Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Its that time again...

Hello readers!

Its been too long.  Let's just get it out there-I am ridiculously bad at this.

I auditioned again in September. They went...ok. I chose a piece I had done before (the Cow piece) and a new one from the TV series Sports Night by Aaron Sorkin.  I like the pieces. I was frustrated because I couldn't find a new comedic piece, and one of the auditioners had seen the Cow piece before. Part of the magic of that poem is the unexpected...and well....the unexpected was expected. Womp womp.

Lazy Actor flaws this time around:
1. Practiced right before audition (well...1 week before) (bad idea-need more time)
2. Practiced in my living room (ok idea-KK does say to use a small space--I think she said 10x10 ft. square?--but not ideal)
3. I'm tried something new (great idea in the long run because I'm auditioning for people I've auditioned for before--but bad idea in that I take too long to find material--not enough practice time)
   -->Not to mention this was my first TV monologue I've ever done. Some anxiety surrounding that.

So enough analyzing. My goal this month is to find some good comedic pieces. That are fresh. That are MOVEMENT based. I have learned something about myself: I am deeply tied to a character's movement. The more I can explore movement patterns in a piece, the more comfortable I will be.

If you have suggestions of comedic roles for ladies that I should look into, I'd love to hear your suggestions. Until then,

Adios!

-Whit

Tuesday, April 12, 2011

New Deadline and Deep Thoughts

Hello readers!

Yes, I fell of the face of the planet. It hurt. But 3 shows and 6 weeks later, I can say I survived with only minor bruising. Whew!

Kristi and I have talked-well we emailed-about the fact that (here comes the deep thought...) if you're performing and working as an actor (and working somewhere else to pay the bills), its not the most convenient time to find new material. Now, you may say, "You lazy actor!" Yes, I admit, we could be dedicating *some* time...but when you're trying to learn your lines, it takes alot of will to not just stop there.

So the good news: we're working! Bad news: The blog (and our monologue collection) gets all dusty from disuse.

We have made great strides so far. KK has really helped us (she's helped me alot!), and the fact that we've been incredibly lucky using the material we've found, the outcomes are positive--I think we were just a bit too ambitious to set our deadline this year.

We are extending our project of 50 monologues to next Memorial Day (2012 for those of you living under your comfy cozy rock ;)).

On a side note-I just auditioned for another musical last night and got cast! Information has not been posted on the theatre's website yet, so I won't say much--but I am SYKED....SIKED....SYIKED (however you spell it). I was so excited, that I had a really really hard time sleeping last night.

And you know what? For this audition, I had to sing. And ONLY sing. Usually, I'd rather have at least one monologue or dance number in my back pocket...but I sang. And I sang two songs. And I survived. Whoa.

And I accepted something that's been touched on here (another deep thought-you can handle it--deep breaths)--you have to ACT your song just like a monologue. So therefore, I'm claiming these two songs as part of my top 25 list. Because they worked, they were active, and they were a heck of alot of fun to perform.

Back to your regularly scheduled programming....

-Whit

Sunday, March 20, 2011

Womp Womp

You guys, I'm worried. That our project is failing.

We suck at blogging, let's just put that out there. I can't speak for Whitney, but I honestly haven't been putting in the time that is really needed to do this project. And when I get even more honest with myself, the reason that I haven't been putting in the time is that I'm lazy. Which is ironic because this whole project is about NOT being a lazy actor.

I need to be real with myself and recomit to working on this. Even if the full 25 monologues doesn't happen, if I can get 10 I'll feel good.

I'm crazed with rehearsal for a workshop of a new musical right now, but I'm going to commit to using my lunch hout at work this week to work on some pieces.

Let's do it!

Thanks for understanding friends.
Kristi

Friday, February 25, 2011

Done and Done

Midwest Theatre auditions are over.

*GIGANTIC SIGH OF RELIEF*

Seriously, I was putting a lot of pressure on myself. I think a big part of that stems from a surge of wanderlust that struck me right around Halloween and has only gotten swifter and swifter as the months go on. Although Chicago is lovely in the summer (free concerts from the likes of Mumford and Sons and She & Him? Yes, please!) I would like to be elsewhere this year. As I mentioned before, Midwest is bascially a cattle call audition for many summer and year-round theatres, so it was my golden opportunity and I hope you'll allow me this moment of ego...

I nailed it.

My song never sounded better and my monologue was right on track. I LOVE it when you can walk away from an audition and know that, even you don't get called back for anything, you still did the best job you could do and you had fun while doing it.

One of the things I think makes Midwest so great is that you are on an actual stage. Back in the day (and even as recently as the 70's) that was how all auditions were conducted. These days, you are usually in a tiny room somewhere and "overacting" is a serious concern. But not at Midwest. You are on a stage, with house lights out and stage lights up. You can't see the people you're auditioning for (which I love) and you get the added benefit of being on the set of whatever show is currently running in that theatre. All of this helps your audition. A lot. What better way to audition for a theatre job than on a stage? If it was up to me, all auditions would be conducted this way.

I ended up with 4 callbacks (although one of the theatres was not actually attending the callbacks, so I don't count them) Funnily enough, I got a call back from the summer theatre at my alma mater, Hope Summer Repertory Theatre. For various reasons, I was never available during the summers while I was in college, so I never had a chance to work with them.The other two theatres were Tibbets Summer Playhouse in MI and Missoula Children's Theatre in Montana. Most of them start the hiring process sometime in March, so fingers crossed I'll hear something soon.

Don't think my auditions are over though. Next week is my audition for GreatWorks Theatre Company (a children's company) as well as Remy Bumppo (a pro company here in Chicago). The following week is the national tour of Mama Mia, Mason Street Warehouse (in Michigan) and the Marriott Theatre (again in the Chicagoland area)

WHEW. Life is busy, friends.

I hope you all have a wonderful Oscar weekend! King's Speech is my vote for Best Picture!

With love and gratitude -
Kristi

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Its raining...

...rehearsals, y'all! So my plan to be in one show this year happened...three-fold. For the last two weeks, and into the next 4 or so, I'll be performing and rehearsing 3 shows! One has past already--the theatre co I work for partnered with our city's symphony. Whilst they played excerpts from Prokofiev's Cinderella, we acted out the story without words. I was an ugly stepsister--it can't be better than that! ;) (And if you're looking to listen to some GORGEOUS classical music-check out this music.)

I'm now in the works of Charlotte's Web, and Sunday I start Bat Boy rehearsals. Whew! When it rains, it pours.

So- I am working on getting you that lovely KK checklist. I promise. And I'm also venturing more into the TV show monologue realm. If y'all haven't watched "Big Love" get thee to your Netflix queue (or your local library). It. Is. Grrrrreat! Now not all of the actors are totally with it (some are amazing. Hello, Jeanne Tripplehorn), but the characters are fascinating, and there are some awesome hunks of text to explore.

Alright-onward and upward. Have a great week, friends!
-Whit

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Where are we? What day is it?

You guys, I'm gonna be frank.

I'm am going batshit crazy.

I have had a string of several auditions for various summer and year round theatres lately and every audition has required something just a little bit different. As my voice teacher's 6 year old daughter says, "Well. That. Is. Just. SILLY."

I get it. They need to find the right people and they want to see something that will let them know if you will fit into their season or not. I get that. I do. But it's made preparation hard because I can't prepare the same song or monologue for every audition. I guess this is actually the truth about most auditions, but most auditions don't come one right after the other and leave you no time to prepare in between. And that makes for some very half-assed auditions and a very frustrated me.

I must admit, I'm getting nervous about this project. Our deadline is rapidly approaching, I feel like I have no time to put the work in and I'm starting to wonder if we're in over our heads. And then two seconds later, I kick myself and think, "This is your career, you have to make the time." And then I feel lazy and remember that this project is all about not being a lazy actor and the circle just goes round and round....

Once Midwest Theatre Auditions are over this weekend, I'll be able to breathe a bit before the next auditions. Then I'm going to try to AM going to commit some serious time to working on this project. 25 monologues don't find, edit, learn and memorize themselves.

Deep cleansing breathes....and.....GO.

--Kristi

PS: I got cast in a TV pilot at Columbia College here in Chicago! They have a crack team of kids over there in the film school and I'm excited to get started. More info when I have it....

Wednesday, February 9, 2011

Well?

I'm sure you've all been waiting with baited (bated?) breath to find out how my audition went.

Overall, I felt it went well. My monologue was awesome. If I didn't love it before, I love it now. TV monologues are just SO PERFECT for this situation. They are short, sweet and to the point. I think with a little KK work, I can take it to the next level for Midwest Theatre auditions in two weeks. Judge away, but I'm sticking with it.

My song is another story. I just didn't feel good about it. Specifically, I didn't feel good about one note. (For those of you who are musically inclined, it's D4) It's hard to explain what makes that section of the song difficult without using a bunch of music jargon, but I'll say this. In a performance situation where I would be adequately warmed up and singing throughout the show, it wouldn't be a problem. In an audition situation where I warm up before I go, but then sit around for an hour and don't have anywhere to sing and keep myself warm, it's not ideal.

I still haven't decided if I'm going to change my song or not. I have another audition this weekend and I'm going to give it one more go. If it doesn't work out, I'll change it. I've got some songs on reserve, just in case.

In completely unrelated news, how are you all dealing with the the blizzard aftermath? Have you dug yourself out yet? Chicago got walloped with snow and now we've got no where to put it. Some of the cars in my neighborhood haven't even tried to dig out. My coworker said she'll just take the train until spring. I don't have a car, but it would be really nice if people would plow their sidewalks!

In news that is more related, I think I'm going to begin a program called The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron in the coming weeks. I won't say too much about it now, but I'm hoping that putting it out there publicly will give me the motivation to actually do it. :)

With love and gratitude,
Kristi

Friday, January 28, 2011

Tomorrow Is The Big Day!

It's finally here. The day I've been dreading working toward the past few weeks.

Illinois Theatre Auditions.

To tell you the truth, I actually feel completely prepared. I have a great song (Holding To The Ground from Falsettoland) and a monolouge that I enjoy (a piece from Grey's Anatomy) This audition is one of those cattle calls where you have 1 minute 30 secs to give a song and monologue performance. This year, for quite possibly the first time ever, I'm not worried about time. I ran my whole audition last night and it came in at 1:40 the first time. I cut two sentences, ran it again and wham, bam, 1 minute 27 seconds.

Although I am hopeful that something will come out of these auditions, I'm considering this a warm up for Midwest Theatre Auditions which happen in mid-February. My goal right now is to get out of Chicago for the summer and there will be plenty of summer theatres at Midwest auditions.

I haven't had much time in recent weeks to apply the entire KK method to the monologue I'm using tomorrow. I've been doing KK Light; taking some of her ideas and trying them out, but not going through the full boat. Once I see how the audition goes tomorrow, I'll know what worked and what didn't and I'll start applying the full method to my monologue so it's fool-proof for Midwest.

Wish me lots of (figurative) broken appendages tomorrow. Say a prayer, light a candle, kiss up a good wish and keep me in your thoughts!

Kristi

Wednesday, January 19, 2011

D.O.L (M?)

Okay, I'll admit it. I loved D.O.L sheets in elementary school. Like, really loved. As in, I would save them all in my desk and never throw them out. Not only did they provide a nice routine to the morning (you always had a D.O.L sheet to look forward to in the morning), they also tested your knowledge of what you had learned so far. Ahh...memories.

Alright gentle readers, here they are! The first of two worksheets (D.O.M-for-'monologue'?) designed to make your audition process flow seamlessly. Have a look at the sheets, watch the video and come back soon for some more monologue goodness!

Introductory Questions

Structure



**If the worksheet links don't work, leave us a comment and I'll fix it.**

Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Short and Sweet

Hi everyone! Happy 1/11/11! Wouldn't it be cool if you were turning 11 years old today? It'd be like a golden birthday, only better.

I have a video in the works that I will be sharing with you hopefully in the next day or two. I'm introducing the first two worksheets that Whitney mentioned in her last post, so stay tuned for that!

Today, I wanted to share a note about what I call short and sweet monologues. (I talk about this some in the video, but I wanted to elaborate here)

It seems to me the standard audition is one monologue, under 2 minutes. This is pretty basic for most non-musical audition situations, but I've noticed lately a lot of companies have been asking for something under 1 minute.

To a non-actor, 1 minute might seem like forever, but it's really a very short amount of time. There's not a whole lot you can do with 1 minute. Take a paragraph out of your favorite book and read it out loud. It probably takes you roughly a minute to read it at normal speed. See how fast it went by? Now try to pack something of substance in those 60 seconds.

Part of this project has been to look for monologues in non-traditional places and a great place to go for short and sweet monologues is television shows. I know, I know, it seems weird, but think about it. TV writers have 45 minutes to tell an entire story. So any monologue they write has to get to the point and get there quick.

The current monologue I'm working on is from Grey's Anatomy (my fave show :)). The show is in it's seventh season. My monologue is from season 5. If you chose to do a monologue from a currently running TV show, it's probably a good idea to go one or two seasons back. One of the problems you run into doing a monologue from television is that your auditors may have preconceived notions about what this character is supposed to look and sound like. After all, someone is already playing this character in front of millions of people weekly. If you chose a past season, most likely no one but the hard-core fans will remember that speech. Also, since characters tend to change from season to season, there's a good chance that your character in season 5 is not the same character in season 7.

I always stayed away from doing TV monologues in auditions because I was embarrassed to say, "My name is Kristi and I'll be doing a monologue from *insert TV show here*" However, my friend Brandon, a fellow actor, gave me a great tip recently. He uses a monologue from a popular TV show quite frequently and when he does, he states the title of the episode not the title of the TV show. If they ask, you can certainly tell them what TV show it's from, but by telling them the title of the episode, you hopefully keep them from passing immediate judgement.

I mentioned above that the auditors might have preconceived ideas about who this character is, but it can't be denied that you do as well. I watch Grey's every week and have been living with this character for 2 years, so I certainly have an idea about how she should be played. However, I'm doing everything I can to rid myself of those brain worms*. I only watched the episode once and that was so I could get the story. I got the text of the piece off the internet, but I couldn't quite remember the context, so I watched the episode exclusively for that. During the scene in which my monologue occurs, I didn't pay any attention to the acting, only to the text of the piece to make sure I had it written down correctly. After all, the internet isn't always right.  ...

Once I had done that, I put the DVDs away and I won't pull them out again until after I have finalized my version of this piece. In the video to come, you'll see that I've done some of my KK homework and I'll be finishing the rest this week. It's so incredibly helpful and I can't wait to share with you how I feel her homework has impacted my audition. We know it's done well for Whitney! She got cast in a great show!

Have a great day everyone and don't miss my next video, coming soon!

With gratitude-
Kristi


*Does anyone remember that Private Practice/Grey's cross-over episode when Addison's brother had parasites in his brain?! Intense.

Tuesday, January 4, 2011

Speaking of dropping that ball...

Happy New Year! Well, Kristi wasn't the only one. I dropped the ball too--off a steep cliff--into a mile deep canyon. But as a New Year's resolution I promise to be better (or atleast try) at keeping this blog afloat.

I left you hanging after that last audition-I got it! I performed my Cow monologue again, and this time with more confidence and success. I do believe KK would be proud (I did my KK homework after all). I also sang...did you guess it?..."Keys" from Passing Strange by STEW. If you haven't listened to this autobiographical, small cast rock musical, you have an assignment. Listen. Look it up on PBS (they filmed a performance). Just brilliant.

So the audition yielded a part in another rock musical. One about a bat who's half boy, or is it the other way around? Who knows. But I get bitten. Then I die. But not before singing and dancing my little heart out and dressing in drag.  I'm excited. The cast and creative crew are awesome, and we start in February.

But on to those pesky monologues. Playwrights-seriously. All of you blossoming young Ionescos, Becketts, Parks, etc. send us your stuff! What about this: we won't video tape our rehearsals--we'll SKYPE WITH YOU!! Live feedback!!

Come on-you know you want to. :)

Also-look for some KK worksheets in the future. Kristi and I are hard at work making some "cheat-sheets" for you "auditionees" that we think might help.

Happy New Year!

Okay, so I (Kristi) totally dropped the ball on blogging over the holidays. Being in a show, traveling to MI to be with family and trying to fit in time with good friends took center stage.

I didn't totally forget about the project though! I have been working on a few things and I'll be sharing those with you later this week.

Stay tuned! :)