Acting Crazy in Park Slope

To explain:
I have been busy. Not only have I been apartment searching (I found one, by the way, but I'll get to that in a minute) and working extra (to pay for the fabulous apartment I've found) I have also been, wait for it, ACTING.

You heard correctly.

See, I did this audition back in, er, April I think. Or maybe March, I really couldn't tell you. It was the TRU combined audition event, which means that you perform for at least 50 different casting directors and agents and other industry folk.

Let me say first that I completely screwed up my audition. I planned to do a monologue and a song, and we were only given 2 minutes. Well, I knew going in that my monologue was too long, so I actually shortened my song from 16 to 8 bars, the evening before. I figured that way I could do my monologue well without feeling like I had to rush it, and that if they cut me off during the song, it wasn't a huge deal. (Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that I've become less interested in the musical part of musical theatre, and really want to focus more on theatre as well as film and television. Not that I won't still sing, it's just that there are so many crappy musicals out there that I have no desire to be a part of, and the few really good ones are full of roles I'm not right for, and won't be right for until I get older.) Well, I did the monologue, only got two words of the song out, then went the wrong way off the stage, remembered partway through, turned around and scurried back across the stage like an idiot.

I felt pretty awful about the whole thing, and began to torture myself about how the monologue wasn't even that great, blah blah blah, the way I do.

But, I got a callback. A group called The Actor's Project wanted me to come audition for them again. So I went, screwed up that audition as well (I pointlessly stumbled over the first line, but got it back quickly and the rest was good) and they still said they wanted me. Basically, this is a group of actors which produce showcases to which they invite agents, casting directors, and such. Their goal is to get us represented. I know what you're saying: Julia, don't you already have an agent? Why, yes, I do. But I can't seem to get their attention long enough for them to actually do me any good.

Anyway, everyone in the showcase does an original monologue written by people involved with TAP, and I was given one written by the head of the whole organization. It's great.

So, I've been doing that, and then about a week ago I got another call from someone who had seen me at this audition and wanted me to come to a lab session where I was expected to bring a Shakespeare monologue and a contemporary one, and we would work on them. It's called Simon Studio, and the man who runs it is a fairly important acting coach. Also, he has been known to cast people who attend these lab sessions in Shakespeare festivals and various independent films.

The above was written a few days ago. So let's catch up.

I went to the lab session, which was set up like a class, and even though I had a great time, and the guy who runs it really liked me, I'm not sure I can be a part of it on a regular basis right now the way he wants me to be. That was a huge run-on sentence (ha ha, I just typed "fun-on sentence" by accident, and since that sentence felt like a roller-coaster, I feel that is equally appropriate). Anyway, I have scheduling conflicts and other uninteresting things that mean I've had to temporarily say 'no' to a commitment with the Simon Studio, but I feel like I've talked endlessly about that recently (to anyone who would listen) so I won't go into it here.

What else...

Oh right, my new place. Well, you know how my old place was located in "we call it 'Park Slope' but it isn't really, that's just something the realtors like to say to get people to grossly over-pay for the apartments there?" Right. Well, my new place is in bona fide, genuine, honest-to-goodness Park Slope. In fact, it's only half a block from the ACTUAL PARK! And it's only 4 blocks from Otto.

It's tiny and expensive, but it's mine, and it's in the best neighborhood in Brooklyn.

I leave you now with another video that turned out rather more disturbing than I had intended. The song is Crazy by Gnarls Barkley.




PS-I have another post that was supposed to go before this one eplaining the Highlander theme of my current blog. I'll try and get that one finished soon.