Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Recession Homework...

I hate being broke.

Or rather, I hate having money in the bank that I can't spend because the two bills I paid three days ago still haven't shown up on my bank statement on Chase.com. That website needs to get its shit together, STAT.

Seriously, the other day one of my debits disappeared. The money resurfaced in my account. And then the next day it was back, and there went that $30 again.

But I'm dealing with my temporary monetary lull the best way I can. I have a little cash set aside so that I can get headshots printed and start going out on auditions again. Thank God, because I'm getting stir crazy just sitting around the house.

But until that happens, I've been reading a bunch. I cracked open Sanford Meisner's "On Acting" once again. I don't think I ever actually read that book all the way through. I've decided to cycle through all my acting books one more time. All of them, not just the ones I think make me look cool sitting up on my bookshelf. I figure I'll just fill my head with as much wisdom as possible, and maybe once I've absorbed all the knowledge, I'll be able to sift through all the crap and actually work out this Technique thing everyone's talking about.

Summer Reading List:
"On Acting," Sanford Meisner
"The Practical Handbook for the Actor," Lots-o-People
"Respect for Acting," Uta Hagen
"Audition," Michael Shurtleff
"True and False," David Mamet
"The Actor Speaks," Patsy Rodenburg
"An Actor Prepares," Constantin Stanislavski
"A Challenge for the Actor," Uta Hagen

Maybe once I've actually read all these books all the way through, I'll have some sense of what I'm doing.

Sunday, June 21, 2009

You know what sucks worse than moving?

Not moving.

That is to say, packing all your worldly positions up into plastic bags and piling them in the middle of the floor, and then staring at them for ten days, unable to unpack.

This is your life when you have bedbugs to contend with.

Or rather, this is:

It sucks. It sucks balls. I packed everything up before the exterminator came last Friday, and he comes for his second treatment tomorrow morning. So finally, tomorrow I'll be able to unpack everything and set my apartment up again.

But in the meantime, I had to wash and dry every piece of clothing I own. I spent about $50 on laundry and that's not even including dry-cleaning which I haven't done yet, because I can't afford it. All my dry-clean only stuff is still sealed up in bags.

I had to vacuum and wipe down all my books and DVDs and clear all my shelves.

It's been a giant ball of suck.

And I'm broke. Largely because of this. Ex-college roommate and best friend Cate Fricke is in town, so I've been going out, but I haven't been spending money on drinks. And most of my food this week has been Family Meal at work. I've even been stashing leftovers and bringing them home.


Mostly though, we've been doing free things, such as the free movie in Bryant Park. It rained, so we couldn't sit on the lawn, but we managed to get a pretty good spot. We were going to wait out the rain, but all of a sudden, it started to POUR.

We ended up soaked to the bone.

The thing that sucks the most about being caught in a rainstorm that only lasts five minutes: Inevitably you will end up somewhere where the people are not wet, because they didn't happen to be outside for the five minutes of Hurricane George. So they always look at you like you're crazy for being wet.

We didn't end up seeing the movie. Instead we went to a bar. It was fun.

But the trump card of the week was by far Shakespeare in the Park. For those of you who don't know, the play this summer is Twelfth Night starring Anne Hathaway (Oscar nominee and personal hero of mine--She's on my Wall of Inspiration), Raul Esparza (four-time Tony Winner), and Audra McDonald (four-time Tony winner, ass-load of other awards too.)

I have a bit of a history with Raul Esparza.

That is to say, I am in frigging LOVE with him. I took this picture for my friend Evan who was playing Bobby in "Company" up at New Paltz.

He autographed the sign too.

Anyway, I've never done Shakespeare in the Park before. What we did was, we went out to the bar on Tuesday night, and stayed out until about 4am (which is REALLY hard to do when you're not drunk). Then we went to the WestWay Diner and had some breakfast, and then we headed over to Central Park. We got there at 6:30am, and there were already about thirty people on line.

We stayed there until the box office opened at 1pm. By that time there were about 2,000 people on line, including a bunch of New Paltzians. We had a good time. We slept in the sun, and made friends with the people sitting on either side of us. On our right was a really nice guy named Jay. He's a musical theatre professor and he had an adorable dog named Chompers. So we were pretty much entertained for the majority of our massive wait on line.

After we got our tickets we walked back along the line to see how many people were still in line. It was so long! It stretched back so far, I was so glad we got there when we did. Quick nap at home, and we headed back to see the show.

Anne Hathaway really impressed me. I think I read in her bio that she hadn't really done much Shakespeare before, but she handled it really well. And they incorporated music very beautifully in the production. Anne Hathaway has a great voice, and of course the other two leads are Tony-winners. There was this beautiful moment during which The Fool is serenading Orsino (Raul Esparza) and Raul started to sing the harmony. I almost had a heart attack.

The only time I've ever seen him live in "Speed the Plow" and he did not sing. I've only ever heard him on a recording before.

You'd think men singing really high wouldn't be attractive. But it is. As long as they don't go falsetto. Blech.

The rain held off until the very end of the show, not that I would have left it if had started earlier. But it happened during the finale song, the lines of which are, "And it raineth every day." So obviously, the crowd went wild. And the whole cast began to dance, and Anne Hathaway came running out in this beautiful white dress and Raul Esparza lifted her into his arms and spun her and she put her arms out and turned her face up to the rain and it was just GORGEOUS.

Best day.

Tuesday I'm going to Florida for a few days. I'm taking some time to recover my mental health and bank account Post-Bedbug Ordeal, but I am going to be auditioning for Disney while I'm there.

Thursday, June 4, 2009

This day turned out to be much more bitchin' than I thought it would...

Went to the audition for the short film this morning. It wasn't my best. I was one of the first people there, and the scene they wanted us to read was a highly physical fight scene, so the reading I did was a little awkward.

And to top it all off, I was there for a total of fifteen minutes, and then I was out in the city at 11:30am and didn't have to be at work until 3:00.

I didn't want to go home, because most of my time would have been taken by the train ride in either direction, so I decided to see a movie. And I saw Star Trek for the third time. Awesome.

While I was in Star Trek I got a casting notice on my handy-dandy Blackberry that Rock Me TV was having an Open Call for hosts from 12 to 3pm. But I got out of the movie at 2, and I didn't think I would be out in time for work if I went over then. But then I got a text from this girl Toni asking if she could take my shift tonight in exchange for Sunday. Obviously I said yes.

I didn't have any more headshots, having given them all to the auditioners this morning, but I had my photo business cards (some of you might already be aware--I have business cards) so I went over.

I hope I'm not being too cocky. But I effing ROCKED.

It was a lot of fun. First one of the currents hosts interviewed us briefly; What's your name? Where are you from? and then we got to say "Hi, I'm Michele McNally with Rock Me TV and we're live in Times Square with a whole bunch of crazy shit..."

Just the other day I was watching Michele Merkin's interview with Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto and I was thinking how fun it would be to have some kind of interviewer/host gig. All in all I think I did a really good job. I got interviewed (off Camera) after my screen test and they seemed really positive about both my schedule and my point of view.

If I got a final callback, I'm supposed to hear by Monday.

And now...victory Sushi.

on the way to the audition...

Finally got the sides at 6:30 this morning.

3 pages. 6 typos.

Nice.

Wednesday, June 3, 2009

Victory and Horror

I have $1.76 in my savings account.

Let's not get into the checking account, because it's just going to depress me.

Paycheck in T-minus a day and a half.

But on the upside, SubmissionFest '09 is proving to be a resounding success. So far I have two auditions, one for a management company, and one for a short film in which I will be reading for the part of "Vampire Queen."

Awaiting sides, which will potentially be emailed to me by midnight. It's currently 11:30pm, but I'm still optimistic.

So far I have asked six friends and family members the question: "How sad would you be if I moved to L.A." Answers have ranged from "very sad" to "Michele McNally don't you dare you *&!%*!"

Still might go though. Haven't decided yet.