On my way

Time for another update!

This past few weeks have been rather busy for me, but in the best way possible. Currently, I am working two “real” jobs and have been getting more hours at both, which is great for me as rent will be coming up very soon. I’ve gotten to do a couple more gigs with Random Acts, playing Tina in “Tony and Tina’s Murder Mystery,” which thus far has been a very fun role to do. Tina is an interesting character for me, as she is an over exaggerated “bimbo” who occasionally has insightful moments, but they are often due to someone else having them first.

A dramatic picture of the bride and probably the most serious Tina would ever look

As you may have seen from my last post, I have been working with a fantastic group called Already Indie, who makes web videos on guerrilla filmmaking. Last week, we took a break from filming for the website and decided to try to apply to win a contest through Film Riot. We have two submissions, one from Already Indie and one from Cullen Park Productions, a sister company to Resurrection Films/Already Indie. For the contest, we were told to use 3-point lighting and follow some dialogue from a pre-prepared script. The first one we did was a horror-style clip (Warning! Though the dialogue and filming are clean, you may want to review it before letting your kids (if you have any that wish to see it) watch it, just to be on the safe side).

I felt that this one was pretty good, all things considered. There are several things that I would do differently if I had a chance to shoot it again, but overall it was a lot of fun and I really enjoyed doing it. We also got a LOT of great feedback for this one, people seemed to really enjoy it and we are very hopeful that it will be considered, at the very least, for the contest. The next one we did for Cullen Park Productions was more of a comedic take on the script. We set it up as an infomercial and, due to the lack of available actors and because we thought it could be funny, “cloned” myself so that I played the two characters. The ending is also improv-ed, I was actually unaware that this would be included, so I had to laugh when I saw it show up on YouTube (again, watch before your kids do, you know what’s best for them!)

Sadly, this one did not receive as well as a reception as the other one did. While we did receive some really good feedback, we had an issue with a troll (for those not up to internet lingo, a troll is someone who is purposely rude on message boards, Facebook, etc. in hopes of a comedic effect, or in this one’s case, to be simply be a jerk) where he was posting inflammatory comments about Cullen Park Productions, Already Indie, Resurrection Films, and myself being one and the same. Originally, the troll was simply being annoying, but was later blocked by Cullen Park Productions after he began to insult me personally, saying that I was “too ugly” to be an actress and that I should get my “hook nose” fixed before I even bother trying again. I won’t lie, initially this stung a little as I have never thought of myself as someone who is particularly good-looking. My self-esteem in this area is rather weak, though I’ve come along way with self-perception than from when I was in high school. However, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that he didn’t actually insult my acting. To me, this means that he felt he needed to attack some other part of me because he didn’t see an issue with my acting. I realize this may just be stretching it, but I did feel that this is almost a compliment in that regard. Granted, if he knew that this was how I felt no doubt he would find a way to contact me to tell me that this was not the case, but at least it made me feel better about the situation. Plus, coming from someone who didn’t have any videos or photos of himself, I’d say that his opinion is moot.

Next up, I will be filming with Already Indie again tomorrow for yet another episode! Additionally, the Stand Up Toledo DVD should be out soon, so I will finally be able to get some of my comedy clips up on here.

“If you were absent during my struggle, don’t expect to be present during my success.” – Will Smith

Random Acts!

Hello again!

The past few weeks have been incredibly busy for me and a lot of things have happened!

I have made the decision to stay where I am for the summer. I will be subletting for a friend and working to raise money so that I may eventually move to somewhere where there is more work. This decision was greatly affected by the opportunity I was given to join Random Acts, a traveling theatre troupe based in Ohio (for the time being). Not only is this a paid acting job (which is awesome), but it also gives me the opportunity to travel to potential living spaces while continuing to build up my résumé. This past Saturday was our first performance, which was in honor of the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic, entitled “A Titanic Mystery.”

I got to wear a replica of the Heart of the Ocean necklace from the film, “Titanic”

In this production (which I managed to learn in a week, memorization powers activate!), I played Madeline Astor, the character that Rose from “Titanic” was supposedly based on. The mystery part of this show focused on the whereabouts of the necklace throughout the production. The show was written by the director of Random Acts and a LOT of research was put into the show. The majority of the characters were all based upon people who were on the Titanic and we performed the show for a group of Titanic aficionados, who really knew their stuff! The show went splendidly despite a few technical difficulties and I am looking forward to our next production in a few weeks.

Onto Lionface news, we have unfortunately lost the space that we were to perform “Murder in the Cathedral” in. We were set to finish up paperwork and whatnot regarding the space when someone pointed out that there was already an event scheduled to be held there. So, for the time being, we are looking into different venues. Unfortunately, this is not the first time this has happened to us, but we always seem to manage in one way or another and I have no doubt that we will find another space that will work just as well.

Aside from my work waitressing, I have been getting more hours doing another thing I love to do: working with kids!

A gift from one of the many kids I work with

Kids provide endless fascination for me in that they are so much smarter than people seem to think. A lot of times, adults will try to shelter children and claim that they are simply to young to understand anything. I strongly disagree with this sentiment, I have watched children K-6 come up with their own unique characters, write their own play, build their own set, design their own costumes, AND perform their show for their parents all over the course of a summer. When faced with a challenge, some kids rise to the occasion even more than the majority of adults do. Recently, I had the opportunity to teach another theatrical makeup workshop with a few kids from one of the schools I’ve worked at. I was amazed at how quickly they were able to pick it up and soon they were creating designs and applying them better than a lot of high school and/or college students. I think the difference lies in enthusiasm, oftentimes the older we get the less enthusiastic we are about trying our new things. I believe that as we get older, sometimes we are less likely to want to try new things in fear that we will fail at them. Kids don’t tend to have that sort of hesitation, sure they might get upset if they fail the first time, but they seem to be more likely to try them again until they get them right. This is all my opinion, of course, but I think the world would be a lot different if we would take some of these childlike mentalities and apply them to our own lives.

I’m sure I will have more to write later, but as there are still things that I need to finish, I’ll leave it at this. Thanks for reading!

“If you don’t know where you are going, any road will get you there.” – Lewis Carroll