Audition Preparation

The equivalent of a job interview, the audition is the most nerve-wracking but important event an actor does. And an actor does it many, many times. Submitting headshots and resumes, getting the perfect cut of music, and dressign to impress. It's a never ending, always repeating cycle that we only get better at with age and experience. It seems like audition preparation has presently consumed my life. I'm preparing for three major auditions: Spring Awakening in NYC and auditions for next season's productions of Urinetown and The Physicists here at UMD. So over the past month I've selected, cut and prepared two music audition pieces and one contemporary monologue. I've also been working with Karalee Dawn here at Maryland to best prepare me for my Spring Awakening call. Karalee has immense knowledge on the business, having worked for agencies such as Richard Frankel Productions and William Morris Agency for numerous years before coming back for her graduates degree. She has even produced a play on Broadway starring Kevin Bacon. So, naturally, when she offered to help me prepare and train me in what to expect this Sunday, I jumped on it. She also said that I could list her as my manager, which I'm thankfully doing! But wish me luck! I've heard this call will be a madhouse. It's a very rare thing for a Broadway show to do an open call like this anymore. But Spring Awakening is a rare show. And that's why I'm excited about auditioning for it!

The 288 project, Can Can, which I'm directing, is well underway. We go into tech next week for it and I anticipate a beautiful performance. Everyone has worked so hard on it and I've come to understand a lot about the collaborative process. I'm directing the piece with Zachary Fernebok. I've also come to understand the importance of having designers adhere to the directors' concept. But in the end it will be a job well done on everyone's part. Tomorrow I'll print off a transposed copy of my sheet music, my resumes and get a couple more copies of my headshot made. Then I'll attend Maryland Day on campus. Yay free food and the best ice cream EVER!

National Treasure 2: The Book of Secrets

So this past Saturday I did my first job as an extra in a major motion picture. Through Carlyn Davis Casting, here in D.C., I was signed on for background work for Disney's National Treasure 2: The Book of Secrets. It's a sequel to the original and will star the same people: Nicholas Cage, Justin Bartha, John Voight, etc. So I thought I would use this post to tell of my adventure and my thoughts on what happened.

It started off at 3:30 a.m. when I woke up to get ready to head to the set, the UMD mall. I had a 5:30 a.m. call, and since no shuttle runs that early, I had to walk the 45 minute walk from my apartment to campus. So by 4:30 I was readied and out the door. It was snowing and I began to worry about the possibility of shooting this massive outdoor scene, but trekked on in my coat and scarf down the now abandoned road. When I arrived at the NT2 Basecamp, I was loaded onto a van which took me to holding. Basecamp was in lot AA and holding was in the Alumni Center. It made me laugh that they rented vans to take us the length of ten feet, but they did. Once at holding, I got my union vouched and proceeded to the tables and chairs to await my call. I had breakfast, which was unexpectedly catered to us. Nothing amazing, but free food at 6 a.m. is very nice. Hot coffee to rid the cold outside. I met with a couple of other friends that I knew who were doing the shoot too: Michelle Kaplan and Stacey Musselman. We ended up hanging out all day. The powers that be decided to postpone the outdoor shoot until later that day, allowing time for the accumulated snow to melt. Meanwhile, they filmed another scene in McKeldin Library, an interior White House scene where they have to frantically reschedule a presidential party. My friend Stacey was pulled in to be a standby since the standby's weren't there so early. Team 2, they're called. They fill in for the stars first for camera placement and cinemaphotography stuff. So Stacey got a nice pay raise and some schmoozing time by doing this. Such a sweet girl. I'm glad it happened to her.
While this was happening, we were still hanging out in holding, waiting for the snow to melt. By 11 a.m. they broke for lunch, so we all got to eat nice, free food again! Getting paid for eating two meals, pretty amazing. But by 1 p.m. we were ready to go and were loaded onto large charter buses to be taken to the shoot location, which was only a 5 minute walk. Once there we were escorted onto set where the crew had already set up all the cameras and everything. They had caution taped-off the area in front of Holzapfel Hall where the four main characters were to exit. I got placed on a bench right in the camera's path with Stacey, so if the scene doesn't get cut, I should be on screen. We spent the first few minutes with Team 2 (the stand-ins) marking Team 1's movements. Then the main actors began to emerge and assumed their respective stand-in's places. Wardrobe was called in for final adjustments, where I was told to sit on my jacket since it's a spring scene and I'm predominately seen. It was freezing! And the cold weather made the work difficult. Acting is hard work! Stressful and cold, haha. As soon as cut was called I was immediately back in my jacket, then as soon as rolling was called I was sitting on it again. We filmed until 6:00 pm, which meant we went into overtime and got a nice pay increase! Six hours of filming. In freezing cold weather. Being very quiet and mouthing words without sound. Background! It's not glamorous, but I met some really cool people and got a very interesting view of the industry. Nicholas Cage started out the shoot by calling the director an "arrogant a-hole." John Voight was a very sweet old man who tended to wander a lot, but I think that was mainly character preparation. It was so interesting to see these people work and become part of their world. To be on the other side of the public. As the students gathered on the outside of the caution tape to get a glance at Nicholas Cage, I was on the inside working as he acted right in front of me.

So my overall experience was good. I enjoyed it at least. It's not for everyone. ACTING IS WORK, IT IS HARD WORK. We don't do this cause it's easy, we have a passion for it, and the money is relatively good. I got paid for relatively easy work (may even get paid for a meal penalty), got fed twice, and will be in a Nicholas Cage movie. My Hollywood moment wasn't glamorous, but I liked it and want to do it more. I've renewed my contract with Carlyn Davis Casting for another year and hope to do more extra work this summer, maybe even become union. We'll see!

Good Times with the Grand Guignol

Last night we opened out production of The Lab: An Experiment in Grand Guignol here at the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center. The audience reaction was great, they bought into the psychological aspects and reacted just as they should. Such a reward for all the hard work that has been put into this show! It is not easy to produce as show in three and a half weeks, but Lindsay Snyder and Kris Messer have done it, successfully. We have such a great team working on this show, a great cast, great crew, great designers. How could Lindsay and Kris have gone wrong, anyway? They're such smart, artistically talented people. And I'm very thankful for this opportunity to explore such an obscure artform, one that is seldom done anymore. Grand Guignol is such a melodramatic, overly-exaggerated way of theatre. It definitely goes for shock value, using realistic scenes of violence which result in puddles of blood all over the stage every show. Why would people like to see this onstage? I don't really know. It has been said that people enjoy watching this artform to live out their secret fantasies/nightmares vicariously. They can see onstage the unspeakable, bloody horrors they'd never imagine in real life. This can be backed up by the actual existence of the Grand Guignol Theatre itself, which began its decline after the atrocities of WW2 were witnessed by Europe. Nobody had need to retreat to the theatre to see these things, they were now part of real life. But at any rate, the reason for our audiences at the collegiate level is moreso because of the technicalities of the show. People are curious about how we make it real, and marvel at all the blood we do manage to use within a show. We could put The Lieutenant of Inishmore to shame. I am having a lot of fun with this show, something that this particular character allows for. I am really able to get into the show each night, focusing on listening and using my body. If I could just get rid of this tension...

We had class auditions on Friday and I have an audition for Grad Student Directing scenes tomorrow, which I'm currently slapping a monologue together for. I may fall back on a stick monologue if I can't get a new one to presentation level tonight. I will be filming for National Treasure 2: the book of secrets on Saturday April 7. I'm very excited! I get paid, plus it look nice to have Jerry Bruckheimer on ones resume. Then on Sunday, April 29 I have an audition for Spring Awakening in NYC! I'm so looking forward to this! I don't expect anything from the audition, but I promised myself if an audition for the show ever came up, that I would go. So I have to go. And I'll have fun with it.