Hello Dear Reader!!

I trust you had a wonderful week. The week and a half since my last post seems to have flown by.  My goodness, I have been deep in the weeds apparently.

I have been on a cleaning mission of the craft room. The very same room I have been doing most of my Zoom calls in from this post.

I made mention that the room was a kind of library/craft room/catch all type of room. I may or may not have given you a great image of how cluttered it was, but I don’t think I did. In any case, let me take you back to about 2 weeks ago at the end of the acting class session…

Picture it, Gentle Reader, in a decent size room, where there is really only about 4×4 feet to maneuver around as you are flinging and flailing your body around as a physical warmup and you crash into the drum set and all the stuff piled on top of it  which is behind a few yards of fabric that has been hung up with tacks in the ceiling to hide all the clutter behind it from the rest of the class, because you lost your balance after stepping on a pencil and tried not to break it. 😱 CHAOS!! That’s when 2 things happened. 1. I was so glad that I was muted from the class so they didn’t hear all of that while swinging in their own spaces, and 2. it was totally time to clean the hell outta this room!! 😜

All the work I did to clean and reorganize the rest of the apartment did not extend to this particular room. I don’t know why.  Maybe it was because I never really go in there.  Well until the Zoom calls…

So as I waited for the final “grades” of the acting class, I didn’t have anything else to do so I rolled up the ol’ proverbial sleeves and got to work cleaning the room. I found things that I had long forgotten about and things that reminded me of great times, like a Blockbuster Video membership card and hot air ballooning in Palm Springs.  I also found a folder of old school papers.  No report cards, just actual essays and old scripts. One page I did come across was a judge’s review sheet from a monologue contest. I missed a perfect score by .1. It was on the stupidest thing, too.  My introduction. Then, like now, I didn’t like to talk about myself {in person anyway!  😈 I am really only talking about me on this blog, so it doesn’t make sense, I know}, and didn’t do the best at slating (the start of the audition where you state your name and the piece you are about to present/ character you are auditioning for). Point. 👏One. 👏 UGH!!!!  Such is my life!!  The things that really stick out with me is the comments that were left. There are some shorthand spelling issues, but this is exactly what they said with that in mind:

Comments on Delivery:
Very good intro – Don’t trail off! Good Physical & Verbal!
Comments on Interpretation:
Excellent – very clear and defined! Your usage of Body & eyes is remarkable!
Comments on Impact:
Very Excellent – especially ending!

(Oh!! Also, in case you are interested, the monologue was from King Lear, character was Edgar.  If he has more than one, I can’t tell you which one it was. LOL! 😂 I came to find out a year later that the review was from John Healy. He was a pretty big deal in the Bay Area.)

Seeing this, Kind Reader, took me back to my big TBA audition a few years ago that I thought I was over. For the last few days, I have been stewing about that audition because I kept thinking of myself as Val in my own version of “Dance, Ten; Looks, Three.” (That was A Chorus Line reference. 🎭 If you haven’t heard the song it is one of my faves.  Check it out and tell me your thoughts) Granted, I didn’t change myself like she does, but the idea is there. The work is great, just not the person doing the work is how it feels and that sucks balls!  Especially now in this time where we are seeing that POC don’t have the same chances as “others.” I am starting to believe that that is what the real issue was.  They didn’t know if I could fit into their companies because they don’t really use people “like me.”

Then, I got my assessment from the teacher… A near perfect grade.  Her biggest critique? “His next step is trusting his impulses more, finding where he can release within himself/his body.”  I have always been told my instincts are excellent but I don’t think I will ever be comfortable in myself.  THAT’S WHY I ACT!!! 😳LOL!  Kidding.

At least, mostly kidding.

She also commented on the work: “…has tremendous depth.  It is a gift. He has a keen humor and sense of timing. He can trust his instincts and move beyond relying on that.”

I thought I had washed my hands clean of the TBA audition and the mental job it did on me. It turns out I still have some things to work through. So, Dear Reader, as I bag up garbage and toss it out, I shall toss out those critiques, even the good ones!  I know I can do the work.  I have had proof since ’95! LOL! All I can do now is blast some Alanis Morissette and break up with that shit. 👍

Until next time, stay safe, alert and kind, Gentle Reader.