You're Only Human (Second Wind)

Today I had an audition for a pilot for HBO.

It didn’t go exactly as planned.

I walk in to the audition feeling very confident. I had read over all of my notes that were in my acting for film and television class.

None of this could have prepared me for how clumsy I am in real life.

Right off the bat I was caught of guard. I had entered the studio and nobody was there to sign me in and no directions were left for me. There were also no other girls auditioning. All I could see was a contact sheet and a bunch of waters. I signed myself in and grabbed a water bottle.

As soon as I had gotten comfortable, a very soft spoken woman came out asking for me. It comes as no surprise to anybody who has ever talked to me while intoxicated that I don’t trust soft spoken people, especially those that are in charge.

I went into the room and introduced myself. As I put down my bag and water on a slanted chair however, the water proceeded to roll off the chair, onto the ground and spill.

I saved it from spilling more than a few drops, but as I was saving it my bag decided to fall over and out came my keys, sunglasses and wallet. I spent the first three minutes (and boy was it a long 3 minutes) in the room putting things like they should be and feeling like an idiot while soft-spoken lady just looked at me. I could feel my traitor face getting red with embarrassment; thank god for make up.

Finally I got in front of the camera and I did a good reading. Soft Spoken lady didn’t seem that put off by my former clumsiness, but, then again, when you’re voice is barely a whisper I doubt you ever seem all that annoyed.

While the audition didn’t end up going all that badly, even if their first impression of me was that I had the grace of an ogre, I was still slightly beating myself up about it as I waited for the subway.

That was precisely when Billy Joel appeared to me in the form of a creepy middle aged foreign dude.

The man walked up to me and said, in an accent I only wish I could imitate, “Oh miss! You should not worry so much; I know it’ll work out well for you!” To which I relplied, “oh, Thanks.” I would have liked to have reassured the guy with smile, but I watched enough after school specials to know you don’t smile at a stranger or else he might become your stalker.

I tried to avoid the guy by getting on the car ahead of us on the platform. He still followed me though and didn’t say anything until the next stop. Right before he got off, without bothering to tell me his name or his number like so many creeps have before him, or worse, asking me for those deets, he simply said, “No crying anymore!”

Before I could point out to him that I hadn’t been crying, he handed me a still wrapped single Halls cough drop and flashed me a smile.

I laughed with the girl sitting next to me on the train, who seemed to think the whole exchange quite amusing. At the time I chalked it up to yet another character met through New York City’s public transportation, but later that night when a sudden cough came on me, I couldn’t help but to be thankful that I had my halls cough drop. I realized that since the run in with the man I had thought less about my clumsiness and more about how well the reading went, and, truth be told, mostly about what a strange person I had met in the subway.

I may not have been on the brink of suicide about to jump from one of New York’s bridges, but I like to think that Billy had decided to appear to me as he did to that dude in the “You’re Only Human (Second Wind)” music video. Just as Billy appeared to the man as a harmonica playing homeless dude/angel and put things in perspective, maybe he appeared to me as a foreign dude/angel with some Halls.

Or maybe creepers are just getting friendlier and worse at stalking.

Either way, I’m holding on for that second wind to come along.

Shamless

This is a story of how being a space cadet with confidence can pay off.

About a month ago I went on my first open casting call.

An open casting call audition, for those of you living under a rock, is one where the producers list a casting notice on several websites and who ever shows up auditions. Usually hundreds and hundreds, sometimes thousands will show up to such an event.

(Picture from the New Moon Casting Call in Vancouver)

Recently, in addition to the old fashion open call that I went to, there have been online ones. Example: the one currently going on for "Glee" over on Myspace. Here’s the best audition:

Glee monologue

Glee | MySpace Video

Vote for Bridget, her monologue and her song. While I may be Billy’s favorite worshiper, Bridget’s an easy second. If she doesn’t get on Glee, Joel will smite all who read this and did nothing. Or worse, he’ll make you listen to this classic of his on repeat for the rest of your life..

Back to the story starring me:

The open casting call was for some low budget teen flick. You know, the kind about quirky seniors finally doing the thing they’ve always wanted to do. I didn’t read the whole script but I can only assume at some point virginities are lost, under aged drinking is involved, and some dweeby guy gets a hot chick.

(Insert picture from your personal favorite teen movie from the 90's here)

It was for a legitimate casting director, though so everybody was there, from people like me, to conservatory students, to high school students with over involved parents, to obviously 30 year old union members to people with representation. I even saw three people I’ve met from three different places there.

The auditions were going from 9 a. m. until 6pm. I knew it was going to be busy so I tried to get there before 9. I got there a few minutes after. By just getting there a few minutes after meant that I would have to join the second group of people. They wouldn't get to go in until 11:30 since the first group of 250 people had all gotten there before.

I didn’t know this.

I saw a boy I knew standing outside, I stopped and chatted him up for a few minutes and then I went on ahead indoors. He was about to warn me that I was going to have to give my name to one of the people and come back in 2 hours when I just passed him by and went in doors, completely oblivious to his attempt.

Once inside I spotted another friend and went past all of the people working there. I asked second guy where he signed in and he pointed to a man sitting quietly by a table organizing some papers.

Now if I had stepped back and though clearly I would have realized something was up. The gentleman sitting at the sign in counter was not signing anybody in and there were only 250 people in the huge warehouse space. If I had thought logically I would have realized that if they weren’t controlling the crowd somehow it would look like Macy’s on Christmas, with the sign-in man playing the part of Santa Clause.

This is where the space cadet confidence comes in. I didn’t think, I just walked up to the man gave him a big old “Good morning!” when he just looked up and stared at me with the look of “what the hell are you doing here?! I’m don’t signing people in for at least 3 hours” I just gave him a chipper smile and gave him my head shot and resume.

He was so perplexed by the situation he assumed that he was in the wrong and changed his face to a smile and quickly gave me an audition slot with the first group.

I suppose the man thought I was a friendly diva?

(the resemblance is striking)

I didn’t realize the error of my ways until the second group was marched in at 11 and I hear them all talking about how they had past the time the former two hours. By that point it didn’t matter; sign-in guy hadn’t told anybody about my faux pas. When I left at 11:20 there was another group of a few hundred waiting outside the building waiting to audition around 2.

I got to spend the rest of that beautiful day outdoors.

God Joel really does have a thing for blondes.

Where’s The Orchestra?

It’s been too long since my last update. I know. I’m sorry to have let down my avid readers (a.k.a my mom, sisters, Bridget and Caitlin).

Here’s my excuse: Since you heard from me last, I have been binging on Baltimore. It’s hard learning New York lessons from the piano god if you’re spending all your time eating crab cakes and talking about how National Bohemian really isn’t that bad of a beer…

But I digress.

Here it is, my New York State of Life:

1. The big news: I’m performing with the Grown-up’s Playground on the New York Comedy Club stage this Saturday! The callbacks went well and I’m doing my thing there. However, in infinitely more important news…

2. I’ve bought an orchid and some orchid food. It was expensive. I did this because I really want a pet.

Stick with me here for a second as I attempt to explain away my craziness.

As many people know I had a fish in Chicago who was named Mr. Chubs and he was the light of my life. He died after a couple of months and it was very painful. If I can keep this orchid, whose name is Nero, alive for over a year than I can buy an all black kitten. I bought the orchid on March 17th-let the countdown commence.

(Nero hanging out in my window)

3. I have finally realized why Billy guided me on a life journey that included 5 years of conservatory style acting training; I needed to be prepared for the life of a 3 year old’s favorite playmate.

The main boy I babysit for has entered into a phase of giving me characters and circumstances that fight all logic and extensive dorky knowledge that I posses. I'm hoping that this work will lead to awards. Lately he’s had me use all of my acting techniques to establish a feasible character for these two different story lines:

A) I’m Obi-Wan Kenobi with a beard while he’s Obi-Wan Kenobi without a beard; this is the least of the problems when it comes to this storyline. I aslo have to pretend hat we’re ghosts (but not dead ghosts, because those are scary, just "normal ghosts") and we’re fighting a really big spider.

B) He’s Mr. Freeze (yes, THAT Mr. Freeze) and he’s a super hero (there’s no reasoning with this boy) and I’m girl-Spiderman. We’re fighting the Nazis from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.

At least his imagination is working well.

Lessons NOT learned from Billy’s music this week?

1. Billy has yet to sing a song about this, so you’ll hear it from me first: Macarons are the next cupcakes. If you’re unfortunate enough to be living outside Manhattan and your nearest city is just now becoming inundated with cupcake specialty shops and cup cake mobiles, than you are way behind in the times and are therefore not as evolved as us living in the city.

2. Another opportunity missed by Billy while he was singing about the lights going out on Broadway and 52nd St, was not mentioning that if you’re 18 or under you can get into the Whitney Art Museum for free. They also aren’t big on enforcing ID checks. I had to learn this lesson from friends who were visiting from Baltimore. To stop this from happening in the future I insist Billy immediate rewrite 52nd street with these lyrics:

They say it takes a money to keep a life alive:
In every museum an impossible price to meet,
But if we lie about out ages in overdrive,
We could see some things that are neat...

He would then have to go on to change the title to “75th street,” since the Whitney isn’t on 52nd, but minor details.

Sorry again for the delays. I will be in New York and hanging out with fellow New Yorkers a lot more this coming month, so expect more frequent posts. Including a post later this week about the first huge open call audition I went on a couple of weeks ago.