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....

"You ARE still blogging, right?"

Someone asked me this yesterday and I felt compelled to respond.

Yes, we ARE still blogging!

I think blogging about the process of finding and learning 50 monologues in a year's time is a tough one. There's a lot of repetition in this process, none of which makes for interesting reading after the first time you write about it.

Also, I don't have internet at home, so to update the blog I have to type out the post at home, save it on a flash drive, then bring it into work and post it. Or I have to go to the library with the slow-as-molasses internet and post. Ahh the life of a poor actor...

To be honest, I haven't been doing that much with this project for the past few weeks. I...well....let's just call a spade, a spade. I've been lazy. That's right. You heard me. The project all about not being a lazy actor has been inhibited by, let's say it together, "A lazy actor!"

Instead of making excuses (the fall TV season is back, creativity is not inspired by a long and boring work day, I think I have adult ADD....) I'm just going to promise to get better.

I started reading KK's book over the weekend and I love it. I will definitely be writing about my initial reactions and this fantastic quote that has made me happy we are doing this project.

I am going to commit myself to posting at least once a week. I won't commit myself to a day just yet, (because of the no internet at home thing), but you will get an update from me faithfully once a week! I promise!

Consider this post a fire being lit under my ass.

Onward!
-Kristi

And so it begins - Part 2

Hello all! Kristi here. You've heard the basic story from Whitney, so now I'll expand on that.

I have always had trouble with monologues. I think it's the stigma surrounding them. They are bascially your calling card as an actor. You get one 90 second shot in an audition to show what you can do. That's a lot of pressure.

My common practice for monologues is as follows:
-Read a play
-Discover a monologue from said play
-Make a copy of said monologue
-File in a folder labeled "Monologues"
-Two days before an audition, dig through "Monologues" folder in a panic looking for something to use.

.......

As you can tell, this is not the best way to handle a monologue audition.

A few years ago, in one of the aforementioned "panics", I typed "women's monologues" into a Google search to see what came up. Of course, most of what came up junk. But then I stumbled across this gem. It's not a list of monologues, but rather an article about using monologues for an audition.

I'll let you read the article for specifics, but the gist is this. A professor from the Atlantic Acting School in  New York City challenged her students to learn 20 monologues. Analyzed, edited, memorized, blocked; the full boat. At the end of the year, if they could come to her and do the 20 monologues back to back, she would buy them dinner. I thought this sounded like a great challenge. Now flash forward three years and I finally get to do it!

College is great for learning the craft of acting and starting to discover who are you as an actor. However, college can't really prepare you for the "real world" of theatre. In the real world, no one is telling you to read plays, no one makes you go see theatre and you are responsible for directing yourself through the audition process. You find (at least I do) that you become kind of lazy, which leads to panicked auditions and material you feel less than passionate about.

I'm excited to work on this project with Whitney. I think if either one of us were attempting to do it alone, we would fail miserably. Having someone hold you accountable is the best way to get things done!

The next 295 days (why does that sound shorter than it actually is?) will be full of ups and downs and we'll share them with you here. Please feel free to comment on anything we write, email us suggestions and send good thoughts our way.

Being a lazy actor ends today!