The Not "Quite" Skinny Enough, Pretty Enough, Talented Enough Actress.

Assitis!

Well, my assitis is back! It took over sometime during last night and now I'm too sore to go to my morning yoga class!!! YUCK! 

What is assitis you ask? Sorry, it has a real name: Sacroiilitis. It consists of inflammation in the sacroiliatic joint (the ass.) I've had it for years and it hasn't bothered me recently...until now. I have drugs! But I'm running low! Looks like i'm going to have to make a whole doctors appointment, take a day off from work, and pay $35 copay just to go to the doctor and have him write me a simple prescription.

Ahhhh Myspace!

For the first time in....2 years?....I went to my MYSPACE page today! I had completely forgotten that I used to leave blog entries from time to time. I read every single post I had written and felt extraordinarily nastolgic. I can't believe how my life has changed in just the past 5 years! 

I've decided to copy and past one of my past blogs for your reading enjoyment! I'll probably be doing this every other blog until they are all posted! It's a nice little blast from the past!

The following is from July 14th 2006

Into the Woods opening.........

Current mood:sick

I dont understand what it is about the theater that can make us superhuman!

Tonight was the opening of Into the Woods. Okay, not the ACTUAL opening, the preview....but it was a full house so it counts just the same. For the past 2 nights I have been shivering in my bed like a goddamn leper. Tuesday night I started feeling achy during rehearsal, and I went home only to toss and turn the entire evening with some gnarly hallucinatory dreams! In the morning I woke up in a pool of my own sweat only to take my temperature and find out I had a fever of 102! I havent had a fever in at least 3 years! I mean, what the fuck?!?! For me, fevers are the worst. My whole body just aches, and I feel nauseous and everything spins! I called my dear friend Michelle who came to my rescue with reinforcements (gingerale and ice cream!) And as I was despairing over my present condition and the irony of it all (last year my appendix burst 2 weeks before my kids show opened) she reminded me of something very important: Gene Kelly had a 103 fever when he danced SINGING IN THE RAIN. With that little motivational sentiment in mind, I forced myself to our final dress, and afterwards as I left the theater I felt like I was going to pass out. Again, last night NO sleep. Feverish dreams. This morning sound would literally not come out of my throat. I tried Halls, Coldeeze, Emergen-C, chicken soup, gingerale, tylenol, tea, honey, and sea silver (that shit is just wrong!) Nothing helped! By the time I went into the theater I was in a panic. If there was anyone else involved with the show that knew my role, I totally would have slept in this evening! I had no idea what I was going to do, how I was going to physically make sound until: "Once Upon a Time...............I wish." The opening of Into the Woods, the way its written. The orchestrations. The introduction of all the characters (accept of course Rapunzel!) has such a flow and energy to it. Somehow, when my turn to go onstage came up, I stopped thinking about how sick I was. And I was actually able to sing. Was I brilliant......no! But to go from not even being able to croak, to hitting high Cs within the time span of an hour? Thats not normal, thats gods work. Or, the theaters'...............

I shrieked and screamed my way through the evening and in the end my friends who were in the audience claimed they couldnt really tell I was sick. Maybe they are full of shit, I dont know. But I do know that its nothing short of a miracle that I was able to get through the show at all.

Its 2:40am right now and I am back to sickly and feverish. Sadly, the chime of midnight came and I lost my superhuman performing powers. But as I stare longingly at the toilet that I will probably be throwing up in later, I am still so happy with my performance tonight. Thats a rare thing for little low self-esteemed Laurie to say. Again, its not that I think I did a great job. Its just that I was able to do the job.

 

Five Wishes

About a year ago I read a book entitled Five Wishes written by: Guy Hendricks. The author asks you:  "If you were lying on your death bed would you consider your life a success? If not, what would have made your life a success?" The answer to that question turns into your top five wishes. There is a whole little work study page section in the book to help you come up with honest, truthful, powerful answers. When I originally read the book it was right before my last semester of college and I had no time to put serious thought into coming up with my answers and my action steps to achieve my goals. Today, I had the day off and I was finally able to sit down at Starbucks, reread the book, and fill out my wishes open and honestly. 

The authors first wish was: "To have a long and happy marriage with a woman I adore and who adores me." His other wishes are equally as deep. After much reflection I have realized I am a much more superficial human being and my wishes are a bit more selfish . You are supposed to list your wishes in order of importance and my #1 wish/goal written as if it's happening now is:

1.) My life is a total success because I'm a brilliant, strong, versatile, powerful, performer.

The difference between myself and the author is that he wasn't following his dreams at all until he wrote them down. I've been working on my goals for as long as I can remember. Hopefully, writing it down with clear action steps will help bring me closer to achieving them.

For more information on the book you can check out the website:

 http://www.5wishesbook.com/wishes/index.php

Also, as always, I would love advice on what I can write down as "action steps" to achieve my life goal that I am not already taking.

Busy Week!

Hello All!

I have not been able to blog in the past week because I have been very BUSY! I love being busy...but I'm exhausted and putting off a much needed visit to the gym by sitting in COSI, eating breakfast, and taking my sweet time to wake up before I attack my 50th Street Equinox! I've been commuting between New York City and Long Island. A lot of times when I get background work, I am hired with my car. I cannot keep my car in the city as it would most likely lead to me dying an early death from stress and worry. I keep it at my parents house way out on LI. Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday of this week was a promised featured 3 days of work on the CBS television show Blue Bloods. Featured is not really what I ended up being...but my car OWNS that episode! I've now named my car Patti Lupone Jr. (because she is a Diva just like Patti) and she can be seen throughout Episode 2 on this season of BB. Even though I was not featured I did get 2-13 hour days of work and 1-10 hour day! Not to mention the commute to and from Long Island City in rush hour traffic. I auditioned for My Fair Lady at Westchester Broadway yesterday. I sang 8 bars and I felt fairly good about it...but no callback to dance. (My Fair Lady audition people....if you by any chance read this blog, feel free to respond anonymously as I would loooooove to know why I wasn't called back...as a learning experience. Did I chose the wrong song? Did I smell? Was I rude? Did I look like crap? Was it my resume? Or did I just plain suck? Either way...I really need to know so I can stop obsessing and fix the problem.) Today I am working at my Times Square job...but hopefully working out first! And tomorrow is a wedding! Hopefully I will be able to blog again in the next few days. Cosi is getting busy and my workout time is getting small so I am signing off for now!

LATER!

Reality TV...ugh!

I’m not one of those actors that despise Reality TV because it takes jobs away from actors. The Biggest Loser is one of my favorite shows. I like to watch it on my Ipad while I’m running on the treadmill. If those morbidly obese people can turn themselves into personal training worthy bodies certainly I can lose 10 pounds!!! (You would THINK!) I used to like Survivor and Amazing Race as well. Survivor because I like watching city people that have literally never been in the wilderness learn how to cope and Amazing Race because I love to travel and long to go all over the world…but since I can’t, I live vicariously through the AR contestants. I pretty much adore every reality show on the Food Network! Iron Chef, Cupcake Wars, The Next Food Network Star, Challenge, Chopped, and the new Restaurant Impossible! I don’t even cook! I think the appeal to me is that they are all shows about people that persevere! And I cannot forget the travel channel! Samantha Brown is the most adorable blonde host! She travels everywhere and describes everything perfectly! I want to BE her! Anthony Bourdain is kind of obnoxious but smart! In No Reservations he travels to offbeat locations and talks about the food! I even like Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmerman, for although I would never eat any of that gross crap it’s fun to see how the other half live and eat! Of all these reality shows the one that I simply cannot stand is…drum roll….Jersey Shore. To be fair, I’ve only seen a totally of 10 minutes of the show (probably 1 minute at a time over 10 episodes) but I just don’t like it…and yesterday I found an even bigger reason to hate it! I was doing cattle call background work on a brand new show called Person of Interest. There were almost 100 background actors on set and I do not know what corner of the earth some of these monsters were dug up from but they were there! Including, I kid not, Snooky’s twin Sister. OK, obviously I don’t know if they were related but this girl was a real piece of work! She showed up to set with her mother! In the bathroom she was screaming that she needed a tampon and didn’t have one! Her mother was coddling her like something out of a Miss Teen Pageant USA Jonbenet Ramsey scenario! Then she announced to everyone in the bathroom that she was 21 but she went everywhere with her mom! She was tan to a point that her face was pealing off and her Jersey accent was thick and trashy! For deep exterior background work she refused to go to set because her “hair was a mess!” Oh yes, she whipped out the flat iron in holding! Then when she was filling out her voucher she couldn’t figure out what to write because “my agent got me this job!” I’m thinking to myself “honey, if your agent got you this non union $85 for 10 hours of background work then you seriously need a new agent.” The worst was at the end of the evening when they were checking out AFTRA members first. She cut to the front of the line and demanded to be checked out stat because she had to drive back to Jersey! The PA’s stared at her in disbelief! Her mom, who had sat around holding for the entire 12 hour day got in on the fight! Unbelievable! And then it occurred to me that shows like Jersey Shore made psycho’s like this famous! Please don’t support this people! It’s just not right! Take it from someone who experienced it first hand and ban the JS from your life! 

 

BAD AUDITION DAY!

Yuck! Today was a bad audition day! It was a Disney Singing Audition and I was #67. I think some leading factors in having a crappy audition today were: #1 Lack of sleep. #2 Knowing no one in the holding room and having no one to talk to. #3 Having no place to really warm up full on. 

By the time I went in the room I had been listening to girls around me talk about all the tours or other cruises they had just come off. I attempt to keep in my own little space when I'm entarougeless but the headphones have to come off at some point in order to hear what's going on. Hearing how other girls have done all this work recently I find extremely intimidating being that I am so out of practice. On the line outside the audition room my heart started pounding. I could hear beautiful sounds coming through the door and I didn't want to be the joke of the group! I practiced all the breathing/calming relaxation exercies I knew but nothing helped. When your heart is pounding through your chest, even long held out breaths turn shaky! That's exactly how my song went! Shaky! I sang 16 bars from the song Dear Friend from the show She Loves Me. It is a very light/legit song....nonetheless I put absolutely NO power behind it. I couldn't catch my breath and support myself. My lower notes came out crackily and my high notes came out wobbly. My jaw shook heavily as I sang and I was so disgusted with what was coming out of my mouth I couldn't even ACT the damn song! 

Bad Audition Day.

Evolution of a Lamb.

Since I wasn't learning how to "act" in college I was grateful when I met my boyfriend in October and started dating him seriously in February. Gary is an accomplished actor filled with great advice and ideas. He's won a ton of awards, appeared in over 300 Equity productions, and has done numerous commercial and television gigs. What I love most about him is that despite the fact that he's so talented and gifted he doesn't put himself above me! He always takes my suggestions seriously and we "play" a lot with different characters and songs. When I first met him I was creeping him on the internet and I came across this video:

 

WELL.....I loved it! I thought it was so funny! Once we started dating we did one together for fun!

 

The video took less than a minute to make but I realized it was the most I had really "performed" in almost a year. So we kept making them! They are silly and stupid but serve as exercises for me! Here are the rest....in order!

 

 

 

 

Scheduling!!!!!

I've been trying to make a living and support my "art" solely on background work for the time being, but this past week has been most UNsuccessful! I had a great job Monday night...but since then...nothing at all! By Saturday night I hadn't booked anything for Monday so I decided to schedule a job interview for Monday afternoon. Today I get an email offering me background work for Monday. It's now too late to reschedule this job interview which I clearly need to be going to and I'm out $200! Fab! Trying to coordinate jobs and making a decent amount of money with auditions...is killing me! I once worked at a coffee shop with this guy who was a commercial actor. He had 3 jobs. I asked him how he managed to work everything out with auditioning and acting. He told me that somehow, things just always seemed to work out for him, and that he felt like the universe had his back. His auditions always ended up on his days off, or after a shift. I need a little bit of universe action on my side because I've been going crazy trying to organize my life around auditioning! Crazy! 

Homemade Musical Theater Demo Reel.

I've been putting it off for awhile now but I finally made up a little musical theater demo reel to use for online casting calls. There are two shows that I did in college (musical reviews) that I would really like to have included, but I do not have the video copy yet...despite the fact that it says in my school course catologue upon completion we would be given a DVD of our work! Thanks again for nothing Five Towns College. Anyway, I included some of my more favorite clips from the past few years while keeping it short. I actually really love editing and wouldn't mind getting into that for a living while pursuing acting....of course that's probably another $20,000.00 in school fee's that I will never be able to come up with. Anyway, it's not the best, but it's something. Thoughts?

 

Dear God: Please Never Let Me Wait Tables Again!

At the time I booked my first national tour, My Little Pony Live, I was working as a Cater Waiter in the Los Angeles area. I remember when I gave the company my notice and in my bedroom, alone, I threw my hands up in the air and in a very Scarlett O’hara manner claimed: “As God Is My Witness I Will Never Wait Tables Again!” After touring for over 2 years I decided to make an exception to my vow for Hooters! I had frequented Hooters on the road with my tour buddy’s…plus although it’s a waitressing job, it has definite good sides that no other restaurants have. I was able to sit and chat with my customers, and it was decent money for not too much brut work. When school got too crazy I took out a student loan and hung up my orange shorts. Pretty soon my bank account began to dwindle and I was forced to get a part time job again. I didn’t want to go back to Hooters because I’d have to retrain, and also, I felt too old and fat to work there. I applied to all the local chain restaurants and ended up at one with the initials O.G. The past few months at the OG have been pretty hideous! I’ve never worked so hard in my life and been compensated so little. I normally consider myself a decent waitress but keeping up with the flow of unlimited soup, salads, and breadsticks when the kitchen is so far away from most of the table sections was just too much! Plus memorizing and being able to describer a huge menu full of food that I do not believe anyone has any business eating is extremely difficult for me to upsell. Not to mention the fact that we are expected from our managers to give fine dining five star service to cheap, trailer park trash esc clientele.  Bottom line is, hideous job and very little money. My last day was scheduled to be today but despite being flat broke I traded in my shift with another waitress at the restaurant. I feel free…and I booked a day of SAG background work for tomorrow with my car, so I am not feeling as guilty about giving up the cash for today. My financial situation is very precarious right now but once again I am throwing my arms up in the air and BEGGING the Universe to realize that dues have been paid and it’s time for me to work solely a performing artist!!!!

 

 

 

Average OG tip!