April 2009 Archives

The sun is out, the sky is blue, there’s not a cloud in sight to spoil the view, but its raining. Raining in my heart. Well, that’s not strictly true, there’s no rain but a big hoorah for the weather! Everything seems so much better when the sun’s out - unless you’re allergic to sunlight or a snowman of course, in which in case I can imagine it being quite unpleasant.

I’m getting into more of a fortnightly blog simply because I’m juggling quite a few things at the moment and haven’t found the time to sit down and transfer my ramblings to the web. I’ve been busy with NYT in development of a new show for Christmas which is very exciting and have recently started assistant choreographing at a rather marvellous open air theatre in an equally marvellous Royal park - as well as keeping going with auditions, which have been good and generally trying to enjoy life and not become a frighteningly dull social recluse. So far, so good.

The development project with NYT was a great insight into all the work that goes on before us mere actors get a glimpse of the script. We were fortunate to have a fantastic workshop cast who were a massive asset in bringing the story to life, confirming beautiful moments of the play and helping to solve scenes that perhaps didn’t work so well. We’re now waiting for a new draft of the script and looking to confirm the cast - I’m sure it will be a great addition to their 2009 season which will be announced very soon….! Shameless plug, apologies.

I’ve spent the last week in the beautiful surroundings of Regents Park in rehearsals for Much Ado About Nothing. I’m extremely privileged to be assisting the choreographer and so far even the mild morning after aches and sweaty vests are doing nothing to dissuade me from loving it. And this brings me, rather neatly, onto my main point: the almighty crossover!

Shortly after leaving drama school, I almost found myself on a European tour in a couple of two-hander plays and one two-hander musical. Despite undertaking only a couple of short projects since then, both paid and unpaid, I find myself relieved that in the end I was merely second choice as another girl with more experience was offered the job.

My main concern was not the toil of touring, or apprehension at working in foreign countries. It was the fact that, after initial rehearsals, I would be expected to live and work with just one person for almost a year. This would be fantastic if, by luck, we were “soul mates” and looked forward to spending our free time together. But if actors on these contracts fail to “get along”, not only are they in an unfamiliar country, perhaps in areas where many people do not speak English, but in this instance the actors would never remain in one place long enough to make other friends. Ultimately, this could turn out to be a very lonely stint.

So, what about the new budget eh? Important stuff, I just wish Mr Darling could factor in a little subsidy for me and my post graduate training fees! If only. To try and help my plight I shall be inflicting upon myself a day of queuing and pushy mothers. Yes folks, it’s the dreaded talent competition. I will not be putting myself through this to prove anything or to try and become a local celebrity; it’s all about the cash prize for the winner! I have absolutely no idea what they are looking for but I have a feeling it may be rather X-factor-esque — but without the cameras. Phew! It could be fun though, right? I shall take a book to hide behind anyway. (During the queuing- not my audition!)

The auditions are with backing tracks on CD, and I was surprised how easy it is to get hold of backing tracks now. I haven’t used them for a few years, and used to get them just through my singing teacher, but a few days ago I downloaded a few from Amazon at very little cost or effort and was able to preview them first to get the highest quality available. It has taken a bit of practice to get used to the backing track, as it is quite different to a pianist who can follow you, but nether the less it does the job!

I haven’t done a competition like this for a long time, mainly as I don’t have a lot of patience nor am I usually concerned with winning time in a record studio to do one track, but if I can do that and win a bit of extra cash- I will be very grateful indeed! Anyway, I think I am getting rather ahead of myself, because if they are looking for the next pop idol, well I won’t get very far at all!

As most of you can probably imagine, there is little to blog about my acting life when I am stuck onboard a ship dressed as a monkey for the third week running! But I do have a couple of amusing anecdotes to relate before sharing some of the moments from training which stick out in my mind.

The first of these anecdotes is perhaps not as amusing as the second. After making up hundreds of windmills to give out to the children, I was caught unawares as a grown man approached me from behind (my visibility in costume is limited to shoes and dwarfish children two feet in front of me). He managed to leap onto my back three times, strangling me in the process, before my minder was able to send him packing. There’s not much else to say about that story. He was a drunken gibbon and it hurt.

On a far lighter note, I was sent into gales of laughter during the magic show (I sit up front on “behaviour control”). I have now seen the show no less than 32 times and thought I had seen everything there was to see. But as McKnight was performing with his puppet, one 3 year-old, for reasons unknown, toddled up to the front of the audience, removed his trousers, and began to dance. Perhaps it was one of those instances where you really “had to be there”, but I can honestly say I have not produced so many tears of laughter for a very long time!

The rest of my time has been occupied with renewing my Spotlight membership, re-designing my business cards, booking in for new headshots and reminiscing over memories of drama school.

The first few weeks of training were largely occupied with playing games. One of the many points of these games was to learn to live in the moment and commit yourself to the goal. Apparently I am naturally competitive, and have many memories of my long nails flying off in every direction. Needless to say, I cut them short soon after! But one memory in particular which sticks out in my mind was during a game of “King of the Jungle”. Having reached the position of “giraffe”, I became so intent on becoming King that I failed to notice until the game was over that I had lost the ability to move my hands. I had become so involved in the game that, without realising it, my arms had seized up and my hands cramped in a painful position. It took three people to massage them back to normal again, and I’ve been somewhat wary of that game ever since! I should stress here that the game is a very popular one that most people have played at some point, so my reaction was by no means the result of “weird” drama school training. Apparently I am just way too competitive!

I would like to finish with the highlight of my training, which for me was our Shakespeare project. Not only did I get to work with a fantastic director, but I got to play a reporter, a stripper and an androgynous celebrity in the peak of his madness, all in one show. (Prize for anyone who can guess the play!) If it were up to me, I would happily play Shakespearean roles for the rest of my life.

For as much as we may complain about reality television, there are a few good shows which I have to admit I enjoy. Programmes with titles such as “Dirty Homes” and “Neighbours From Hell” - although I’m not sure either of those are real titles, but you know the ones I mean! After switching on the television to see clean-up teams tackling everything from pigeon faeces to human faeces left to rot in people’s homes, I felt lucky to be earning my money simply dressing up as a monkey for a few hours a day. I have to remind myself of this when the fiftieth badly behaved child of the day punches me, kicks me, trips me up, unzips me or attempts to break my finger. (One surprisingly strong teenager, after kicking me repeatedly, grabbed my little finger with both hands and bent it backwards. His parents just sat there and watched him. Unbelievable.)

Unfortunately, our television sets are mostly plagued by the more awful kind of reality show. Not having been one to follow “Britain’s Got Talent”, I wouldn’t want to comment on the concept of the show. But I did tune in for a few minutes at the weekend and was disgusted to find that it had been renamed “Britain’s Got Tits”. (If you don’t understand that comment, you probably had better things to do with your life than tune into yet another reality show.)

On that note, I understand that Coronation Street is up for an audience award at the Baftas. From what I gather, it’s up against the likes of “The X Factor” and “The Apprentice”. Whether I watch Coronation Street or not is almost irrelevant - I will be voting merely on the principle that it’s not a reality programme (or worse, a “celebrity” reality programme). If anybody out there feels the same way, get voting!

(There are other non-reality shows, including “Skins”, up for the Philips Audience Award. More information can be found at the Bafta website.)

What’s that saying? Never work with children or animals? Apparently I forgot about that when I signed up to the monkey gig for the second time.

This week I’m blogging from the Irish Sea, where I am appearing as Curious George on board the ferries. I’m working alongside the ship’s children’s entertainer, who happens to be a puppeteer. (For anyone who doesn’t read the blog regularly, the due date for my thesis about puppets and actors is imminent.) Needless to say, I’ve been taking advantage and have begun bombarding him with last-minute questions.

The children, on holiday for Easter, have been generally hyper and extremely naughty, and the monkey needed some considerable attention! I was pleased to see that the fastenings I had replaced a couple of years ago were holding fast, thanks to a sewing trick my mum showed me at 8 years old (when I was making a finger puppet of a monkey - coincidence?!). But other fastenings were falling apart, so I spent most of Saturday fixing the costume in between appearances.

Skin character work is often taken on by actors. It’s good fun (depending on your personality!), and this particular job pays well, although not quite what you could expect if you were employed on an Equity contract. It’s a relief to know that I don’t have a boss constantly breathing down my neck - we are expected to use our initiative in terms of times and number of appearances. Although the job is seven days a week, there’s lots of free time in between appearances. This is great if you remembered to bring books, DVDs and a thesis to work on, but without them you would be likely to go a bit insane. I live on board, so I won’t see dry land for a few weeks. I hope I brought enough toiletries! The other downside to living on board is that there is no hope of attending auditions.

I only have two months in between this stint and the next (I’ll be doing the same job over the summer months), so I’m hoping that I might be able to get involved in another student film in that time (although this may be difficult, as I suspect most students’ deadlines will be in May). Student films are good practice, not to mention a potential addition to the show reel, which I’m hoping to put together once I have obtained copies of my previous work.

Just three weeks left at sea - if anybody is visiting Ireland on Stena Line, give me a wave!

The sun is shining, the days are longer, my temp job has been extended and all is well with the world! Yes, I am indeed Miss Content at the moment with everything going swimmingly! There’s always the niggling at the back of my head of ‘I hope I can raise enough money for my post grad’ but that’s a task in hand and cannot be immediately resolved, so I shall try and enjoy this brief preview of summer as much as possible.

In other news I am on track with my driving lessons, I passed my theory last week- hurrah! So I just need to do the hard part now! Although I originally set a deadline for the beginning of May I may not be ready by then, so I may hold off a little longer to ensure a pass first time! It’s something I’m really eager to get out of the way as a lot of jobs have come up since graduating which involve driving, and also the ability to travel to locations and auditions that may not be accessed conveniently by public transport is a bonus. I won’t be putting the Young Person’s Railcard away just yet though, I’ve become quite attached to it! The other reason for getting my driving licence sorted is due to my impending move to London in August, as I know as soon as I settle there I will NEVER get round to doing it as I won’t need to drive.

I think I will now go and recline in the sunshine outside, whilst humming my favourite song from our warm up classes at drama school:

Climb, climb up sunshine mountain,
Where the little daisies grow,
Climb, climb up sunshine mountain,
Faces all a glow.
Turn, turn your back on sorrow,
Reach up for the sky!
Climb, climb up sunshine mountain,
You and I!

I have seen two West End productions this week and both times seem to have found myself surrounded in the audience by young hopefuls and stage school girls dressed from head to toe in Pineapple gear. The fact I was on my own on both occasions perhaps meant I noticed these theatregoers more than usual as I had nothing to do but sit and eavesdrop on all their excited conversations. It was lovely to hear such immense enthusiasm but I heard a couple of very naïve ideas about the industry. Usually I might find these optimistic notions endearing or even funny as only a few years ago I might have had some similar disillusions. Of course I’m not claiming to be a wise old guru now but it was obvious that some of them were actually pretty clueless. Instead of being amused, I began to feel worried by some of their conversation and this is because of some unpleasant happenings at fraudulent castings that have been uncovered recently.

For obvious reasons I can’t go into too much detail about the one in particular I know of, especially as I have heard since that the police have actually got involved. The point is, however, that these exploiters are widespread and there are many corrupt people preying on and taking advantage of young hopefuls desperate to break into the industry.

Luckily I saw through the particular casting mentioned and didn’t attend: the mention of photographers in the audition room and the availability of alcohol in the venue’s bar obviously set alarm bells ringing immediately. The correspondence was unprofessional and the production company and its team’s names seemed to change with each contact.

I may have recognised these huge warning signs but I know that many without the knowledge or experience of castings etc. could, and indeed did, miss them. With limited or no experience of how it all works one might not think to try and research the project or have any professional contacts to run it past.

These con artists are getting away with it because they know that some would literally do anything to grab at their ‘big chance’. What is even more worrying is that it seems anyone can advertise on a number of internet sites and you can imagine then that even the more reputable ones could perhaps let some slip through the net.

…and ain’t it grand?! Apologies for my short absence from the world of Blog, I’ve had a marvellously chaotic few weeks but am now back and ‘bloggier’ than ever.

So, as I once said to John Virgo, why the big break? Well, to be honest, the last 2 weeks of my life have been spent powering on adrenaline and the odd KitKat Chunky. I’ve had quite a few auditions and have been recalled for a few so hoorah! Even that first recall glimmer of hope leads to a new fevered excitement of being one step closer and rapidly becomes quite tiring being on edge for the next round and making sure you’re totally prepared. And the result… I’m waiting to hear. Of course I am, but that’s fine and as we’ve previously discussed is just part of what we do.

I’ve also been to see a few brilliant pieces of theatre recently - perhaps not brilliantly acted or written, more brilliant in what each theatrical excursion brought up in discussion afterwards. And it reminded me, getting out and seeing theatre, be it good, bad or ugly, is the best way to keep in touch with what we do and better understand where we fit into it all - can a play be written with the sole intention to shock, to be controversial? Is it OK to leave a play and not have a clue what happened on stage? Just some of my thoughts on various plays recently.

I spent one fine Wednesday afternoon in the company of some lawyers, becoming increasingly jealous of their rather impressive sun terrace. The NCDT had organised a meeting to discuss ‘the business side of things’ and how and when law firms may get involved, and I must say it was fascinating. Firstly, we were all in agreement that we’d never once thought “Call the lawyer!” but they made a very interesting case.