Rehearse, MODIFY, Audition, MODIFY, Camera Ready!

Being prepared requires a lot of Auditions, Rehearsing, Modifications and Tweaking. If you walk away from an audition and don't feel 100% sure of yourself, you most likely were not prepared enough. I have an audition today! I've been modifing my character for 3 days. I'll even tweak her and flesh her out a little more today. Whatever you're doing, if you're focused exactly on the task, that's preparation. It's a way of being very peaceful and confident in bringing your character to live. If you don't book the role, that's because of something outside your control, a look , a match to the other actors, whatever.

This was a pencil for an educational magazine.

IDLE

It ran across my mind today, driving Hwy 290 to Austin and back, for an acting workshop, that I have 'Idle" time! What a luxury... albeit I may be driving these idle times, but they still exsist. Thing is, my mind is NEVER idle. Today for instance, I learned two new songs, a few more scriptures, wrote and tweaked a one woman show! In the car I'm a star ! I'm never Idle.

Back in 2003 I did this watercolor. These were days when I had no idle time, only deadlines to meet! It was for a romance novel. My model was perfectly idle, the setting was calm, almost sacred, I loved the finished art.

TANGO !!!!

I usually try and combine the Illustration Friday word prompt with my Acting Blog once a week. This week the word is "Tango". How perfect! Finding just the right dance partner! Just the right role! Just the right Director! It all has to flow to be compelling enough to keep the audience engaged. When the audition comes and you walk in to perform in one sweeping motion, you know it's excellent. You've prepared and practiced every dance move in the scene over and over. Now the Director has the call backs. He has to love the way you move, the way your voice sounds, the way you look for the part, who you are in his dance.

Recently I was dissapointed to learn about a role I wanted that was being offered to a real veteran actress. The same week I learned I got the part playing a veteran actress in another movie! A lot of twirlling's involved in this acting dance.

Keep smiling, drawing and dancing with the stars!

Hollow Words

To the flatterer speaking hollow words is just part of the routine I guess. To an actor, they're messing with my life! As an actor, I've worked hard to find a process into the character, living their life and trying to connect to the wholness of the story in a 3 minute audition; even though I have only a part of the story to share. Over the years I've painstakingly discovered as well as radomly stumbled in to what works and doesn't work. I give myself to my work. Can I really believe what I've been told? I hate hollow words, they break me into pieces and shatter my understanding. I try not to receive everything that's said in the room. I mean there are no rules to violate, I think they are just trying to reassure me. False hopes or hollow words are sometimes hard to toss in the wind later. I want to believe them! I'm moving through a living network. I want to co-create with the story teller. Common sense doesn't always surface. Instead I've allowed someone to tinker with my mind and that gets my head all messy!

Feeling Shaky; In search of an auditioning network

Last Monday I was driving West out of Houston, on Tuesday I headed North on I-75, on Thursday, I took a new route to Ft. Worth running Northwest through dry flat sweetgrass. Each audition is as exciting and thriling as an exotic vacation. On arrival I join the bloodstream of other actors. we're all there to help someone tell their story. What an intoxicating thought, "I've been asked to come to give voice and movement to the story tellers character." "They want me!" It's usually over within a few moments, but I never leave unchanged. As soon as I'm back in my car, I drive half blind, still caught up in the experience. Still so fresh, I can adjust each word and body movement under my magnifying glass. After clearing my thought back on the Interstate, there's nothing before me but hope.

As the week comes around so many things and decisions made become questionable. Something is happening to me. I'm thrown into a spiral of my experiences. Will I get a call-back? Was I excellent in my work? " Do you see a man who excels in his work? He will stand before those of

significance, not before the unknown." Proverbs 22:29 I start feeling disoriented. But I know I cannot be the only actor to experience Shaky! Where are their stories? Not that I'm going to live through something exactly the way anyone else has, but if I could see their map, to show me how they deal with the 'wait', then I can take my own steps.

Once again, Agent calls, and I'm OFF! Isaiah 55:12 " You shall go out with joy and be led by peace; the mountain and the hills shall break forth with singing , the trees on the interstate shall clap their hands."