Music Video featuring Yours Truly...

Check it out! This is the music video for Deerhoof's "Mario's Flaming Whiskers III."

It's a crazy circus, and I play the creepy fortune teller!

Deerhoof - Mario's Flaming Whiskers III (official video) from All Tomorrow's Parties on Vimeo.

Going Viral

You know what the best way to wake up is?

To stretch awake at your own leisure in the late morning sun, check Facebook on your phone, and learn that a YouTube video you were featured in has gone from 3,000 to 20,000 views in a space of two days.

That's how I woke up a few weeks ago, and the count is still climbing. As of right now, the video in question has surpassed 50,000 views!



"The Unwritten Rules of Office Bathroom Etiquette" was written as part of a show I did last year with No Tea Productions (the very funny people who brought you "Space Captain: Captain of Space).

The recent spike in viewings is due to it being featured on the famed Cheezburger blog.

Super exciting to have that many people looking at something I did, but just serves as a reminder that no matter how ridiculous something appears, if you post it on the internet, someone will think it's real.

More Buzz for Space Captain!

In addition to our fantastic review in Backstage, Space Captain: Captain of Space has been getting some great reviews and press from Theatrical publications far and wide.

Best Friend Cate sent me a text the other day to inform me that she was flipping through an issue of Time Out New York and saw our show featured in that week's "Best Bets" section.

Last night as we warmed up, Lindsey discovered that our show was the lead story on NYTheatre.com's homepage. (Which as of right now, we still are) And the reviews we've gotten have been pretty awesome. Here are a few quotes:

"Non-stop fun...original, well-crafted silliness..." -Flavorpill (Editor's Pick)

"Effing awesome..." -Cultural Capitol

"Non-stop entertainment from beginning to end..." -NYTheatre.com

And the show was also featured on the "Go See a Show" podcast, which came to do an interview with Jeff and Lindsey after our opening performance. You can listen to the podcast here.

In the meantime there are only four performances left, including tonight. So if you haven't gotten your tickets yet, you might want to buy them in advance. 

See you tonight!

Or Thursday September 13th!
Or Friday September 14th!
Or Saturday September 15th!

Space Captain in Backstage!!!

Welcome to the biggest moment in my career to date. Because my name is on Backstage.

Space Captain: Captain of Space has been getting a lot of buzz. Both Lindsey and Jeff have been interviewed by NYTheatre.com in anticipation of our opening weekend, and there was even a write-up in The Villager.

But our opening weekend has come and gone, and it's time for the reviews to start showing up. And the first review is from the one, the only Backstage Magazine.

And it's good. It's really good.

And the end of it says this:

"The evenings purest laughs come from the lively cast. Michele McNally is particularly hilarious as Astra, King Xayno's moody daughter."

So that's getting printed out and framed and hung on my wall next to my bed where I'll be able to see it every day as soon as I wake up.

This show is such an incredible piece to be involved in, and I've known that since before we even started rehearsals, but to have that feeling confirmed by Backstage-- the Go-To publication that everyone grabs when they decide to go into acting-- is a very surreal experience for me. I mean I used to have stacks and stacks of newspapers all around my apartment. I would cut out the covers out and put them on my wall.

This morning the review was part of Backstage Espresso, the email newsletter that sends out highlights and featured stories from Backstage. Yeah, we're FEATURED.

Backstage Magazine emailed me a review of my own show. Weird. And Awesome. 

There are still five chances to go and see this amazing show. We have performances on Thursday and Friday nights, at 8pm, and also next Thursday through Saturday, also at 8.

For the last few years I've been amazed that such a group of talented people could have flown under the radar for so long. With this incredibly ambitious show, I'm not surprised that Space Captain is getting so much attention. I'm so glad that this show is eye-catching enough that No Tea is starting to get the notariety it deserves.

As more reviews start to surface, I'm sure they'll be positive. The only way I could imagine anyone not liking this show is if they are a complete and utter asshole.

You hear that reviewers? If you didn't like it, you are clearly an asshole.

READ THAT SHIT!

The Space Captain Trailer!!!!

Here it is ladies and gentlemen! And what a fantastic trailer it is!!!!

I've thought ever since reading the script for the first time, that this was going to be the best and funniest show that I've ever done, and now that I've seen the trailer that has been put together from all the video segments, I am even more confident of that fact!

Space Captain will run from August 30th until September 15th, every Thursday and Friday night, and with Saturday performances on September 1st and 15th! All the shows are at 8pm at the Kraine Theater, 85 East 4th Street (between 2nd and Bowery).

Get your tickets here!!!

It Pulls You Under

About a month and a half into living as a working actress, making a couple of hundred dollars a week and letting my boyfriend support me financially, I finally break down.

There are a lot of things about life as a working actor that break people down. For most people, it's the rejection. It's constantly feeling like you're not good enough. For some people, it's the frustration of knowing that you are good enough, and nobody gives a shit.

I can deal with both those things. What finally got me last night was something different entirely.

In February The Boyfriend and I moved into a gorgeous one-bedroom apartment in Brooklyn. My half of the rent is more than I was paying for my Queens studio apartment, but in February I had a steady job, making enough money to pay rent and keep up with my student loans, and still have money to put away in savings. Good for me.

But now, in this performance job that I ADORE, I'm barely making enough money to pay the rent. It's only thanks to my generous parents, a NY Lottery commercial and the payout from a class-action lawsuit that i forgot to opt out of that I've made it through July.

The Boyfriend, however, cheerfully tells me, "Don't worry about it, baby. I get paid tomorrow." And I love him, but the fact that HE has enough money to pay OUR rent does not make me feel better. WE should have enough money to pay OUR rent.

Nobody ever told me that the hardest shit to deal with in this life was going to be the Financial Aspect of it, and I call Shenanigans.

Why isn't that ever on an episode of Smash? Huh, Telsey? Why doesn't Karen Carpenter have her credit card declined trying to buy macaroni and cheese at a Duane Reade at 2 o'clock in the morning?

So last night I spilled fucking water on my fucking iPhone again. I am the biggest dick on the planet, and no one should ever give me anything worth over $50, because I will ruin it. Spoiler Alert: my phone is fine, I got it in rice right away and it only had a little bit spilled on it in the first place. But in my haste to rip open the rice bag, it exploded potato-chip-style all over the floor of the kitchen, and then I spent the next hour and a half crying. Like, snot-pouring-down-the-front-of-my-face, Irish-funeral-keening. The Boyfriend hugged me as I hyperventilated, and once I'd calmed down I went into the living room and fired off an email to Best Friend Cate. 

As previously mentioned, Best Friend Cate is an incredibly talented writer, who moved to Poughkeepsie when her boyfriend got a teaching job there. And she spent the first six months there living much like I am living now. Shitty job, not enough money, being supported by someone else, all the while with all this talent inside her, just waiting to be discovered.

To say her response made me feel better would be underselling it completely.

"You're doing everything you're supposed to be doing," she said, "and shit--you're only in the financial situation you're in because you took a chance on a job that is going to move your REAL career forward... You chose to work in a field where nobody gives a shit about you... You chose this--years of people not giving a shit, and having to balance the non-shit-giving with paychecks so that you can survive until people do give a shit... It's slow. It's called our twenties. We can't all be Lena Dunham.

"BUT look at Christina Hendricks. Maybe I'm biased, since she's the first woman I've ever wanted to motorboat, Vince-Vaughan-style, but she's in her mid-thirties and her career is only now taking off... Total nerd girl, too. She paid her dues. Am I saying it will take you another 8 years to get there? No. But it might.

"I love you. Hang in there. Remember that a big part of this is the transition period. It pulls you under."

Seriously everybody is being so fucking supportive it makes me want to throw up. In a good way.

So here is the part where I try to turn this incredibly depressing blog entry into an inspirational cry to action, whoopie. Perhaps I should include some quote about perseverance or never giving up or whatever. But instead I think I'll end with a message to myself.

Dear McNally,

Calm the fuck down. It's hard. It's supposed to be hard. If it wasn't, everyone would do it.

And yes, that was paraphrased from A League of Their Own.

Stop whining. If you're so worried about money, get a second job already.

Kaboom.

Space Captain: Captain of Space

Yes boys and girls, it's that time again! Rehearsals for Space Captain start this month!

I think it's the funniest we've done. It's based on the old Flash Gordon serials from the 1930s. The really old ones, before the movie with the Queen song. 

Space Captain is the fourth full-length show I've done with No Tea Productions, a small New York theater company that adopted me into its ranks three years ago after I played the title role in "Poppycock." (The title role was a woman named "Poppy," get your mind out of the gutter)

My invitation to become a resident actor with the company came at one of the founder's 80's-themed birthday party while doing shots of Jack Daniels and wearing artfully ripped T-shirts, side ponytails and a green fuzzy snap-bracelet, which I still have.

How do you say no to that?

Lindsey and Jeff, the couple that founded No Tea in 2007, are two of the coolest people I know. Their mission statement is to produce quality original comedies that so far have been written and developed by members of the company. I've attended the weekly writer's meetings myself, and wrote a short one-act that was performed by company members as part of a night of scenes resulting from those workshops.

The shows are good. They really are. Not only are they funny, but they're meaningful and original in thought and concept. And the people in the company are some of the sweetest, and most down-to-Earth theatre people I know.

In addition to being invited into the company of actors, after my first show with No Tea, I was even invited to Lindsey and Jeff's wedding!

The most astounding thing about this company is that Lindsey, Jeff, Jeremy (the Technical Director) and all of the other designers and crew pay for everything out of their own pockets. They never make their money back and I doubt they even break even most of the time. And this show is CRAZY AMBITIOUS.

It's multimedia, with video, live action and puppets, and thus much more expensive than any of the other shows they've done.

And so, they've set up an IndieGoGo fundraising page in order to help them make back some of the money that they are already spending to cover the costs of materials, performance and rehearsal space, etc.

I STRONGLY urge you to donate to this campaign. All the time and money and sweat and tears that these people have spent on previous shows have been given freely, just for the love of making theatre. The show will get made whether or not they make their money, but I think they deserve to get a little back.

To donate, visit their IndieGoGo page.http://www.indiegogo.com/NoTeaProductions-SpaceCaptain

Squeaking By...

Every time I go use the coinstar machine at the Food Emporium on 43rd street, there is ALWAYS some manager's discarded clipboard on it. Like the people in that neighborhood never have the need to cash in the coins they've been hoarding for months on end in order to get the $65 cash to keep their bank account from overdrawing. So we might as well use it as furniture.

This time though, some guy came in right after me to cash in his coins. First time I've ever seen anyone else use that coinstar machine.

I gave him a little smile as I took my voucher, a kind of, "Glad to know I'm not the only one."

He shrugged.

Leap; The Net Will Follow

Week one of my lack of a Day Job is over, and though I have a start date for the New Job, I have spent the entire week at home, staring at the walls.

Most of the days have been productive. I've been submitting for background work everywhere I see a listing, and working on my website and my reel and my resume and all sorts of productive things. I put up a new Wall of Inspiration, like the collage I had up in my old apartment and managed to save most of.

I've made myself a sizable To-Do list and I've been ticking things off one by one. I've started putting together a database of Casting Directors of projects that I enjoy and would like to be a part of, so that I can start becoming more familiar with the names I see popping up in Backstage and Playbill.com.

I cleaned the CRAP out of the apartment.

I made a list of Open-Mics around the city.

I feel good. Except for at night, after The Boyfriend has drifted off to sleep and I can see my swiftly dwindling bank-account projected onto the ceiling above my bed.

A couple of the days have been bad. My super-supportive Dad, who has been self-employed and working out of a home office since I was in second grade, sent me an email with all the guidelines on How to be Successfully Self-Employed. Number One on the list is: Get Dressed.

Some days I did not get dressed.

I am far too much of an ambitious freak to enjoy a "vacation" of any kind. I've come to terms with this.

BUT today is a GOOD DAY.

Today I know when my first rehearsal is for the New Job, and today I booked background work for tomorrow! And even as I was text messaging Best Friend Jen to tell her I wouldn't be able to come with her to IKEA, I got a phone call and booked ANOTHER background job for Tuesday.

Today I only hit snooze TWICE and am totally aware that I am incredibly lucky to have such a supportive Boyfriend, Mother, Father, Brother, future Sister-in-Law, Best Friend Jen, Best Friend Cate, Ma and Popi and incredible professional colleagues such as Harmony Stempel, (who just mounted her One-Woman show in NYC) to inspire me.

Today is a good day.

The Day Job

In order to be an actress, you have to work in a restaurant.

Yeah, it seemed pretty ridiculous when I read it back to myself too. But for some reason it's just one of those things that everybody thinks. And for the most part, very true. The amount of people who would ask me as I cleared their empty plates, "Oh, are you an actress?" made me wish the answer was no.

But alas, I am the stereotype. Or at least I was.

How I Got the Job:
Fresh out of college, I worked at a summer camp for the first few months after graduation, while living at home with my parents. I was the musical theatre director for the Queens College summer program, and making about $400 a week, all of which was going into savings upon preparation for moving into my new apartment in August.

And then August came, and I moved in, and the summer ended and I didn't have a job yet. A girl I'd gone to school with worked as a hostess in a busy Times Square restaurant and offered to get me a job there. Two days later I was hired, my first day of training was a double, and I stayed there for 5 years.

5 years is a long time. And I wasn't doing the same thing for that whole time. Sure I started out as a hostess, making just enough money to wrack up a $2,000 credit card bill on monthly MetroCards alone, but eventually I moved up the ranks, and by the end I was a pretty big deal. 

But still, 5 years at the same place, doing the same thing over and over again takes its toll. Almost every year I had a night where I threw my hands up in despair, came home and searched CraigsList for a new job. But ultimately, I decided, what was the difference between getting fed up at this place as at any other place?

5 years is a long time. And that same five years has been filled with my trying to build a successful acting career; With rejections and tiny victories. Shows have opened and closed and been cancelled due to lack of funds. I have spent money on train tickets to do film for nothing more than food and a copy that I never saw because nobody ever fucking finishes anything. I realized a long time ago that I do not have the ideal temperament for the life of an actor. I have so many actor friends who float from job to job and apartment to apartment, never really sure of how much money is going to be in their bank accounts at the end of the month and not really caring either way.

I don't do that. I lie awake staring at the ceiling going through elaborate scenarios in my head of What Will Happen If I Don't Pay the Cable Bill On Time. The cable guy comes. He laughs at me. They take away my TV and I forever have a black mark on my Time Warner permanent record and am never allowed the option of DVR service again. Then someone punches me in the face and I die.

5 years is a long time. But in that time, The Job was a stable, unifying thing in my life. I always knew what to expect, I had a regular schedule and people that I could switch with, and managers who counted on me to be responsible to do the right thing. I succeeded, and I climbed the ladder, and I really saw that there might be a future for me in the world of restaurant management. If this acting thing fails, I think I might have a bright career in the Hospitality Industry.

And you know what?

Wait for it...

FUCK that.

A few Wednesdays ago I had an audition. For a job that pays. And I got it. The next day I put in my two weeks.

It's not the title role in Evita; I don't even know if I'll be making enough money to live. I don't know if I'll have to get a part time job to still make rent and pay bills and eat everyday. But I don't care. Because though in the past 5 years The Job has been a shining star and the only stable thing in my life that I had besides my boyfriend and my cats, there has been many a time when I've looked at a casting and said, "I can't audition for that. It rehearses on Saturdays. I WORK on Saturdays." 

From now on, for as long as I can, I am a full-time actor. If I have to do background work every day off I have for ten hours, a donut and a $75 check that doesn't come in the mail until 6 months later, it will be worth it just to say that I am doing what I want to do.

I have had a great time at my restaurant for the past 5 years. I've made wonderful friends and learned lovely lessons and pigged out on some serious chicken parm...

But I'm out.

Peace.

From the Reading

My new Facebook picture from now until the end of time

The Reading

Sunday was the trek up to Poughkeepsie for Best Friend Cate's play reading.

The Event was called Bertha's Funeral, named for a sculpture in a sculpture park off of Main St. The town of Poughkeepsie has recently decided to remove the sculptures, which have fallen into disrepair. Some of them are covered in poison oak, all the benches have most of their wooden slats missing, and there's a mural that's become covered in ivy. The grass is long and uncut, and it looks very much like a forgotten space.

Cate, along with Sovereign Nation and the Dutchess County Arts Council put together a farewell event, to honor the sculptures, to show the city that the park is a great, versatile space that can be used for more than just cutting across to get to the ice cream store faster, and to help establish the strong artistic presence in the town.

When Best Friend Cate first moved to Poughkeepsie (just across the river from our college town of New Paltz- weird in a never-thought-this-would-happen sort of way) she told me that while she was there she wanted to be instrumental in making P-Town more of an arts town. I'm super proud of her for kicking so much ass already.

We headed up Road-Trip style in my mother's car on Sunday morning and emerged starving (there are no rest stops on the Taconic State Parkway, I know that now) into the waiting arms of Cate and her partner Aaron who thankfully always have fresh fruit in their apartment. We ate, filled up some water bottles and then headed to the park to rehearse.

At high noon.

Cate earns my eternal gratitude for bringing sunscreen, and lending me a shirt to change into after rehearsal while mine dried out. Holy balls it was hot.

We figured out some blocking for the two short plays, identified all the poison oak, ran through a few times, and then Best Friend Cate, Best Friend Jen, The Boyfriend and I headed back to Cate and Aaron's apartment where Jen's Fiance Jared was working on a set design, had lunch, and promptly fell asleep wherever we fell.

We awoke just before 5 and headed down to practice transitions with the other performers who would be reading fiction and poetry. Cate's pieces were the only plays, and were the first and last performances of the evening. Each performance took place at a different sculpture in the park, so at the end of each piece, the audience had to pick up their chairs and go to the next space. Since we knew where that would be, it was our job to kind of lead the way. It helped that we had Aaron and Jared in the audience as plants.

The turnout was fantastic, better than Cate had expected. When we were setting up the folding chairs for the audience, we walked past an apartment where two young men sat on the stoop drinking beers, and one asked us what we were doing. Cate struck up a conversation with him (an amateur filmmaker) and invited him to come. He showed up about halfway through with a camera. Cate was over the moon.

Cate's pieces were so beautiful, and it was great to act with Best Friend Jen again, though we didn't really interact much. In Cate's first play, Jen and I played the same girl at different ages.

The second play was an emotional roller-coaster alongside The Boyfriend, which ended in a kiss that we got a few compliments on until people realized we were an actual couple. I fully intend to use a monologue from it as my new contemporary dramatic audition piece.

After the performance, as the sun was going down, we headed back to Cate's apartment building, which had a pop-up gallery exhibit set up throughout the hallways. We drank wine and ate veggies and dip and looked at some great local art (including some Best Friend Cate originals, in the same style as the mural she'd done for me at my old apartment:)

All in all, it was an amazing day and everyone involved should be very proud of themselves!

First Shakespeare Class...

Went quite well despite the fact that I was suffering from a migraine for the entire second half. The first class was just prepared monologues, to get a sense of our abilities and personalities.

Highlight of the night was when one guy (whose name I forgot) was doing his monologue, containing the words "Draw your sword," and the instructor (Seth) asked him to physically draw a sword. To which he replied, "Do you want me to get a sword? I brought some."

Seth: "Seriously?"

Yep. He had three.

Seth: "Do you carry these with you all the time?"

Guy: "Well I always have one in my car."

Seth: "Amazing."

He was also wearing a Monty Python T-shirt, and throughout the course of the evening there was at least one Hitchhiker's Guide reference.

I don't know why I didn't realize that a class containing both Shakespeare and sword fighting would attract total dorks. And I thought to myself, "Do I really belong with these people?"

And then I took a long hard look at myself watching my Buffy the Vampire Slayer DVDs and surfing the web for the pirated Les Mis trailer and I realized:

Yes. Yes I do.

Coming Up...

So far, the results of my "Musical Mission: A Quest to be Cast in a Musical in the Next Year" has yielded equal parts good and super awkward auditions, leaving me with the conclusion that I should look into some voice lessons in the future, because I am seriously out of practice.

However, my musical mission must be put on hold for a while, but it's for a very good reason: I am working like a dawg.

The Play:
I am thrilled to announce that I have been cast in No Tea Productions' next show, "Space Captain: Captain of Space"!

The show is written by Jeff, co-artistic director of No Tea, and it is a Flash-Gordon-esque, 1930s space serial. This marks my fourth full production with No Tea and I couldn't be more thrilled to work with them again! I've been sporadically attending No Tea's writer's meetings since finishing Work: A Play, and I even wrote a short piece for the most recent Reading Series that we did in March. So I've been lucky enough to read the play as it was being developed and it is going to ROCK.

I play Princess Astra, daughter of the Evil King Xayno.

The show is multi-media, so it doesn't actually go up until August-September. Our first read-through is tonight, but we won't actually start rehearsals for the live-action stuff for at least a month. The majority of May and June are going to be used for filming all the video segments.

I am so FREAKING excited.

The Webseries:
Recently I was contacted by a fellow graduate of SUNY New Paltz, who was working on a webseries called, "Sherwood." It's based on the Robin Hood myths, and he wanted me to play Maid Marian. 



After a very successful IndieGoGo campaign during which we raised over $3,000 to fund the first season, we filmed the pilot in Upstate New York a couple of weeks ago. 

I get to work with a couple of guys that I haven't seen since school, as well as some very talented new blood, and one of my former professors. And I get to use a kick-ass British accent.

The Boyfriend drove up with me, along with Best Friend Jen and Fiance Jared, who were getting their engagement photos taken in New Paltz. We all stayed the night in Poughkeepsie with Best Friend Cate and her Bearded Man, and the next morning we went into New Paltz, had brunch at the Bistro (across the street from the apartment I lived in with Cate senior year) and then we all went to New Paltz to see the closing performance of Cabaret.

I got to show The Boyfriend the campus, bought some $1 LPs at Rhino Records, and caught up with my Voice and Speech teacher, Nancy.

It was nice to go back up to school and be able to answer the "What are you up to" question with something other than, "Oh... auditioning, waiting tables, you know, making money..."

Suck it New Paltz, I'm working!

The Reading
Next weekend I am taking the train up to Poughkeepsie to be in an outdoor reading of two plays written by Best Friend Cate as part of her ongoing mission to make P-Town into more of an artist community.

The Short Film
Though I know I'm booked for the next couple of months, I still happened to come across an audition for a short film on Actor's Access.

We held auditions for Space Captain at Shetler Studios on a Sunday morning, and I came in to read with the actors. The audition for the film, "Broken Identity" was the next day, in the same studio and in the same room.

And after sitting on the other side of auditions for the first time since college, I was filled with a new level of confidence, mainly because my headshots actually LOOK LIKE ME. I couldn't believe how many people walked into the room looking NOTHING like the photo they submitted.

Also, it is never a good idea to send a naked picture out for an audition. You'd think that wouldn't need to be said. You'd THINK.

So I went to the audition feeling quietly confident. I was the first to arrive, and the first to audition. The role is small, and the script is still being developed, so in addition to my monologue, they only had one line for me to read. So I read the line, took an adjustment and read it again, and then I went home and cooked my Boyfriend dinner.

And two days later I found out that I booked the role.

Booyah.

So hopefully there shall be much more to blog about in the coming months than awkward musical theatre auditions.

Glorying in the Success of My Friends

It has been a very exciting month.

Best Friend Cate and I met at undergrad, in the Theatre Department at New Paltz, but during our four years at school she decided that Theatre wasn't for her. She started focusing on writing, went off to grad school, and now she's a fantastic writer with a blog that will make you laugh, and make you think. Mostly it makes you think "Fuck, I need to read more," because she's so intelligent it makes me want to throw up.

Recently she wrote a review of the novel, "Deathless" by Catherynne Valente that was retweeted by the author on Twitter. And if that wasn't exciting enough, I'm thrilled to announce that Best Friend Cate is having her first story published! Her short story, "Fox and Girl: A Bestial Romance" has won the 2012 Wabash Prize for Fiction! The second place winner is a published author. Suck it, guy.

(*Actor With a Business Card would like to note that the guy who won second place is probably also a really good author, and he should be really proud of his accomplishment, but she's just really happy for her friend so he can suck it.)

Guest Judge Aimee Bender, author of "The Girl in the Flammable Skirt" said, "First off, this story charmed me completely, gloriously. The author has a beautiful sense of the visual; each time I could picture perfectly the scene described, as if it were an illustration by an artist of a children’s book that is really not at all a children’s book.  But the writing is sly, like a fox, because yes, it’s full of wonder and charm and delight, but underneath there’s real depth here, and a genuine exploration of a relationship and the two struggling characters in it.  Both Fox and Girl, iconic as they are, feel real, dimensional, sympathetic, flawed.  So it’s utterly freshly told, but never sacrifices substance.  What a pleasure to read!”

HOORAY FOR CATE!!!

And in the Theatre world, one of my other friends is kicking ass and taking names! The lovely Harmony Stempel, one of my good friends and colleagues (and coincidentally Best Friend Cate's cousin) has been working on a solo show for the past couple of years called Human Fruit Bowl. It's an experimental show that examines the relationships between artists and their models.

Last year it went to the Prague Fringe Festival, where it won the Kreativni cena (Creative Award), and was dubbed "Best of the Prague Fringe" by the Amsterdam Fringe. She was even invited to perform at the Amsterdam Fringe and the Hong Kong Microfest. And finally, FINALLY it is getting produced in New York:

SO I GET TO SEE IT!

They have a kickstarter campaign if you'd like to give them your money.

But most importantly, you should take note of the performance dates, June 8th- 17th at the SoloNOVA Arts Festival, presented by TerraNOVA Collective.

I am SO SO proud and excited for my friends!

Musical Mission Step Two: Have a good audition

Going to a buttload of Equity Chorus Calls mean nothing if you never get into the room. Though I suppose it's a nice change from waking up at 1pm because your cat is hungry.

Monday I actually had a by-appointment audition for a musical. As in a, "we've seen your resume and we have already decided not to kick you out," kind of situation. So though my "Musical Mission" (good God I'm clever) is 24 days in, Monday was the first time I have actually been able to sing with a piano player.

By-appointment auditions continue to make me laugh. You travel for an hour on the subway, and then you're in and you're out in less than 15 minutes. It's like I was picking up my dry cleaning or something. I really showed up, dropped my stuff in the hallway, filled out the audition form, read through the sides twice, and then the monitor asked me, "are you ready?"

I sang "Stars and the Moon" from Songs for a New World, because I know it really well, I've done it a bunch before and I thought it was a smart idea since I'm out of practice, and I kind of have a cold. In the end I had trouble staying on tempo with the accompanist (Jason Robert Brown music is needlessly complicated) but I just went for it. I figured she'd catch up to me.

The director looked at my resume and said, "You haven't done any musicals? You've got a great voice."

The experience left me feeling good.

Musical Mission Step One: Go see a show

January is almost over so I bet you're all wondering if I've taken any steps yet in my New Year's Resolution to get back into musicals.

And nothing makes me more excited and inspired, and simultaneously miserable that it's not me on that stage, it's seeing a Broadway show. Especially a Broadway show I've always wanted to see.

The Boyfriend bought us orchestra seats to Wicked. ORCHESTRA seats. I could have been spit on. Best Friend Jen and I used to play the soundtrack nonstop in our dorm room sophomore year, but I haven't actually listened to it in a while. Seeing the show just brought back all the memories of how I used to listen to the CD, fantasizing about playing Elphaba on Broadway.

I saw Jackie Burns in the role, and she killed it. She was better than Idina Menzel, in my opinion. Especially singing No Good Deed, which has always been my favorite song in the show.

The experience did exactly what I'd hoped it would do. It re-lit the fire under my ass. I was so excited to be seeing a Broadway show again that I actually burst into tears during the opening number.

ONWARD!

First steps towards my New Year's Resolution...

Internet, bear witness to this.

On Tuesday January 10th there is a Musical Theatre Audition Seminar with Telsey and Co. I've already registered and I'm going.

The EPA for Legally Blonde is that day at noon.

I'm going to both of them, I don't care how sleepy I am when I get up on Tuesday morning. I publish it on the internet for all to see. If I don't go, hurl tomatoes and other rotten fruit at me via email or tweet.

On Thursday January 12th there is an EPA for Jesus Christ Superstar, which I could theoretically go to before work. I don't have to be at The Restaurant until 3:30. Plenty of time to get typed out beforehand.

I'm going to it.

And the best part is an audition for another musical coming up on Monday January 23rd, which is by-appointment-only. Definitely going to that, I don't think I need the threat of being pelted by virtual fruits and vegetables to give me motivation.

So I've got all the auditions waiting for me, I've just got to get over the pesky fact that I haven't sung with a live piano player in over a year, and I lost my voice on New Year's Eve screaming off a roof in Astoria.

Minor problems.

The New Year's Resolution Blog Entry.

There was no musical theatre program at my college. That isn't to say that there were no musical theatre-themed classes at SUNY New Paltz. There were several, and I took them all. There was just no Musical Theatre concentration as far as majors go.

While I was there I took Voice for Theatre (One and Two--I took Two twice), Musical Theatre Workshop and Musical Theatre Singing Ensemble (which was this awesome choral class where we did all the big group numbers.)

All the classes focused on acting the song, and not so much on technique. This is a clip from my senior year final, when I did Sally Bowles from Cabaret.



My freshman year a friend of mine named Roxie was taking Musical Theatre Workshop. Her assignment was to hop the train down to the city one day and go to an actual audition. Best Friend Jen and I decided to go with her. We thought it would be fun.

It was an open call for Ragtime, and Jen was a big fan. We had no headshots, and so we printed our best available Facebook profile pictures onto 8 1/2 by 11 paper and slapped together resumes with High School credits on them.

The audition was at Ripley Grier, and in the grand tradition of Open Calls, we were two out of 700 hundred girls and young women, all of whom looked a lot like us. We were there all day, and we didn't get to sing. Instead we were typed out.

But it's our first audition. We are tourists in Times Square, too mesmerized by the flashy billboards and neon lights to notice that it's crowded, nobody seems to know how to walk and it kind of smells funny.

We did one musical a year at SUNY New Paltz, usually the first production of the fall semester. My freshman year auditions were the first week of classes, I really didn't know what I was doing. Sophomore year I made it to the final four girls called back to play Dot in "Sunday in the Park with George." Junior year I got Reno in "Anything Goes," and senior year I played Penny in "Urinetown."

I have a good voice, though I've never been trained, and by the time I left school I was confident that I could hold my own in a musical theatre audition. But after a few years it seemed like I was going to that Ragtime audition over and over again. Sitting in a waiting room among 700 hundred more qualified girls, with a mediocre headshot and not enough musicals on my resume.

I couldn't afford the voice lessons, and what good did they do when I just got typed out every time I got in the room? So I stopped. I was booking film work, and comedy, so I thought that might be enough.

But recently I went to go see a show that got me thinking again. An entertainer a greatly admire just released an album, the contents of which are new arrangements of old musical theatre standards. Little-known Sinatra and Sound of Music stuff, and at the end of the show I got to meet the composer who'd done all the arrangements. The whole thing got me thinking about musical theatre and how much I miss it, and I've decided that this would be my New Year's Resolution.

I am going to book a musical by next year. Maybe not Broadway, but here's hoping. And in reaching for that goal, I'm going to see about voice lessons, and dance classes. I'm really going to try to turn myself back into a musical theatre performer, hopefully minus the pretentiousness.

Game on.