Learn to Do It

Hi all,

Today’s blog title comes from the Don Bluth animated film, Anastasia. By the way, Mr. Bluth now lives in Arizona and runs a community theatre. They pay a stipend so I might one day audition for them, but I’m not sure as I don’t want to do community theatre anymore. Anyhow, I have been auditioning for some shows and student films, most of whom actually pay. I auditioned for some ASU films at the University for Advancing Technology, another production of A Christmas Carol, and another ASU student film. For all these auditions, I have had to be flexible. The two student film auditions expected a monologue, which they didn’t tell me in the casting notice, but being the pro that I am, they never knew it as I already had a monologue ready to go. For the Christmas Carol audition, I knew I needed to have two songs prepared, and prepared they were. I was only one of two people I saw there who actually had material prepared. I read part of a scene and had to do a Cockney accent on the fly. Then they went into my two songs, but the first began strangely and for the second, one of the directors just picked a song from my notebook and we went right with it singing in parts. Now that is flexibility! I also have an upcoming audition this Saturday with veteran casting director Gay Gilbert. I have been wanting to meet her for a long time. I like auditioning for things, but I really wish that I was auditioning for major SAG films and Equity theatre productions. My agent says that I will be possibly hearing about an audition soon.

I saw The Dining Room from the Carefree Theatre Company, the production that I auditioned for but did not get cast in. They were so nice to give me a comp ticket and it was a really good production. The scenes all happen in a dining room and involve different families and really crazy situations. It was mostly really funny and poignant when it had to be. I look forward to auditioning for their future productions as I heard they are doing some awesome plays next. They perform at the Little Theatre at Phoenix Theatre. Right now Phoenix Theatre is in the last week of the run of Spamalot. I wanted to get tickets, but most of them are sold out.

I had a great weekend in LA. I got to go back to Third Street Promenade and buy some travel-size honey. I didn’t know they came that small. Then I went to The Grove Farmers Market and enjoyed gumbo, a salad with pecan dressing, and jalapeño cornbread from the Gumbo Pot. I have always loved visiting these places and I even posted a picture on Twitter of the sunset over The Grove, with a view of the CBS lot. I wasn’t able to see the two friends I had planned to see, but I talked to one on the phone. He has been a SAG actor for a long time and he told me that the situation in LA has gotten somewhat worse since I was there. Gas prices for one are completely awful: $4.19 a gallon!A number of shows and movies are now being filmed on-location as it has become cheaper for production. Because the tax incentive bill didn’t pass in Arizona, many of those productions won’t be coming here. There are four feature films this past year that have filmed in Arizona, but those productions were mostly cast out of LA.  No news yet about my SAG short.