Huzzah! Another blog about the crippling uncertainty of life...

Please forgive the title, as it was written by my 7th grade self. The same one who wore a spiked dog collar and fishnet stockings to Take Your Daughter to Work Day.

Mom, you deserve a medal.

If you've been wondering, "How are things with Michele?" THEY BLOW.

The Job is reaching the end of a post-Hoiliday Season hiatus, which at one point was looked upon as a well-earned break. We were so nuts during the Holidays that at one point I did 18 shows in 4 days.

It was also a nice opportunity for my Second Job to start, at one of those theme restaurants that hire actors to walk around in character and interact with the customers. I'd been so busy with the Holiday show that I hadn't been able to start training in the last few weeks of December when everyone else did.

LONG STORY SHORT: When I finally heard from the Second Job, it was the news that due to unforseen circumstances, two female characters had been eliminated from the show, so though I and a few other ladies are still TECHNICALLY employed, there was no word on when we'd be able to train, or work.

Cue Depression

The money I'm making on unemployment is barely enough to pay the bills, and did I mention that The Boyfriend is unemployed as well (Hey, did you guys know there's some kind of economic crisis going on out there?)?

Thus began several days of lying on the couch, eating DiGiorno's pizza and watching Battlestar Gallactica. 

I was upset about one thing and one thing only: Though the New Job was resuming this month, it is by no means full-time. I needed the Second Job to be able to pay my bills, work down my debt and (oh, yeah) eat. I saw no alternative than to go back to the Restaurant Industry. And if THAT happened, I could no longer call myself a full time actor. THE HORROR.

Here's Where it Gets Better:

The other day, I was doing the dishes, feeling depressed, and being bummed out about how depressed I was. And then a thought occured to me; clear as day, as if I'd known it the whole time (which I probably did) and I just needed to remember it:

This was not an unfortunate setback in an otherwise on-track life. This was not a shocking surprise, like it had been when The Boyfriend got laid off. This was my life. And I could waste time being depressed about possibly having to wait tables again, or I could treat it like another audition: "Hmm, I thought that was going to go a different way, but oh well, on to the next thing."

It was nice, being able to say that all my income came from acting, and I didn't have to work in a restaurant or as a temp or any of the other jobs actors do to pay the rent. But let's face it; it wasn't THAT much income. It was JUST enough, and without The Boyfriend's support (both emotionally and financially) would NEVER have worked.

So... here's the plan:

1. Visit parents in Florida, curl up on Mom's lap for four days (sans dog collar)

2. Enjoy what shifts at The New Job you have, and relish the feeling of doing what you want to do, a few days a week at least.

3. If the Second Job calls, they call.

4. Suck it up

5. Find another job that doesn't make you hate your life, that is flexible, and makes you enough money to be able to afford your monthly MetroCard. 

I remember the feeling I had when I heard I'd been cast at the New Job, and I knew I could leave the Restaurant I'd worked at for the past five years. I'd walked out into Times Square and blasted this song on repeat: 

I still feel a whisper of it every time I walk into the dressing room, so I'm going to hang onto that one instead of the one that makes me too depressed to shower.

       

  

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.

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.

New Headshots!

I've been waiting until the craziness of the holidays to be over before posting my new headshots for all to see.

After my unfortunate encounter with the Bitchy Headshot Photographer Who Shall Not Be Named, I told the story to one of my colleagues at The Restaurant, and he recommended the very talented Keri Shean.

Keri is a student at the Fashion Institute of Technology, and she'd taken some photos for him and his band. She and I exchanged a couple of messages via Facebook and quickly set up a time and place to meet.

She was great to work with. She really listened to what I wanted the shots to look like, and jumped in with her own suggestions. She was the one who suggested we shoot on the Highline, the above ground railroad tracks that now serves as a park.

We ended up having to push our shoot back a week. It was beautiful weather up until the day we were supposed to meet, and then it was pouring. So we met on the same day next week, only to find the skies frighteningly overcast.

We were only able to shoot for twenty minutes before the rain started. I tore through blouse changes like a house on fire. (I was wearing a flesh-colored tank top underneath everything, but I still got a few uncomfortable stares).

She promised we could meet again if I didn't get what I was looking for, but when she gave me the CD a few days later, I was impressed at how much we got. I ended up choosing all my shots from the pictures we took in those first twenty minutes.

Here they are, still sans-Photoshop to take away the Fiona Apple-esque bags under my eyes. The McNally Eyes, my father calls them.



I think they are a nice assortment of McNallys. Counting the one at the top, I have six altogether, so I can choose which one I think best fits the casting I'm submitting for. That's almost a McNally for every day of the week. Monday through Saturday, and then for Sundays, I can use this one:

Smartphones are making us dumb...

On my way to the audition at 20 Jay Street, I realized a little too late that my iPhone had given me the wrong directions, prompting me to get off the F train at Jay Street-Metrotech and walk fifteen minutes back towards Manhattan. If the people at Apple really wanted to make the Apple update appealing, they would have made Siri a 56 year old New Yorker who knows the quickest way to get anywhere, when taking the bus just isn't an option.

Once my GPS confirmed that I was going the right way, I put the phone back in my pocket and began the walk back up to DUMBO, occasionally checking the map on my phone as the uber-hipster landscape began to unfold before me. Then, as I passed Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass, I came to 20 Jay Street.

Now, I had read the email several times. I knew that this was the address. But since I got my iPhone, I have gotten into the habit of glancing at emails, websites, maps and messages without actually absorbing any information, knowing that I can just look it up. Someone will invite me out to a restaurant and I don't even look up what neighborhood it's in until I'm already on the train.

So though in my heart I knew that this was the right building, I still felt the need to check my map and confirm. The phone caught on the edge of my pocket and I felt the tell-tale yank on my headphones that signifies, "you are about to drop your very expensive phone."

Not to worry, I bought a cushion-y case to shield Tim the iPhone from my frequent dropping.

Then, I watched in horror as Tim the iPhone skidded across the cobblestones, and landed with a PLOP in the middle of the only puddle on Water Street. (The irony occurred to me only after I'd finished crying hysterically.) At least three people witnessed its demise, and all three of them stopped to offer their sympathies. New Yorkers might be callous and hard about most things, but I guess some pain in universal.

But one young man went above and beyond. He was walking behind me when it happened, and rushed to my side immediately. As I stood, completely shell-shocked, trying to wipe the phone off on my sleeve, he took me step-by-step through exactly what I needed to do to save my phone.

Turn it off immediately. DO NOT turn it back on.
Get some uncooked rice, and put the phone in it. The rice will absorb all the moisture.

"Don't lose hope," he said, "it might be okay."

And then he was gone. He's pretty much responsible for the successful recovery of Tim the iPhone (spoiler alert--he's as good as new). Wish I could thank him, but I don't know who he is.

Now, I've heard of the rice thing before, but I was so completely shocked that I never would have thought of it. So I raced into the nearest Organic Produce and Grass-Fed Meat store, bought a $5 bag of rice (thanks hipsters) and stuck my phone in it. I tied it up in the recycled plastic bag and buried it deep in my purse along with my feelings.

And then I was alone on the street. I didn't know what time it was, nor what floor of the building the audition was on. I couldn't call to ask, and the building's fancy touch-screen directory yielded nothing. I couldn't call my Mom and cry to her, and I didn't know where the York Street subway stop was. And Oh my God what if something happens to me and I can't call 911? Immediately I felt like a target for muggers and murderers (at noon on a Tuesday) as if there was a big sign above my head that read, "Can Only Call For Help Vocally."

And then I remembered: The world has existed without cell phones. When people actually had to make plans ahead of time, pick a place to meet and actually be there on time. When we didn't call each other from across the mall to say, "I'm by Maternity. I see you, turn to your left and walk straight." We used our voices and waved our arms, remember?

Furthermore, I remember the world without smartphones, when people actually had to retain information, like where subway stops were. And if you were watching TV and saw an actor you knew from some other movie, you couldn't just pull out your pocket-sized computer and gain access to a whole list of everything they've ever done. You had to remember or it would bug the crap out of you.

I checked that email four times and I still didn't trust that I knew the address.

Is this what I've become? Someone who can't remember a brunch date without a little reminder that pops up while I'm playing DoodleJump? Have a really lived in New York my entire life and still don't know how to find the freaking F train?

I found the York Street subway stop on my own, went back to Midtown, crashed The Boyfriend's office and threw myself into his arms. Then, with an hour and a half until I had to be at work, and no way of knowing when that hour and a half would be up, I went to Starbucks ordered a Grande Bold and I realized:

I need a fucking watch.

Do yourself a favor...

The next time you're on Pandora, type in "Sunny Came Home" by Shawn Colvin. Almost every song that comes up on this station is guaranteed to make you go "Oh YEAH!" and regress to sitting in your room flipping through your CD collection while putting off doing your Social Studies homework. Some favorites so far have been "Sex and Candy," "She's So High," "Story of a Girl," "One Headlight" and "The Way" by Fastball (you know this one, trust me).

It's doing its job right now, which is to distract me from what I believe to be a rejection from a headshot photographer.

What happened:
I went to a wonderful workshop recently with a Commercial casting director who gave me some wonderful feedback. Among that feedback was the fact that I need new headshots.

For one thing, my hair is much different. It's about twice as long and I think I'm going to keep the length in hopes of doing a sexy, Sophia Vergara kind of thing. But also I only have one shot, and she asked me, "Is this your commercial or legit headshot?"

I believe my exact reply was, "Huggghhhn."

SO I've decided that this time around, I'm going to get at least five different pictures to be mixed and matched according to the role I'm submitting for, and lucky for me, she recommended a photographer.

I reached out, and we started talking about when we could shoot. He wanted to go right away, but I wanted a little more time. For one thing, I need a hair cut. Right now it's looking less like Sophia Vergara and more like I haven't had a spare $30 to get a trim in the last year and a half. For another thing, though I was getting a HUGE discount due to my referral I still needed about a week to pick up the dinner shifts at The Restaurant that would give me the available funds.

SIDE NOTE: Jewel's "Foolish Games" just game on. This Pandora station is like a Highlander flashback.

So though he suggested that we shoot Monday, I sent him back an email saying, "This Monday is actually not good for me." Which was very true, since I had tickets to go see an Andrew Bird concert in Poughkeepsie with Best Friend Cate. "How does next Monday work for you?"

He'd suggested Monday on Thursday the 13th. I sent my response on Friday the 14th. I didn't receive a reply until that Monday the 17th, which was the day he'd wanted to shoot:


And that was it.

So, I sent one more reply, starting with the phrase, "Ha ha," as if the snarkiness was all in good fun, and offered a few more days that would work for me and thanking him for his patience with my scheduling issues, but I have heard nothing from him since.

Now, in response to the headshot drama, I've found a new photographer who is fabulous and much more patient. As soon as I shoot with her I'll post links to her stuff and our photos. Also she's much cheaper so suck it "professional" photographer who shall not be named.

Now, I haven't posted any names but I still had a lot of trouble deciding whether or not to post this entry. I'm hesitant to defame or "call someone out" on this blog. But let me just say, almost everyone now has a blog or a Twitter or a LinkedIn profile or what have you. Not all of us are lucky enough to have an assistant editor of the New York Times who was once quoted using a homophobic slur to camouflage them in a Google search (thanks Michele McNally!)
So my feeling is, Don't Be a Dick. Because if you are, chances are someone is going to blog about it. And next time they might not be nice enough to not use your name.

Back to the Grind

The completely insane, arduous task of being in two Manhattan Rep One Acts at the same time has finally come to an end.

Sorry I couldn't squeeze out at least one blog entry during production, but honestly, you're lucky I left the house wearing pants every day during the month of September.

To be honest, drama aside, it actually wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. I didn't get to sleep past 9am AT ALL all month (I am not used to this), and I was running around the city with a big giant bag full or crap (be it props, costumes or clothing so I could stay at The Boyfriend's house) almost every day, and by the end I forgot what Best Friend Jen's face looked like, but I managed to keep my sanity. I'm proud to report that I made rent with no problem, thanks mainly to the fact that I picked up double shifts wherever I could. (Thanks Christine!)

Favorite day: Thursday September 22nd

• Lunch shift at The Restaurant from 10am to 5pm.
  
• Straight to Manhattan Rep (42nd and 8th) for the 6:30 performance of The Mechanicals
• 8:30pm: After the show, we go to a bar for a celebratory toast. I order a shot of Southern Comfort, toast to the production, suck it down, throw down cash and then run to the Subway
• Rehearsal for Dust in the Wind on 96th and Lex until 11pm.
• 45 minute train ride home to Queens
  
• Work in the morning. 10am
  

I am a Golden God.

From an email from the director of the Manhattan Repertory Theatre

Both shows were so much fun, though very different. I loved "The Mechanicals" because it was light-hearted and silly, and didn't take itself too seriously. And I loved "Dust in the Wind" because it was dramatic and arresting (I got to choke to death at the end--very cool)

In the end, "The Mechanicals" made it to the final round. There were four shows in the finals. Each show is in a performance series of about four or five One-Acts, and audience members assign them a rating from 1 to 5, 1 being bad, and 5 being the best. For the finals, the four shows with the highest numbered scores were chosen. Of the three other shows chosen for the finals, two had been in the same performance series as "The Mechanicals" and the third had been in the same performance series as "Dust in the Wind." So I knew everyone in the finals.

This was how I knew it was going to be fun.

We didn't win, but the whole night was so much fun anyway. At the end, Manhattan Rep had wine and champagne for us, and we had a little party.

And a bunch of us ended up going to Koreatown and renting a private karaoke room, complete with buckets of beer and a complimentary bottle of champagne.

Keep in mind for the future: If some bar ever gives you a complimentary bottle of champagne, you've ALREADY spent too much money.

Side note: My singing voice is either much better when I'm drunk, or I just THINK it is.

And NOW back to the grindstone. Next up on the agenda are a haircut and new headshots, so much of October is going to be spent making money and saving said money. But in the meantime I have about five or six hard copies of my current headshot left, so look for at least five or six more auditions in the near future!

To the castle!!

Fit

An important part of being an actor in this unforgiving city is having actor friends around you to be supportive of you. After all, what good is doing a show if none of your friends come to see it?

I've been lucky enough to have some amazing actor friends, almost all of whom are not douches. And two of the most non-douchey friends I have are Harmony and Lauren.

Harmony (left) is my college roommate's cousin. I'd met her once or twice when she came to a party a the house Cate and I shared in New Paltz, and when she moved to the city, Cate gave her my number and I helped get her a job at The Restaurant (a crime I'll always be seeking redemption for).

Since then she and I have become whatever the female equivalent of "bros" is (my first instinct is "hoes" but that doesn't sound right, so I'm just going to go with "bros"). The multitude of Facebook photos of us hanging out has never ceased to freak Cate out.

Lauren (right) and I both graduated at the same time, me from New Paltz and her from Miami, and we both started working at The Restaurant at the same time. Both of us were kind of alone in the city, with our college besties in different states, so we grabbed onto each other by the arm and decided to be Replacement Best Friends.

Since then our "best friends" have come back into our lives, and Lauren and I have graduated from Replacement Best Friends to Actual Friends.

So... I've had cause to be pretty jealous in the last few weeks, because Harmony and Lauren are in a show together right now. I saw it last night, and I have to say I'm very proud of my lovely lady friends.

The show is called "Fit," and it's part of the NY Fringe Festival. They got just a critic's pick on Backstage, and a lovely review (including a big ol' picture of Lauren talking to her baby).

Both of them are doing Scottish accents, and rocking them! The story is about three generations of women, a grandmother, a mother and a daughter, all of whom are twenty years old when the play takes place. Lauren plays Fiona, the grandmother who at twenty years old is a wife and mother in a tiny flat in Glasgow. Harmony is her daughter Lauren (ha!) who at twenty is rebelling against her mother's conventional lifestyle.

It's an interesting thing when you go see your friends in a meaty role with a lot of drama, and realize that they're really good. Both of them made me cry, and I'm planning on seeing it again next week, and dragging The Boyfriend as well!

Here's a review from nytheatre.com!