarity. I hate when I find a podcast that I love and they quit after a few dozen episodes. It isn’t easy to have a podcast go up regularly (we post one once a week), so it’s something to be proud of when we hit major milestones like this!

We’ve got a 2 part celebration for our 200th and you can celebrate with us even if you aren’t in LA! Both parts of the event will be coming up on June 29th (a Monday), so mark your calendars now!

First, we will be doing a live recording at SAG Foundation. We will be doing a Q&A with the team behind the tv show “Defiance”! While this event is being done at the union, it is open to both union and non-union guests. But RSVPs are required and seating is limited. So if you’d like to join us for the first part of our 200th episode celebration, go to this link and reserve your spot. But if you’d like to watch our live recording and you aren’t in LA, that’s ok! We will be live-streaming the event through SAG Foundation’s live-stream. To join us for that, you can come to this link on the 29th at 7pm.

After what I’m sure will be an awesome recording, we will be moving from SAG Foundation to The Parlor on Melrose to have a great after party! We will be partnering with the LA Actors Tweetup for the after party and will be having a photo booth by The Headshot Truck and sweet treats by Sugar Swag Bakeshoppe.

You can see the event invite on Facebook as well. Only the recording requires RSVPs. The after party is open to all and no RSVP is needed (although you can say you are attending on Facebook so we can be excited to see you!).

This is going to be such a fun evening. I know that the live-recording will be great because we have amazing guests for it. And I think everyone can agree that an after party that has a photo booth and treats is a win!

I’m so excited to be able to celebrate the podcast’s accomplishments. Even though I am a part of the team, I’m really celebrating our two hosts Trevor and AJ. They did this podcast for a long time without ever having any help. I was the first team member added and while I helped to coordinate interviews, they still had to do so much of the work on their own. Now we have a slightly bigger team, but this is all done with the leadership of the hosts. They are the captains of the ship and we should all celebrate them for creating (and maintaining) not only an amazing podcast but the wonderful community that they have created around it.

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Posted in Acting, Celebrations, Fun Stuff

Tagged acting, event, Inside Acting, party, podcast

Upgrading My Self-Tape Set Up (or 2 Auditions In 30 Minutes)

Posted on June 10, 2015 | Comments Off

I’ve done self-taping in the past, but I’ve always kind of figured out last-minute how to set things up at my house. I’ve used a towel or blanket as my backdrop and just had a friend come and run the camera for me. Most of the time, casting directors understand that when you self-tape, it’s not going to look as nice as when you go into a casting office so it’s ok if it’s not perfect.

But this week I had 2 different self-tape auditions that I needed to do so I decided that this was the time to take things a bit more seriously.

First step was getting a nice backdrop for my auditions. I knew that I wanted a blue backdrop (it’s a nice flattering color) and I figured getting a king sized sheet would be the easiest way to do it. So I headed to Bed Bath & Beyond (with a 20% off coupon) and went hunting for the cheapest blue sheet I could find.

I’ll admit that it wasn’t as easy as I thought to find just a flat sheet and not a sheet set. I looked at curtains as well, but those were pretty pricey and weren’t that wide. But I ended up finding the perfect king flat sheet and got that (and saved my receipt since this is a tax write-off).

My two auditions were pretty different. One was for a web series and had 4 different scenes each with a line or two. I submitted for that role through Actors Access (an online casting service) and instead of getting an audition request they sent me a self-tape request.

The second audition was for the ABC Diversity Showcase. This was similar to the NBC Showcase I self-taped for last year. This time, they had a couple of different scene options online and we could do whatever scene we felt best represented us.

I put a request online to my friends to see who would be able to help me self-tape, and my friend (and fellow mentee) Melissa was happy to help. She had just done her audition for the ABC Showcase as well and had a nice camera that we could use.

I ended up wearing the same outfit for both auditions (I didn’t plan on that but it ended up working out that way) and I think my outfit looked great against my new backdrop.

Melissa helped me with the web series audition first. We did 2 different takes and I was very happy with the second one.

The ABC Diversity Showcase audition took a few more takes. First, we did the introduction part of the audition. I had to say my first name, hometown, and answer one of the questions they posted on the website (I answered what superpower I’d like to have).

Then we moved on to the audition. As much as I tried to be memorized, having 2 totally different auditions in the same day threw me a bit. I wasn’t totally memorized, but I was pretty close. The audition was about 4 pages long and we went through it quite a few times. Many times, I didn’t get through the entire scene before I decided to stop. I think we only made it through the entire scene twice before I felt good about it.

We managed to knock out 2 auditions in just under 30 minutes. My brain was working overtime and as soon as we finished I relaxed and was able to think about what I just did. I was still feeling happy about my auditions so we decided that we were done.

Melissa took the memory card home with her and she emailed me the edited auditions pretty soon after we finished recording. And I was able to email both of my auditions to the respective casting directors that evening.

I’m pretty happy with the new backdrop I bought for self-taping auditions. It will be much nicer to use than a towel or blanket. And hopefully I’ll have more self-tape auditions in the future. They are becoming more common since you could even use your phone to record an audition. I will still use my regular camera or have a friend use their nicer camera for any auditions I have to do on my own. It’s nicer than an iPhone and I’d rather try to have things look as nice as possible without going crazy.

But having things more ready for self-taping (and having friends who are willing and able to help) are great steps toward being prepared for having more and more auditions come my way!

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Posted in Acting, Fun Stuff, Shopping

Tagged acting, audition, prepared, self-tape, Women in Film

Productive One Way And Slacking In Another (or Working On Finding Time)

Posted on May 28, 2015 | Comments Off

Ok, I might have been over-scheduling myself lately.

Only a few weeks ago I was trying to find ways to fill time in my life. I only had one main day job and I was hoping to find something to do while doing my job to keep me busy between customers. And I wasn’t doing as much as I wanted toward my acting career.

Then I got a new day job and found a wonderful online acting class. And sadly, I think I took too much on at one time.

Obviously, the priorities in my life are work and my health. So I need to make sure I work all the hours I need to each day. That’s pretty easy for my box office job since I’ve been doing that for almost a year now and they are set hours (although occasionally I work early hours to make up for hours I might miss due to auditions or other conflicts).

The new day job is much more fluid in terms of when I work. I’m supposed to mainly work during standard business hours, but that’s not necessary because much of the work I’m researching is online. And I’m getting ok with working both jobs at once. It’s not easy, but I’m finding ways to work between 3-4 hours each day during a 5 hour shift at my day job.

And I think it’s pretty obvious by my weekly workout posts that I’m not having trouble fitting in my 3-4 workouts each week. I schedule them up to a month in advance and having them on my calendar (and having friends in my class who I look forward to seeing each time) has helped make workouts a habit and not a chore.

But with all that productivity, my online acting class has slipped. As I’m typing this post, I’ve only completed the first class. That’s exactly what I had done last week when I blogged about it. My plan was to try to watch a class each night. But on nights that I work out, by the time I’m home and showered all I want to do is read or watch tv for a bit before bed. And on days I’m not working out, I’ve been scheduling lots of things to do.

I know that I need to schedule this class the way I schedule work and my workouts. I need to find a good time a few times a week that I can set aside about an hour to watch the class and work on the homework.

The problem is finding consistent time available. Maybe I’m putting a lot of pressure on myself because I want to keep up with everyone who started the same time I did. Dustin Hoffman will be doing office hours and critiques of online scene reads soon and if I was on schedule with the class I would have those ready for the due date. But where I am right now, I’m not. And I don’t want to rush doing them because hopefully there will be another office hours/critique time in the future and I’ll have more time to prepare and make sure that I submit the best video I can.

Adding so much to my schedule at one time is very overwhelming for me. It’s not the amount of hours it requires, it’s just changing my schedule so much at one time when it’s been like the way it was for almost a year. It’s almost like when I was on temporary unemployment at my old box office job. It took a week or two to adjust to the change in schedule.

For now, I’m hoping to find time once or twice a week to work on the online class. If I don’t do that, I’m not going to be so tough on myself. Yes, it would be best if I could do the class sooner rather than later. But if I do it this month or next month won’t make or break my career. And hopefully within a week or so the 2 day job life will feel like normal and I’ll find that hour or so each day where I can focus on the class.

I have to just keep reminding myself that this class (like life, fitness, my weight loss journey, and recovery from my eating disorder) is a marathon and not a sprint. Eventually I will complete it and I will be proud of myself for sticking with it and following through.

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Posted in Acting, Fun Stuff, Tough Stuff, Work

Tagged acting, busy, job, scheduling, work

MasterClass (or Another Online Community)

Posted on May 22, 2015 | Comments Off

I mentioned yesterday how my mentoring circle is really pushing me to better myself in my acting career. Now that I finally have a second day job with regular hours, I’m finally able to save up for acting classes.

I’ve been wanting to take improv classes for a while and each level of classes at the school I want to go to is $400. I’ve been saving up and had about $100 saved, but then another great opportunity came my way.

A friend of mine told me about a new online class called MasterClass. And one of the classes taught online is a course on acting taught by Dustin Hoffman.

The idea of MasterClass is that it is a video class taught by professionals in that particular industry. Besides the videos there are homework assignments, workbooks, and online communities to help you in the class.

I checked it out a bit and read some reviews from people who already started (nobody has completed the class yet since it only went live last week) and decided that this would be something worthwhile to spend my money on. The classes cost $90 for the entire thing and you will have lifetime access to it. So I can go through each video as many times as I would like to. There are 24 videos and it’s designed to be a 6 week course.

As soon as I purchased it, I downloaded and printed my workbook and watched the first video.

I’ll admit that I’ve only gotten through the first video, but I’m already loving it! The first video was more of an introduction type of video and the next few are watching Dustin Hoffman instructing 2 actors in a class setting. And after that are classes on script work.

But I have gone through the workbook and have looked at the homework and other assignments. Some of the assignments are watching movies and taking notes and some are working on scripts with friends or other MasterClass participants over Skype.

You can comment below any of the video classes and interact with other students and there is also a Facebook community for those taking the class. While I haven’t gotten to the part of the class where I need to work with other students, I love that the community is there and that the work can be done either in person or Skype.

Right now, I have a few friends who are also doing the MasterClass program, but we aren’t doing things at the same pace. I’d love to do the 4 classes a week like it’s laid out to be, but I’m not sure if that’s possible. But I’m going to go through them at my own pace and when I complete it I complete it.

While this did deplete my savings for the improv class that I want to take, it went to something that I feel is worthwhile and can almost hold me over until I have the money saved for the improv class. With having 2 regular jobs now (and hopefully getting some occasional babysitting work), I’m hoping to have the $400 saved before my birthday. And if not, I will be using birthday money to pay for the class.

I like that I have a plan and a new class in my life. It really makes me feel like I’m taking steps to better my acting career and not just waiting around for things to happen. Even though I wasn’t waiting around, now it feels like there is action and progress being made. And that alone is motivating me to do more and more.

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Posted in Acting, Fun Stuff

Tagged acting, class, community, Skype

Another Evening Of Mentees (or Advice and Socializing)

Posted on May 21, 2015 | 3 comments

My second mentee only meeting with my Women in Film mentoring group was this past week. I offered to host again because it’s pretty convenient for me to have the meetings in my house. Plus it seems to be centrally located for the rest of the group.

Only about half of our group was able to make it, but I was still excited to catch up with those who were going to be there. I took the opportunity to use my new serving dishes I got from my grandparents and they were perfect!

Since the group was smaller this time than in the past, we only spent about an hour catching up on the goals that we have gotten done and what our goals for our next meeting will be. It still inspires me every time when I hear what everyone else is doing with their careers. I’m so lucky that I was matched with this group who are all very motivated and are dedicated to getting as much out of this mentoring group as possible. This is exactly what I was hoping to get out of doing a second mentoring circle.

I hate that I feel like I’m trash talking my old mentoring group. I’m not. But with that group our mentors weren’t as tough on us about attending meetings and they never told us to meet on our own between the meetings with them. And the other women in the group were mostly absent from the meetings. I really only got to know 2 of the other women because they were the ones who showed up for the meetings.

After our hour of catching up, we ate some dessert and started to me less formal and more social as a group. It’s not that we haven’t been social in the past, but this time we really relaxed and started to share fun and silly stories. I got to know the ladies much better and I feel that we got to bond a bit more as a group. I’m hoping that if we try to stay to time limits with our personal catchup and goals discussion that at future mentee only meetings we can continue to be more social and not just about business. It was a really nice touch and I think that everyone else enjoyed that too.

We will have another meeting with our mentors next month (the date isn’t set yet), and I’m hoping to have fun news to update everyone with. Since everyone else always seems to have such great news and stories to tell everyone, I feel almost a bit competitive and want to have some awesome news of my own.

So I’m trying to work on my career much harder than I have in the past just so I can feel like I can keep up with everyone. But I think that is one of the reasons you get into a mentoring group like this. You get motivated by everyone else to better yourself and you have a great group to lean on and ask for help.

I’m working on some ideas about what will push me farther in my career, and I’ll be sharing one of those things with you all tomorrow!

3 Comments

Posted in Acting, Food, Fun Stuff

Tagged acting, dinner, goals, grandparents, mentoring, social, Women in Film

Positive Thinking And Putting It Out There Worked (or Working For Another Old Boss)

Posted on May 14, 2015 | 2 comments

I guess my slacking on job hunting wasn’t really me slacking but me waiting for the right job to come my way! Because now I have added another day job to my life and it’s exactly what I wanted to find.

I’ve been sharing on here and on various social media sites how I’ve been looking for a job and I’ve been asking for help finding something. While several friends sent me leads, none of them panned out or they were jobs that didn’t work with what I have already. I had started to get frustrated and worried that I wouldn’t find something, but I had to just keep looking and putting it out there how I’m looking for additional work.

Last week an old boss of mine got in touch with me. I had met this old boss years ago when she and I both worked out with Richard Simmons. She had a job opening back then for a company that she worked for, I interviewed and got the job. That was a credit card dispute job that I worked for over a year before going to my telesales job.

I had stayed in touch with this boss over Facebook, mainly discussing our mutual love for select reality shows. But last week she sent me a message saying that she might have a perfect job for me. And once she shared the details of the job with me, I knew it was perfect. I had interviewed over a year ago for this company for a different position but hadn’t gotten that job. But since I had done that and had worked for my boss before, I pretty much was just offered the job that day.

Basically, I’m now working as a research assistant for a social/health resource non-profit for LA County. I try to find events and services that are in the cities I’ve been assigned to and will be helping to create a calendar for the community.

It’s a little tough to explain and I’ve only been working at it for a few days. But basically it is doing research that can almost be done at any time (I do have phone calls at times that I need to make during business hours). I’m only allowed to work a certain number of hours (it averages to 12 hours a week), but the pay is much better than my other job. So even with limited hours this new job is allowing me to make almost the same amount I make at my box office job!

So far, it’s going pretty great. I’m able to get a lot of work done between customers. I need to work on balancing my time better with taking breaks, but I think that once I’m more set up in knowing what I need to do it will be better.

I can’t express how grateful I am to my old/new boss for considering me for this job. And it proves to me that it is so important to never burn any bridges. While there are some people who I’m not on good terms with at past jobs, it’s usually due to an extreme circumstance (like with one of my old bosses who called me fat and said that nobody would ever want to date me). I try to always leave any day job as positively as possible. You never know when someone who you’ve worked with in the past will be in a position to hire you again. This is the second time this year where that’s happened to me.

This new job is a contract job that technically ends in September, but there is a contact for another year after that as well. And after that second contract ends, who knows. I might not need a day job anymore at that point or there might be another day job that I can take.

But for now, I’m just so grateful that somehow things have worked out for me again. They always do and I just need to trust that it will happen at the right time.

2 Comments

Posted in Fun Stuff, Work

Tagged acting, job, money, research, work

Almost The End Of The Musical Season (or Watching An Audience Fall In Love With An Actor)

Posted on May 12, 2015 | Comments Off

I had my second to last show of the season at the Pantages this past weekend. The group that I have gone with this season has looked at the offerings next season and we’ve decided not to buy the entire season for 2015-2016. There are a couple of shows that I’d like to see, but it will be more cost-effective for me to just get the few I want instead of all 7.

I am sad that this season is wrapping up and I won’t have as many shows to see this coming season, but I’m also super grateful that I splurged and did a season this year. It was totally worth it and I’ve had a great time.

The show this past weekend was “Motown”. I knew a bit about the show and that it was going to be filled with musical numbers. So when we got to the theater, I was pretty excited.

I know that some of the reviews for this show aren’t too great. The guy who it is about wrote the musical, so it really does portray him in the best light possible (even if that might not be the truth). And there’s not a ton of plot in the story.

But the songs were worth it! There were a handful of songs that were written for the musical, but there were over 40 songs that were songs that were done by Motown Records and even I knew pretty much all of them.

The audience was singing along most of the time (and there were a couple of people who were a bit obnoxious about it but I think that they might have been drunk). The show was more of a concert feel than a musical to me.

But the most magical moment came in the second act. There’s one young actor who plays Berry Gordy, Stevie Wonder, and Michael Jackson as a kid. In the first act he played Berry Gordy and Stevie Wonder. And while he was cute and a good actor, it was nothing compared to the second act.

That’s when he played young Michael Jackson and his true talent shined. This kid (Nathaniel Cullors) was magnificent! When he started to sing as Michael Jackson, you could hear almost the entire audience gasp in wonder at the voice he had. A few moments into the song everyone was rooting for him as a performer and ready to give him a standing ovation.

After his first song, I thought that maybe that was the end of seeing young Michael Jackson, but we got to see (and hear) him again. And again, the audience ate it up.

As an audience member, it was such a fun moment to watch. But as an actor, it was truly breathtaking and special to watch an entire audience fall in love with an actor. You could feel the energy in the room and it was giving me goosebumps.

That’s a moment that as an actor you dream to have happen to you. To witness it happen for another actor was almost better.

After the show ended, we all agreed in the group that that kid really stole the show and was one of the most talented performers in the show. And the cast in general was the most talent cast vocally of any of the shows that we have seen. So many cast members played 3 or 4 incredible real people and none of them seemed to be pretending to be them, they just were them.

I highly recommend everyone going to see “Motown”. I don’t believe that it got the praise it deserved on Broadway because it is not really a traditional musical. But as an entertaining show, it was one of the best I’ve seen.

Comments Off on Almost The End Of The Musical Season (or Watching An Audience Fall In Love With An Actor)

Posted in Acting, Fun Stuff

Tagged acting, Broadway, Los Angeles, musical, Pantages Theater

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