AuDish of the Day

If you're interested in musical improv, I highly recommend audishing for this program:

The Second City Training Center announces Auditions for the Music Improv Program Saturday, December 13th and Sunday, December 14th.

I'm in level 2 right now and it is fantastic. I would even say I like it better than the entire conservatory program. In level 2, we are going through the standard structure of a musical and learning about songs for opening/closing, i wish, revolution, variety numbers, and more. Lots of singing!! They only start a new round of classes about twice a year, so get on it if you're interested.


PS-NaNoWriMo is going strong at 46k and I'm going to finish at 50k tomorrow. I promise you many more posts in December.

Deadlines

Two reasons for my lack one posts: one is that I haven't had many auditions and the second is that I am doing NaNoWriMo, a challenge to write 50,000 words of a novel in the month of November. I don't want to jinx myself but I just passed 25,000. Yes, that's about five days behind, but I skipped a few days at the beginning of the month and have managed to get in about 2,500 words a day over the last week. If I can keep this up, I think I'm going to make it to 50k.

I know I always work better when faced with a deadline. Case in point and my segway into the audish portion of this post: I've heard that you should do agency mailings every 4-6 months, but I haven't kept that up this year. It's hard to sit down and essentially be your own assistant for a few hours but once you do it once it's easier to go back and update. Last year I mailed out packets on December 31st and I walked to two post offices during my lunch break because the first one had already closed and I was determined to have the postmark match the date in the letter. Hilarious... and crazy.

This year I'll try for a little earlier in the month.

Tweentastic Telecommunication

Today I had a super fun audish, two different spots for landline telephone service. The character for both was a tween girl age 12-15 who was a drama queen. On one had, it is kind of annoying that the most prevalent image of teenage girls in the media is that of a ditzy, dramatic self centered girl. On the other hand that is one of my favorite character types to play.

In addition to a fun character I also got to use a bad accent as the tween saying the following line:

"I'm Betsy Ross and I invented the flag."

Hilars!!

Crazy Diets, Crazy Cabs

New Year Resolutions: 2 Months Early. A double audish today and it turns out both were for diets. Wrigley is marketing gum as a way to get over cravings. Hmmm… should I eat this cookie, or chew fruity gum? The other spot was for a nutritional website.

The most interesting part of this audish was the ride there- my cab driver was absolutely ridiculous. First, he pulled over to mail something. What?!? You drive around all day… maybe you could do that when you don’t have a passenger. It looked like a parking ticket, and you have seven days to mail those. Second, he had no change… for a twenty. If I was throwing down hundos or even fifties it would be my fault. But I think cabs should have change for a twenty. He opened the door, stuck his head out, looked around the street, and sat there. I said, “What are you doing?” and he pointed to another cab. He only had three singles, and I was not about to pay 17$ for a 7$ ride that included a personal detour. So I had to wait for the other cab to arrive and give my cab driver change. I don’t want to be snobby but overall the whole thing was ridiculous.

Once I got into the booth they took my first read on both spots, so that was nice. :)

PS- happy election day!!

Audish of the Day

If I was a dude I would be audishing for this for sure:

Altar Boyz Casting
Altar Boyz is an award-winning Off-Broadway musical comedy about a fictitious Christian boy band from Ohio. The show is presented in real time as a concert, the last concert of their national "Raise the Praise" tour, by the five-member group the Altar Boyz and their band.

Solo Sketch Class

Graffiti and The Playground are doing a class that sounds awesome-

Solo Sketch Comedy Class

This workshop is designed to assist, motivate, and inspire those who would like to write and perform character monologues and one-person scenes. Open to the experienced and not-so experienced, it will focus on writing, stage presence, structure, tools, tricks, timing, cadence, finding inspiration --- to name a few. The workshop will be limited to 6 students. Upon completion, performers will have performance slots in Thursday Happy Hour, the weekly solo showcase at the Playground.

Tax Deductions

As we end out the year, it's a great time to review what you have spent on your career. It's also a good time to sign up for a workshop or invest in a mailing one last time for 2008- get those dollars into your career and you can deduct them against your income. Save a little bit on taxes or maybe get a refund!

*This post brought to you by the wisdom I have gained by osmosis from my CPA father.