August 6 - Semantic Proposal

I saw an article the other day (which I, admittedly, did not read) about the rise in popularity of the spelling "theatre" in the United States, as opposed to "theater." The British vs. the American, some might say. As one who grew up with the American spelling, I do feel a bit snobbish when I use the British spelling, but I think I have a proposed solution to this problem that will also make things clearer when using either spelling in written situations.

Theater, n. A venue in which pre-recorded entertainment is watched by a large audience, i.e. a movie theater.

Theatre, n. A venue in which live entertainment is watched by a large audience, i.e. an opera house or venue in which plays or musicals are performed.

Now, I put "large audience" in there to differentiate between an actual theatre and watching your friends do an improv skit at Thanksgiving dinner because let's face it, 1) that happens, and 2) your dining room is not a theatre. But this is not meant to imply that if a venue can seat 400 people and only six show up for a performance that the space is no longer a theatre (or theater). This is only meant to imply that the potential for a large audience is there and/or that the purpose for people going there is solely to watch entertainment. Or largely to watch entertainment. Some go to appease spouses and significant others in the hopes of future sexual favors with the theatrical performance being secondary to that. But I think you get the gist.

This differentiation also pays homage to the origins of both media - theatre existing long before the United States did, and movie theaters being so prevalent in the United States as Hollywood is still considered the be-all-end-all goal for many film actors even though movies of higher caliber are often produced elsewhere.

So what do you think? Theatre for live entertainment and theater for pre-recorded? Sound good?

Okay. Done.

November 15 - Opening Night

I'm not exactly sure why opening night has more buzz about it than any other performance during the run of a show except maybe closing night. Is it because this is the first time people get to see it? Our first exposure to the rhythm of the show with an audience? Even with preview audiences, opening night feels different. Or is it because we've been waiting and working so long for the final product to be revealed and now it finally is? 

I'll admit it, I make a big deal about opening night. I'm more about opening night gifts for my cast mates than closing night gifts. Not that gifts are essential, but I like thanking everyone for their hard work. But why on opening night specifically?

This question occurred to me as I wondered if it would be okay for me to wear a Doctor Who t-shirt and beaten up hoodie to opening night tonight. I remember back in the day, I used to dress up a bit. Especially in college because we had a reception for patrons of the theater after opening and we wanted to assure them they were investing in something worthwhile. But now...a lot of the people I know don't bother anymore. Should I?

Not to mention the fact that every performance is as important as every other performance. Just because I've done the show a half-dozen times already doesn't mean the audience members there tonight have seen it yet. They deserve my all at the thirtieth performance just as the first audience does. 

I dunno. No matter how much I try to talk myself out of it, there is still something magical about opening night. I'm excited to take tonight's audience on this journey with me. I'm excited to feel my cast mates' energy as they feed on the energy of the audience. I hope people laugh. I hope they enjoy the show. 

Happy opening!

November 14 - Ugh

In typical Kitty fashion, I seem to be getting sick just in time for opening night. I know why it happens, and I know why it happens with such alarming regularity. I just wish I could figure out a way to make it stop happening.

See, by the time we get to tech week, my schedule has gone kablooie and I always end up spending a week not really sleeping. Wake up, go to work, run home, (hopefully) eat dinner before going to the theatre, rehearse until 10 or 11pm (or later), go home, try to sleep, wake up, go to work... I say "try to sleep," because I am often unsuccessful. I'm usually kind of buzzed after a performance, and as one who has problems falling asleep anyway, it makes it that much harder to quiet my brain down enough to get some sleep before I have to get up and do it all again. So by opening night, after a week of not sleeping well and sometimes not eating well, my body says, "Fuck this," and fills itself up with spare phlegm in an attempt to force me to slow down and take care of myself for a day. My skin usually likes to join in the rebellion, too, and starts sprouting volcanoes on my chin. Good fun.

And it is for this reason that I did just about every show I did in college on DayQuil. My dear friend DayQuil, helping me through theatrical performances since 1998. I'd like to avoid taking something before the show tomorrow, but I think the only way to do that may be to take a sick day.

We'll see how I feel in the morning.

November 1 - Rehearsals

Do I talk about acting too much? Seriously, let me know if you're getting sick of this stuff. I just kind of figure, the mommies out there keep mommy blogs, the fashionistas keep fashion blogs, the techies keep tech blogs, and I'm an actor so a lot of my blogging is acting-related. It's what I know. They tell you to write what you know and it's what I know. I'm sorry if it gets dull or repetitive. Anyway.

Acting!

So we're at that point in the rehearsal process where scripts are down, intentions are being explored, and we're actually getting to play with each other. Find new things in the lines. Try different tactics for getting what we want in a scene. And I have to admit, this is the part of the rehearsal process that I love most. I love being able to look my scene partners in the eye when I talk to them (as appropriate). I love letting their words affect me and discovering how I react to them. I love finding things organically, like, at this moment, I need to hug my kid. I love getting to the point where we know, as a cast, that someone has something more to say and it is not that they have forgotten their lines, but that they are letting the character find the appropriate words to say at the appropriate time. It is at this point in the process that it stops being about a script and starts being about living truthfully on this stage. I love that. This is what I live for every night I show up to the theater. Connecting with people. Making the director feel stuff. Surprising my cast mates with a different tone of voice. I don't have a simile for how much fun it is because it is like nothing else in my life. It is my drug of choice. I often feel that this is my real life and the muddling through, going to work, cleaning the house and cooking food stuff is the imaginary part. On stage, I get to live fully, albeit in someone else's skin. I love it.

Last night, I made some good, honest discoveries and some strong, emotional connections with my cast mates. Almost to the point where we were thrown off our game and forgot where we were in the script. But we got back into it and...yeah. I had to hug my kid by the end of the scene.

Which also got me thinking about basic human interaction and the physical component thereof. I think we are often quick to think of touching other people as a sexual thing, but it doesn't have to be and often times, it just plain isn't. But we, as humans, need to touch and be touched. As a single woman, I find I can go for days without touching another person. Most of my physical interactions happen with my cat (who, I'm sure is tired of me snuggling him when I get home) and while I love him to bits, it feels really nice to hug my stage mom and my stage son and have them hug me back. It helps make those other moments of emotional connection that we have that much stronger, too.

So yeah. I'm feeling good about the work happening on this show so far. We still have a fair amount of ground to cover before we open. But I'm enjoying the process. Having an audience come in and enjoy the show will just be icing on the cake.

October 26 - Coming Down

No matter how many times I get to do a monologue in an audition, I always say it about six thousand more times to myself once I leave. I need to figure out a way to stop that. 

October 25 - Exercise

Much like Randall who hates people but loves gatherings, I love physical activity but I hate exercise. Lemme explain. No, there is too much, let me sum up.

Wow, conflicting movie references in the opening paragraph. Sorry about that. It's Friday and I'm eating Sour Beans, so that should tell you how the day is going.

So physical activity. Our three hour rehearsal last night was time spent with a fight choreographer, working out a rather complex "melee" with seven actors, trying to make it all look good and funny while keeping everyone safe and visible and out of harm's way. There was a lot of running around and jumping and squatting and using levels and letting out shrieks and shouting and, well, fun. It was fun. It was a blast. I love that kind of thing. And when I was in the play about the roller derby, I enjoyed the skating bits. My favorite part was getting to the theater and in gear early enough that I had the track to myself for a little while. Not to mention the years I spent as a social (and then semi-professional) lindy hopper. I love moving my body. I love figuring out what it can do. I love the physical exhaustion that comes after a night of dancing or three hours of running around a table trying to get away from my "husband," or an afternoon of fencing drills. I love it. I honestly do.

I hate, however, going to the gym. I hate running on a treadmill for a predetermined length of time or "distance." I hate putting on work-out gear and setting some goal like "I want to bench press 60lbs twenty times today." I know that is how you supposedly "get in shape" or "tone muscles" or whatever, but to me, it is boring as toast. Undercooked white toast that has neither crunch nor color. When I find I need to have something else going on to make my exercise palpable, it's no longer fun.

So the question is this: how do I continue to get exercise without exercising? How do I keep at doing different things that keep me challenged and entertained and motivated without running up and down the street at 5am? How do I keep it new and fresh and fun so I can fool myself into enjoying the workout?

I'm honestly asking. Because the only thing I can come up with is to keep taking roles in shows that have some physical challenge, some physical component, some physical task that I have to learn during the rehearsal process.

Actually, that's not a bad idea.

October 24 - Love

Run and jump and fall

Scream and shout and cry and laugh

That's why they're called "plays"

October 23

This one is going to be tough to write, so please bear with me.

The scene I did for class last night is one I've done before. I did the same scene the first time I took this class, but I played the opposite role, and it wrecked me. The basic premise is two women, roommates, best friends living in New York. One lost her parents as a child and was raised by her uncle. She is doing well, in a show, has a boyfriend. The other is currently between shows and single. The first woman had a pick-up rehearsal last night and ended up staying at her boyfriend's. The uncle used that time to rape the second woman.

Now, the first time I did this scene, I was the woman with the uncle and I had built him up in my mind to be this paragon of loving perfection, so to come into the scene and find out that he had raped my roommate...I found myself blaming her. When the scene was over, I was mortified that my brain went there without the slightest hesitation. It made me question the kind of loyalty I feel toward my family and the kind of loyalty I feel toward my girl friends. What would I do if one of my girl friends told me she had been raped? I would like to think I would be the supportive type, I would like to think I would be there to help her however I could, but after doing this scene for the first time, I had to wonder if I really would. Would I?

In the scene last night, I played the rape victim, which was a terrifying place for me to go. To imagine experiencing that. To be honest, I have had experiences that were less than mutually consensual, but they were not violent. I've even had experiences where the guy was having problems performing and I ended up feeling like an aggressor in my attempts to help him along. None of these were pleasant experiences and they all left me feeling worthless and ashamed. And for last night's class, I had to draw from all of them and add an element of violence and terror and betrayal, which was absolutely miserable. What struck me most, though, is that my scene partner last night had the same reactions I had when I played her role - she didn't believe me, she said I was making it up, she said I must have done something.

When the scene was over, the teacher called me out on my "go-to" place of wild, furious anger. She keeps seeing me go to this big, loud, angry place in my work, dismissing it as me "being dramatic." Part of me thinks it is the nature of the scenes - they are specifically designed to be so full of direct conflict that they push you as a performer to go to the deep, dark, scary places you don't really want to go. But part of me wonders if this means I am an inherently angry person. Thinking about it, I know I have a lot of anger about things in my life - bad relationships, work frustrations, stupid bicyclists not paying attention to the rules of the road. And I know that these are all things to which I could have a different reaction, but I sort of feel like I need to work through the anger first to get to a satisfactory resolution. And I haven't done that yet. So it is coming out on stage, which is the safe place for me to yell and scream in somebody's face.

I hope that I am not known as an angry person. I hope that I am not known as a mean person. I hope I am not known as the kind of girl friend who would blame her friend for getting raped instead of blaming the rapist. I know that all of my life experiences have made me the person that I am today, and I hope I am not deluding myself when I tell myself I am not a bad person.

I told one of my girl friends that the way I try to come down after a scene like this is to remember that acting is "living truthfully under imaginary circumstances," and since the circumstances are imaginary, the reactions, though they felt right in the moment, are imaginary, too, in the context of my real life. I don't know that the circumstances for this scene are imaginary enough for me. I hope I never have to experience the imaginary circumstances of the scene I did last night outside of the context of a theater.

October 21 - Ice Cream Play

I'm taking an acting class again that I have taken before. You will likely hear the actors you most respect telling you that one can never master acting and that one must always be pushing oneself to learn. I agree with this wholeheartedly, which is why I still take classes, why I will take a class more than once, and why I put as much effort into classwork as I do any other performance endeavor. That said...

I think what I'm getting from this class this time around is a sense that I still have a long way to go, and a feeling that the best theatre is the theatre that scares the crap out of you as an actor, but you do it anyway. The scenes I've done so far for this class have involved me holding a grudge for three years, cheating on my husband and getting pregnant by another man, and dealing with the loss of my husband whose funeral I missed for rather selfish reasons. These involved a lot of work, a lot of time, a lot of energy, a lot of thought beforehand, and a lot of personal emotional investment during. And each one terrified me in its own way. The scene I have to do tomorrow is also scaring the crap out of me, but I don't want to say why on the off chance one of my classmates is reading this and might get a heads-up as to what's going on. Suffice it to say, I'm having to go to some pretty dark places on a weekly basis.

I had an audition over the weekend that was frightening in another way, as there was a lot of physical movement involved, so there was a physical freedom and emotional vulnerability into which we had to tap as performers. I ended up skinning my knee as I threw myself into the challenge of it. And while I'm not sure I'm the best fit for the role, it was so much fun to throw myself into that task and it would be an amazing opportunity to get to explore that further.

I also read a play for which I will be auditioning this coming weekend that is teeming with vulnerable moments, great cover-ups, and emotional explosions. It left me feeling drained after reading it, knowing the kind of work that will have to go into the character I am auditioning for if I am lucky enough to play her. Being able to take her on the journey she goes on, to go to the places she needs to go to make the choices she makes...

And the thing is, through all of this, the thought of putting in all of that work, of exploring the human condition at its best and at its worst is what gets me most excited about working on a project. I did a short play a couple of years ago that was just gut-wrenching for both of us in the scene, and hard for the audience to watch, too, as they see these people crumble in front of them. We would finish rehearsals wanting just simply to collapse. My scene partner referred to the show as an "ice cream play," in that when it's over, you really need to go home and have a bowl of ice cream. I want every show I do to be an "ice cream play" in its own way.

This is not to say that every show has to be drama-filled or that I always want to play a murderer with a heart of gold or anything like that. The show I'm in right now is a comedy and is rather physically involved. And I'm finding that if I put the same energy into the humor and the comedic timing and the fight sequences and into trying to make my scene partners look good, I still walk away from rehearsal exhausted and in need of ice cream. And I love it. There is something so fulfilling to me about working myself to the point of complete mental and physical exhaustion and then getting up and doing it all again the next day. I guess it is how I know I am alive.

Please let me always be working. Please let me always be making art that challenges the audience and myself. Please let me always be able to find my vulnerability so I can remind the audience of theirs. Please let me always be able to give my scene partners the gift of my full attention and full effort.

Please let me always be doing ice cream plays.

October 17 - Art Odditities

We've all read stories about people who have done really extreme things for their art. Everything from gaining or losing weight for a film to the performances done by the man who is the subject of the film Sick to Daniel Day Lewis going out to live in a log cabin for four months so he could get the Abraham Lincoln thing. We've heard of people living out of their cars while they tour as musicians, selling CDs from their trunk. And I think to some extent, we've all taught ourselves that in order to be a successful artist, you have to be just a little bit crazy, or at the very least, willing to do the things that other people won't.

But there are little things we do as artists, too, that aren't as glaringly life-altering as some of the things mentioned above, but they give an authenticity to our work. For example, I find myself getting cast fairly regularly as a married woman. I am not a married woman, nor have I ever been a married woman (not really). And I'm not talking about going out and getting married so I know what it is like to be married - every relationship is different, and even within the context of each play, each marriage is different. But married women wear wedding rings. In my regular, everyday life, I do wear rings, but not on that finger. Putting a ring on that finger feels strange and foreign to me. A little over a year ago, though, I went to one of those cheap jewelry stores in a mall and found a selection of rings that could look like engagement or wedding rings so if I need one, I have one. I got a couple of different styles, too, so they could be appropriate for the different kinds of marriages I would have in these various plays.

The show I am working on now involves me wearing a wedding ring. I'm wearing one today so I can get used to the feeling of a ring on that finger. My character isn't even supposed to really notice the fact that she is wearing the ring until the fifth scene of the play, so I feel like for me, I need to not be aware of the fact that I'm wearing a ring on that finger. So I'm practicing by wearing something that looks like an engagement ring in my everyday life.

People do strange things for their art. They don't always make headlines, but in my mind, sometimes it is the tiniest differences that make the piece that much more authentic, real, and relateable.

October 12 - Single

I had a panic attack this morning. A pretty bad one. The kind where my breathing gets heavy and I feel shaky and my mind is racing and the thought of interacting with other human beings paralyzes me. But I have a lot to do this weekend, and coming up with excuses for not doing those things was also terrifying and exhausting. I feel a little bit bad for being glad that the weather called my outdoor plans into question, and then a little worse that the storm did not arrive as expected. But my audition and the party I have to go to tonight? Those we're going to be harder to get out of. I tried to convince myself that I'm not right for the show I was auditioning for, that I would be doing them a favor by respectfully canceling. But I didn't. I went. 

Theater cures all.

I have no idea if I will be cast in this show. At this point, that's not the important part. I went. I acted for a minute. I made people smile. I chatted about the representation of women in media. And I'm going over the conversation again and again in my head, wishing I had said something different. But it calmed me down. It made the world less scary. It made people less scary. It helped me breathe again and feel like a normal person. 

When people ask me why I act, I have to remember moments like these. Walking into a theater and feeling like I'm home, I'm safe, and I am valued. I am awesome in theaters. Which is exactly why I want to dedicate my life to working in them. 

Theater cures all. 

October 7 - Hamlet Update

I saw a rough cut of the first episode over the weekend.

I don't know that I'm really qualified to comment on it yet, as I spent most of the viewing noticing things like how awesome my hair looked or how visible the scars on my face are, or remembering on which day we shot which scenes and thinking about all of the stuff that happened off-camera on those days during those shoots. I saw things I wish I had done differently. I saw things that I did the way I hoped I had. And I don't know if I got teary-eyed because my performance was compelling or because I remembered the emotional state I was in saying those particular words on that particular day. I giggled a couple of times when I didn't think I was going to, or wasn't sure I was supposed to. I didn't cringe as much as I thought I might, and the cringing comes entirely from hoping my own performance is not crap, and is not intended to be a reflection on anyone else involved in the project. It was...

I want to see more. I want to watch this episode a dozen or so more times so I can watch it as a whole piece, and not a collection of parts. I want to see the other episodes so I can view the project as a whole.

I'm excited to see Hamlet: The Series finished.

October 6 - Tricks

I was talking to my fellow cast mates today about acting, and specifically memorizing lines. A lot of actors feel like the sooner they can get off book, the sooner they can start exploring their character. To some extent, I agree. I think getting off-book quickly is very important and helps free actors up to explore their characters and relationships with much more depth. I think, though, that starting to explore the character can be a very helpful tool in memorizing the lines. Because, and it may sound silly to say this, but you'd be amazed how often it is forgotten, plays are made up of conversations. 

I'll say that again: Plays are made up of conversations. 

If you think of your lines as your side of a conversation, and you know your character really well, it should be pretty easy to figure out what your character is going to say in response to what your scene partner just said. Which brings me to the second crazy-important "duh" thing that actors often forget: acting is about listening. 

Again: acting is about listening. 

So you're up on a stage, living this imaginary life under these imaginary circumstances, but you're still just talking to other people. It is your job as an actor to put a real, honest, true conversation on the stage, and real, honest, true conversations involve listening and reacting as much as they do talking. So if you know your character well enough to know how they would react, then it just becomes a matter of reacting to what your partner gives you. And they react to your reaction and before you know it, conversation happens. 

So that's my trick for learning lines. I figure out the character, figure out the thought process, and then listen to the other people on stage with me. I wish I could explain it better, but that's it. I just have to know who my character is and then the conversation (line memorization) just happens. 

October 2 - Stage Kisses

I can't remember if I have written about this before - I probably have - but I'm going to talk about stage kisses today. Woo hoo!

Incidentally, I bring up stage kisses because I have an impending one on the horizon. I was cast in a production over the weekend and without giving too much away, there is one kiss in the show.

The thing about a stage kiss is this: it is in the story for a reason, so it has to mean something, but it is between two people who often times (but not always) don't regularly kiss each other off stage. I'll let you think about that for a minute.

Now, I've done stages kisses before plenty of times. My first one was awkward and weird and I ended up splitting his lip open when our faces smashed into each other. I created one that wasn't in the script in a show that was a series of monologues that just felt right, but I'm not sure everyone in the audience got what I was going for. I kissed a teacher in class once while doing my monologue - it was a power play on my character's part and as soon as the monologue was over, I sat down shaking, my face beet red with embarrassment. So I'm no stranger to the stage kiss. I've had all sorts. And the fun comes in trying to figure out what sort they are supposed to be and how to go about telling that story to this audience with this scene partner who I didn't know existed until a week ago.

During our first read-through last night, I was sitting next to the person I am supposed to share this stage kiss with, and when we got to that point in the script, I could sort of feel both of us tense up a bit. That feeling of, "I've seen you exactly twice in my life and in just a couple of days, our lips are going to meet whether or not we would have otherwise wanted them to." Which is not to say he is not a nice person - he is. He's cute and talented. But I have no idea what his romantic situation is - is he dating someone who will get upset if our kiss looks too passionate? Has he recently ended a relationship that makes him feel like kissing nobody is the best option for him right now? And given our character circumstances, a lot of the burden for the impetus for the kiss within the show falls on him. What if he's just plain not attracted to me, either in real life or on stage? What if through the rehearsal process, I find myself less and less attracted to him? Or more and more? The stage kiss could then fall completely flat and that important element of the story will be completely missed.

It is, admittedly, a little bit scary to know that this oh-so-important kiss is coming and to not have done it yet. I'm sure once we get the first one out of the way, it will be smooth sailing from there on out. But there is the anticipation of knowing it is coming, and knowing it will happen repeatedly regardless of whether it is good or bad.

Needless to say, I'm going to make sure to eat a breath mint before every rehearsal and before every show.

September 19 - Acting Career

There are those who would argue that I don't have enough experience as a working actor to speak with any sort of authority on this subject, and there are those who might argue that I do (me). Meaning you can take the rest of this post with a grain of salt if you so choose. Though I might recommend hot chocolate instead - my blogs go much better with hot chocolate than they do with salt.

So Hamlet is over. Just about. I have a few insets and some voiceover stuff to shoot on Sunday and then I'm done with it until it is all edited and released and whatnot. Don't worry, I'll spam all of you when it is available so you can watch it. But I find myself confronted with the question that lurks in the back of every artist's mind as they finish a project, "What now?"

The artistic life is far from a stable one. This is why most of us have day jobs of one sort or another; we don't make enough money from our art to be able to pay rent and buy food and art supplies. So when one project ends, you want to try to have the next one lined up. If you don't, the panic can start to set in. Now, I know I've hinted at projects in the works and those projects are still in the works. But a funny thing about being an actor is that if you're not out acting, people forget you exist. Seriously. If you're not out going to auditions and seeing shows and constantly reminding the rest of the theater world that you are still alive and working (or trying to get work), they will forget about you. It's not a rudeness thing; it's just that these people are bombarded by actors and writers and wannabes all the time and they only have a limited number of roles to fill. If you can prove you're wanted (by being in stuff all the time), they will want you more because you are more likely to be talented, good to work with, and/or an easy way to put butts in seats. It's just how the industry works.

Or, it's how I think the industry works. Remember: I may not be an expert on this.

I have been blessed in that for about the past two and a half years (two and three-quarters years?), I haven't had to worry too much about my next project. They just kept lining up and I just kept knocking them down. Felt good. Felt great, actually, to be consistently working. And I was thinking that with Hamlet ending, I might want to take a little bit of a performance break and focus on other stuff - writing, perhaps building a YouTube show, being a normal person with friends, whatever. In the two weeks since Hamlet essentially ended, I have learned that I cannot do that. I still want to do the writing and the being a person and all of that, but I have to keep trying for acting jobs. I'm not getting any younger, you know, so I need to keep auditioning for these roles while I might have a fighting chance of getting one of them.

To that end, I have scheduled three auditions for myself within the last three days. Most of them involve having a monologue. I think you all know how I feel about monologue auditions, but if I chose to skip all monologue auditions, I'd have nothing to audition for. But it has started me on the path to finding a new monologue or two. I've been using the same couple over and over again for a while now and I'm kind of tired of them. I read a play and a half last night, and am hoping to read another play and a half tonight to try to find some new material to work with. My only hesitation is that the audition I have this Saturday is one at which I would really like to do well - I'd really like to work with this theater - but trying out new material on them may not be the best idea. Then again, using tired old material may not be the best idea, either. So we'll see. Maybe by the time my third audition rolls around in a couple of weeks, the new stuff will be the good stuff and I'll nail the audition.

So that's where that stands. I'm reading plays like a fiend looking for new material so I can get an acting job so I can do the writing and the YouTubing I want to do on the side. Such is the life of an actor, I guess.

And I wouldn't have it any other way.

September 6 - Sad

I'm sad today.

Before I go into why I am sad, let me just say that it is perfectly normal to be sad from time to time, and I have found it best to embrace the sadness as opposed to trying to avoid it. If I figure out why I am sad, I can deal with that thing and the sadness will go away as a result, as opposed to trying to just not be sad. That doesn't deal with the issue.

So anyway, today is a day to be sad for me. It has nothing to do with all of the sadness and suffering in the world, or the really difficult decisions that are being made right now concerning Syria, or anything that really impacts anyone but me. It is my own little personal bubble of sadness. The kind of bubble that goes nicely on a couch with hot chocolate, a super soft sweater, and a sad movie.

I am sad today because tomorrow is the last day of principal photography for Hamlet: The Series. In many ways, this is just the beginning of the project - it can then be edited and shared and discussed and it will be around forever. For the rest of my life, I can say I played Hamlet and I can show it to people all around the world. But for the actors in it, principal photography is the fun part. That is when we get to do what we do. All of the preparation, all of the rehearsal, all of the time spent analyzing dialogue and building characters all comes down to the actual performance, which in film, happens during principal photography. Once that part is done, we just sit back and wait for the thing to be done. We can move on to other characters and other projects, and for the last two and a half years, that is exactly what I have done to help with the mourning process as I say goodbye to all of the characters I have played, all of the amazing people I have worked with. If I keep myself busy and preoccupied with the next project, the next show, I don't have time to get too sad about this show ending.

I don't really have the next project in line yet. I have projects in the pipeline; don't get me wrong. But I don't have another character to inhabit yet. Another person to bring to life through my actions and someone else's words. And this makes me very aware of how empty I will feel when I'm no longer sharing body space with Hamlet. She first came to live with me a little over two years ago. It has been an extraordinarily long process, with ups and downs and stops and starts and frustrations and joys. We have laughed so hard on set. I have cried so many tears. I have spent so many hours with the script and my Shakespeare Lexicon books, trying to figure out who this person is and why she does the things she does and now that I finally sort of feel like maybe I have it, she's moving out. Unlikely to come live with me again. I've gotten used to her. I've grown to love her and empathize with her. And in the absence of another character coming to live with me, I just get to feel her slip away as I mourn her leaving.

I am looking forward to shooting these last bits tomorrow, because it means the project is that much closer to being done and I will be able to see the fruits of all of our efforts. But for all of the heartache and the thousand natural shocks that her flesh is heir to, I have loved this project and I am sad to see it coming to an end.

So I am sad today. I will be less sad later.

July 29 - Thoughts on Acting

It's funny; a lot of people think it's odd that I consider myself an introvert yet I am so passionate about acting. They think it an odd contradiction to be an introvert but to "crave the spotlight" that comes from performance. The other day, I think I figured it out, and I've been trying to put it into words that are understandable and make sense.

I love acting because it is not about me.

This probably flies in the face of what a lot of actors believe. I have had teachers say that every actor has to have a ginormous ego, every actor has to think they are the best in the world. I think to some extent, that is true - every actor needs to believe in himself and his abilities. But acting itself, for me, is not about me. It is about everyone but me, so it feels comfortable. Let me see if I can explain.

If acting is living truthfully under imaginary circumstances, then what I put on stage will never actually be me. It will be versions of me that are subjected to imaginary, extraordinary circumstances. And the more extraordinary the circumstances, the less actual "me" is there. It becomes an exercise of "what if I had been born to a poor family in the south in 1862 instead of to a middle class family in Chicago in 1977? How would I then react to being courted by someone of a different social standing than me?" There is an element of me in there - my logic, my thought patterns - but the situations and the words are someone else's. It's not about my life on stage, it is about theirs. My job is to bring another person to life. The side effect is that I feel like I get to live more fully because I get to experience all of these other things, through the eyes of other people, that I would not normally if I spent my entire life just being me.

To take it one step further, I believe that as an actor, my job is to make my scene partner look good. I am going to go into every scene I do trying to give my partner what he or she needs to get where he or she needs to be to make the scene work. Hopefully, he or she is doing the same for me. So that's not about me, either. And when I am not doing a scene, but rather a monologue, my job is to make the audience or viewer feel something. It is my job to take them along with me on my emotional journey. So every moment I spend on stage is spent trying to elicit a reaction from someone else. It's not about me.

And even further, and specifically as it pertains to film as opposed to theater, it is about the production design and camera angles and lighting design and music and special effects and whatnot. Film is not an actor's medium. I don't say that to be harsh or to belittle film in any way; I quite love the art of filmmaking and I love performing in films. But I know when I do so, it is not about me. The right editor can make or break an actor's performance. The film would not happen without all of the technicians there, I'm just standing in front of their scenery saying words.

So as an introvert who hates calling attention to herself, it makes perfect sense to me that I would seek out a career where I get to spend time in public (so as to not appear insane) being someone other than myself. I love myself; don't get me wrong. But if people are going to be paying that much attention to me, what better way to allow them to do so without feeling like my personal space is overly imposed upon than to put on a character and do a show?

I don't know that I'm explaining it very well. Suffice it to say that I love acting because it is not about me, and that statement makes perfect sense in my head. I love acting because it is not about me.

July 26 - Words

Hey!

Just a quick blurb. Tomorrow I am shooting two extremely dialogue-intense scenes in Hamlet, so I've spent the week cramming as many Shakespearean words into my brain as possible, which has left very little space for words of my own. I'm not complaining, mind you. I love the puzzle of figuring out what all of these words mean when said in this particular order, and what sort of mindset I would have to be in to say them in this order at this particular time. It's fascinating and fun and brilliant and I friggin' love Shakespeare.

Doing Shakespeare as a film is interesting and challenging - much different than doing Shakespeare as a theatrical production. See, in theater, you have at least a couple of weeks, sometimes a month or two to rehearse, which means you're saying the words and performing the motions every day for weeks until they are so ingrained in you that you can't screw them up. Film does not usually have the luxury of extended rehearsal periods. Often times, you show up to set with your lines memorized and figure out the blocking and props and whatnot on the day. It feels a bit more like "winging it." With Shakespeare, "winging it" is a challenge, because there are very specific words that have to happen in a very specific order and I know professional Equity actors who are thrown for a loop if they have to switch in which hand they hold a prop. So it has required a lot of patience on the part of our entire cast and crew to make these scenes happen the way they are supposed to happen. And since I haven't had weeks and months to say these lines to my scene partners, I find myself cramming for each shoot the week before. I figure at the very least if I know my lines inside and out, hopefully whatever other wrenches are thrown into the system on the day of the shoot, I can handle them. I'm not sure if this is the best way to go about things, but it's working so far. I think.

Anyway. I have a lot of lines tomorrow that I need to make sure are in my head in the right order, so I don't have very many original thoughts floating around in my brain at the moment. It's my own "brainish apprehension." Which hopefully will not inspire me to stab someone through a curtain. Anyway.

Enjoy your evening!

July 8 - Auditions

I have said for years, as have millions of other actors, that I hate auditioning. It is nerve wracking and terrifying and sometimes you don't even know why they called you in because you know in your heart of hearts that while you could rock this role, you're totally wrong for it because you're not sixty-five years old yet, nor could you look sixty-five without massive amounts of prosthetics. And I'm pretty sure I've talked about how silly monologues are, and how they serve such a tiny purpose as to make them really just an exercise in frustration because what if you chose "the wrong piece" or whatever. If any of you, my dear readers, are performers, you know of what I speak. Auditioning sucks. But it is a necessary evil, so we do it.

I want to take a quick moment to say that there are several theater companies out there for whom I have auditioned who make the audition process so much nicer. And I have been on the other side of the table, too, so I know that honestly, they are praying that every single person that walks into that room is amazeballs fantastic - they really are on your side. So when you do get the odd audition where you get to talk to the auditors just as people for a minute, or they throw some silly exercise at you that just makes you chuckle and makes them smile...I love those theater companies. Thank you to those theater companies for trying to make a necessary evil a little less evil.

I was fortunate enough to audition for one such theater company yesterday. It is a company I've wanted to work with for a while, because I know one of the founding members and she is brilliant - so talented, so dedicated - and I know they do really good work within the company. And the audition yesterday consisted of conversation, monologue, and scene work, so it felt well-rounded and like I had a lot of opportunity to show that not only am I a talented performer, but I could be a really fun person to work with and could bring a lot of good energy to this show in particular. It was much more satisfying than the in-and-out-in-two-minutes audition where you say hi, do your monologue, and leave.

That being said, I think I figured out what I hate most about auditions and that is the period of time afterward when I sit and pick apart every single little thing I said, every gesture I made, every smile or laugh (was it forced or was it genuine?) that the auditors gave me. Was it a good thing that they gave me direction and had me do it again, or was it a bad thing? I know I messed up that line, but I did it in character and in the moment, so maybe they'll let that go? Did I ramble too much, or did I sound conceited or condescending when chatting before the monologues? Was I engaged when the other people auditioning were talking? Was I polite or was I weird out in the hallway with the person checking us in? Is it okay that I complimented someone else's dress, because I meant it, but it could have sounded like I was trying too hard? Could they see how badly my hands were shaking with nerves? And then I start re-auditioning myself as I walk up the stairs to my apartment, because redoing the monologue there will certainly help me get cast. I do this for hours, sometimes for days. I pick apart every little moment of the audition trying to figure out if I nailed it or if I blew it and more often than not, I just have to admit to myself that I honestly have no idea. It is entirely possible that they loved me, but there just isn't a part for me in this show. Or they hated me as a person, but I nailed the scene work in a way that nobody else did. Or they see my potential but don't have enough rehearsal time to get me where they want me to be. I just don't know. Since I am not the auditors, I don't know what exactly they are looking for, so all I can do is do the best I can and be me and hope that that is what they are looking for for this production. (Wow, two appropriate double words in one sentence - do I get a prize for that?)

So yeah, it's my own crap. My own desire for feedback that will help me become a better performer, even though I know feedback is not something you get in an audition setting. Thank you to all of the theater companies who have sat through my auditions, and even moreso to those who have cast me in their projects despite my nerves and neuroses.

And now I just get to wait to see if I am called back. Cue the Jeopardy theme music...

May 25 - Nerves

I'm getting nervous about being Hamlet, now that we're getting closer and closer to the shoot dates. What if I do it wrong?

I think with a character like Hamlet, I have to remember that everyone has played her. Every scenario has been tried. Every variation, every nuance, every magic thing you think you found in the text, someone has found before you. And the best you can do is be the best Hamlet you can be and that's it.

I want my Hamlet to be accessible. I want her to be empathetic. I want her to have all of the feelings, even if she can't express them (or can't express them well) all of the time. I want her lunacy to be terrifying and sad. I want to make sure there is method in her madness. I want to feel each and every one of her betrayals and loves and hates and fears. And I think most of all, I want the audience to be able to feel all of those things with me. She is a beautiful character, stretched to the end of her rope, her every last nerve completely fried, forced into an impossible situation. I am honored that I will get to be her over the next coming months.

I just hope I do it right.