National Theatre for Children

SO I TOOK A JOB!!!!!!!! STARTING ON SEPTEMBER 1ST I'LL BE WORKING FOR THE NATIONAL THEATRE FOR CHILDREN DOING A CHILDREN'S TOUR AROUND THE INDIANA/OHIO AREA FOR 10 WEEKS UNTIL THANKSGIVING.

I'll be entertaining these guys:

I'll be doing an educational show dealing with energy conservation (I think). Be regardless, it pays well and I'll get to see part of the country I've never been to.

The biggest downside is that it's super part time and I have no idea what I'm going to do once Thanksgiving is over. Well, I guess it's all in the life of an actor I suppose.

A Lull

So everything was happening really fast. UPTAs followed by two job offers...now's the lull. And it's been kinda making me alittle depressed! I mean, Come'on Companies! Offer me jobs! Give me choices!!

I've heard from a few more companies, but nothing totally definate:

Commonweal and NTC (for sure)
Walnut Street
Warehouse
Lexington Children's Co
Pacific Conservatory for Performing Arts

And I've also had word from a few friends/colleages (Chris Davis, Teresa Morrow, Cookie Ewing) that they have received phone calls asking about me. That's all pretty cool.

I guess I just need to figure stuff out really soon. I need to make some choices!!!

Help my Career! Give me work!

Already!?

So, it happened alot faster than I thought it would ever happen, but yesterday I already received two job offers.
One from Commonweal Theatre in Lanesboro, Minnesota. It's for an acting apprenticeship. Super Awesome! Apprenticeship at a regional theatre!
Second one from the National Theatre for Children. I'm super excited about this one! Good pay and the chance to travel the country to perform in schools all over the place!!

I'm just excited everyday now! What will be in my box when I wake up in the morning?

What's Next?

Well I'm honestly quite proud of myself. To the point that I really just want to announce it to the world! I worked hard and did well at UPTAs. But what from here?

It's really out of my hands for awhile. Most companies I talked to won't get back to me or make any decisions from anywhere to 2 weeks to 3 months!! And it's really bad because those that make offers in 2 weeks are gonna want answers quick. So pretty soon here I'll have to be making life decisions that cancel out other options. Do I take offers and never know what else there is? Or do I refuse the immediate offer hoping for something better and never getting it?

Really, I'm bouncing between two options right now. Internship or Tour. Interships at regional playhouses don't pay well at all, but they're great resume builders. Children tours pay better, but you're on the road for 6 months at a time sleeping in hotel rooms everyday.

Sure, I can do both, but definately not at the same time. Alas! What do I want!??

UPTAs!!

UPTAs went great. I nailed my audition piece. I didn't get quite as many call backs as I originally wanted, but that's ok, I got some really good one. I got called back to:

Cumberland Theatre
Commonweal Theatre
National Theatre for Children
Lexington Children's Theatre
Warehouse Theatre
Playhouse on the Square
Bright Star Children's Theatre
Praire Fire Children's Theatre
New Stage Theatre
Dollywood
Walnut Street Theatre

...and 7 more.

I'm glad I got called back to so many children's theatres. That was what I think I was shooting for.

UPTAs themselves were crazy. I woke up at 5am that morning to begin warming up. I had to be at the playhouse at 7:30 to check in, and then we had an actor's meeting. Then I had some down time before my audition. Then a little more downtime before my callbacks. Once those started though, oh man!
I got out to the Holiday Inn - Airport Suites at 4:30 and was there til quarter til one in the morning. I got 18 call backs and had to then go room to room and sign up for call back slots. Which was really confusing because some call backs took longer than others and not all companies did call back til really late at night. I also had 2 dance call backs to attend. Which was just crazy because I was running from end of the hotel where I was nicely singing to the other end to dance. And while running I was stripping into my dance clothes and changing pants in elevators and etc. It was pretty cool.
There were people there, too, from all over the place. I met a girl from California and a girl from New York. People really go all the way for these types of things.

I was so tired by the end. My feet were hurting and my voice was sore from singing/talking all night. One my last call backs of the night was Playhouse on the Square and they were so nice. I got there at about 12:20 and they were like, "Jim, you can't possibly be good anymore" and they were right, I sucked that late at night. So I actually had to go back the next night to finish my last two call backs.

It was exhausting but I'm so glad I did it. I'm glad it's over but I wish others from Rhodes would have done it with me, cause for nothing else, it was certainly an experience!

Prepared. Just not all that prepared.

I was completely prepared for UPTAs. I had my audition piece down to a T.

Song: "Tonight at Eight" from She Loves Me
"Play me an E to start"
In my imagination I can hear our conversation taking shape
tonight
at eight
I'll sit there saying absolutely nothing or I'll jabber
like an ape
tonight
at eight
two more minutes, three more seconds, ten more hours to go
I'll know when this is done if somethings ended or begun
and if it goes, alright, who knows, I might, PROPOSE!
tonight
at eight!

Monologue: "Universal Language" by David Ives
Dawn di Vito.. Gavotte'n harmonika klink doppa du.
Iago trattoria Shakespeare enda Unamunda fer du.
Forsoot! Nintendo. Ah Romeo, Romeo, bilko arfst du Romeo?
Ballontifool, no? Mock Visp? Gavotte loomen trip yondra fenstra shient?
Arf den oyster, epp Juliet aft sonnnng! Video, Froyling, Unamunda arf da
linkwa supreemka di amamor.
Ah Dawn, Nevva Evva felta sucha feleetzee-totsee-oneeya. Da Voonda. Da inspermation.
Dawn, This isn't just a language. This isn't just a room, this is the garden of Eden and you and I are finding names for a whole new world!

So both of those happen in roughly 84 seconds, fitting nicely into my 90 second time limit. My repertoire was pretty good too. I had about 14 extra musical songs from a wide variety of genres to perform at callbacks. My monologue repertoire isn't quite as good. I wanted four extra monologues, but I only ended up having two: Caliban from The Tempest and Phaeton from Metamorphoses.

But I felt really good about both of these. And not to mention, I got tons of help from friends. Both Cookie and Dave Landis helped to give me a leg up by workshopping my pieces with them. Dave was especially helpful because I got to practice on the actual set that I would be auditioning.

UPTAs Up and Coming!

UPTAs are in 5 days!!!!!!!!

Am I ready? NO!

I suppose I'm not as bad off as I could be though. My music repertoire is so close to being ready to go. I've decided I'm going to sing "Tonight at Eight" from She Loves Me for the actual auditions. As for the rest of the music goes, I'm doing pretty good. I've got fast and slow standards, ballads, pop, rock, and character songs. Last Thursday I actually got the opportunity to test out my repertoire for my music lab. I had the class act as directors and pick what they wanted to hear and I did it. It went pretty well too and has made me feel alot better. I just need to finish copying and cutting and printing my differnt parts of the music to make it easy for the accompanist to read and play for me.

My monologues are where I need the most help. I've cut together a gibberish piece for my actual audition piece from The Universal Language by David Ives. I hope it turns out ok. I'll keep you posted. For callbacks (assuming I get calledback...) I've got pieces from Metamorphoses, The Tempest, The Clawfoot Interviews, and Alcestis.

Wish me luck!

My Headshot

So here is a picture of my final headshot that I submitted. I think it's pretty good. Of course, I didn't submit the headshot in color, just in black and white, but it's kinda nice in color. I think for a graduation gift I'm going to ask my parents for a couple hundred so I can get some professional prints taken.

Headshot Dilemma

So we've all heard of this starving artist thing, but I think people forget that sometimes it's still necessary to spend money to make money. Graduation from college in just a few short months I've been forced to look to the future to figure out what in the world am I going to do? But as an actor, my interview process is just a little different. Instead of cover letters, resumes, and recommendations, I have resumes, headshots, and a 90 second audition in front of over 125 companies to impress them into giving me a job. The headshot and resume was the worst part. Printing 125 of them was not only tedious, it was so expensive! I ended up going over to my friend's to spend countless hours watching Family Guy and waiting as my 8X10 headshots printed in Black and White at an average of four and a half minutes a piece. My friend is awesome. I totally kept her from hanging out with her boyfriend as she sat there in her ridiculous, too-small-for-her, youth-boy's one-sy and kept me company. She even let me borrow her flash drive to load up all my headshot pics and resume info so I could take that info and print it out at school (which was only alittle faster). I ended up having to spend close to $120 just in information to pass out to hopeful employers; That's way too much for a poor college student who is not even anticipating making any real money throughout his career!!!! I guess it's the same though as applying to Grad Schools, you have to pay for those too...so I guess it's the same...but its still annoying!