And now we play The Waiting Game...
Still waiting for news of my cinematic fate. Looks like my audition for Much Ado... will be on Sunday evening. I am still attempting to find a good monologue from the show to audition with...looking at Beatrice right now.
The waiting game sucks. Let's play Hungry, Hungry Hippos! (That's Simpson's reference #1)
The story so far...
As all stories must have a beginning, traditionally, at least, I suppose it would be a good idea to write down my reasons for creating this journal.
I have been a theatre enthusiast ever since the first moment I stepped on stage at the age of nine: "A Technicolor Promise"; the Noah and the Ark play. Alexander Gibson Memorial School. Directed by Mrs. Love, the second grade teacher. I was a part of the chorus. Credited as "villager #3", and “a fox”. I've come a long way since then.Throughout the years since that initial stage-bug bite I have done everything from Cole Porter (Anything Goes), to Tom Stoppard (The Real Inspector Hound), to Shakespeare (Love's Labour's Lost and The Twelfth Night), to A. R. Gurney (The Dining Room). Not every experience has necessarily been positive, but I will say that I have managed to at least pull out some piece of wisdom from every moment that I have been on stage, whether I meant to or not! I have met some incredible people as a result of my involvement in the theatre, and have had some of the most wonderful times of my life, both on stage and while I was waiting in the wings.
Over the last year I have been employed professionally through a local theatre troupe, The Calithumpians, where I taught drama and performed on stage throughout the summer months. I have also performed in a total of four shows (two full length and two were part of a 10-minute play festival), and have just recently auditioned for a part in a feature length film, receiving a call back (the beginnings of pay dirt in actor-land) for said film. This pretty much brings us up to date. I am now waiting patiently to hear back from a casting director, and am getting ready to audition for a production of Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing (this one's for you, Matt).
The idea here is that if I get even one of these roles (please the movie, please the movie! please, please, please!) I will be able to conical my experiences on set/stage as well as my second summer working with The Calithumpians. I don't believe that there are enough truthful, real life accounts out there about what we non-union, aspiring-to-be-profession al actors go through in the pursuit of our dreams; particularly those of us who are working outside of the epicenter(s) of the "business": New York, L.A., Toronto, London, etc. The ability to see how others before me have attempted to make their way from the periphery to the centre (or near-centre) of this industry is a resource that I would have absolutely loved to have had as a younger person. It is my hope that my journal might inspire another young person to believe in themselves and their abilities enough to keep going, and to make their dreams come true.
Of course we won't all “make it”. I haven't made it yet, and the odds are good that I never will. The point is that I have not let my failures defeat me, and that I approach each opportunity with the same enthusiasm as I did the ones that have come before it.
With any luck there will be more to come once I hear back about the outcome of my call back!