The Myth of Paying Your Dues

Yes, I know, a lot of people do.

But not everyone. There are those who are simply enjoying their lives, pursuing one of their many passions – because we all have more than one, although so often I know I get transfixed by my passion for money, forgetting that it is actually my passion for what money will let me do more of that is really driving that myopia – and as they are going along, acting jumps up and takes them by the hand and says, “This way, please!” And off they go.

I had a talk with my agent yesterday. Her advice was sobering, to say the least. In fact, it was so overwhelming to me that I went and slept for an hour, just to get away from my own brain’s chatter of fear and confusion!

She told me that in order to continue to be considered for gigs in this area (the San Francisco Bay Area) – and in fact in any area – was to have things on my resume changing; being added. The purpose was to show that I was still studying my craft.

I was overwhelmed by this advice because of some monetary restraints, and the fact that I haven’t seen a lot around me that I really want to invest my time and energy in. The thought I had was: “So, I’m supposed to do things I don’t want to do and have no interest in, just to prove to some unknown Producer or Casting Director down the road that I really really want to be an actor?” I just can’t do it!

A friend of mine in L.A. is having trouble with finding that open I’m-A-Full-Time-Actor door, and he’s my age (50′s) and he wants to make a real effort to make it, before he gives up and goes and does something else, or goes and does acting somewhere else that is less killing than L.A. can apparently be. I listened to him tell me this, and in his voice was stress and strain about what he thinks he has to do in order to “make it”, and yearning and fear that he will not meet his goals. I know that fear and that yearning intimately. But I noticed that I heard no joy in my beloved friend’s voice. I heard no love. I just heard the stress, and the fear of losing a very big dream.

And that’s when I realized that my idea of paying my dues was to suffer. That I had this old-timey idea – and I know I’m not alone here – that paying one’s dues means that one has to struggle and be unhappy in order to gain the brass ring of happiness and success at the end!

And at this point in my life, having learned that nothing in my life comes to me through struggle except for more struggle, I’m simply not willing.

That doesn’t mean I’m not willing to work. I’m willing to effort, absolutely, but it has to be in the name of joy. It has to be in the path of walking in my joy! That’s why I say that “paying your dues” is a myth – at least in the way we tend to look at it, with our Puritan work ethic of suffer, baby, suffer!

I’m out! Count me out of the suffering path! I know that I am meant to be successful as an actor, but that doesn’t mean that I know the day of its arrival, or even the method of its arrival. I’ve had amazing things happen to me along the way  the last 21 years. I’ve been in a television commercial that the director loved so much, he wrote another one for me, for a completely different product. That doesn’t happen often. Because of that director I became a member of one of the unions: AFTRA (American Federation of Television and Radio Artists). This year, 2012, I became a member of SAG (Screen Actors’ Guild) when SAG and AFTRA merged. It was a big step, even though it wasn’t one that I personally had to take by jumping two hoops, when the two unions were two unions.

These are, maybe, comparatively small steps, and yet they are significant parts of the scenery of my journey, and I have come to recognize that it is my choice of attitude, outlook, and way of thinking that is what makes the journey one of wonder, or one of pain. Honestly, it feels like a long journey, and I am notoriously impatient with my own journey. I am, however, truly sick and tired of living in fear – “What if I don’t make it?” “What if it never happens?” Pfooey! – I now have this new attitude: all that has happened over the years is a preparation for and an indication of what is coming about. And I base that knowing on my spiritual path and the lessons I have learned about my part in creating this fabric that I call my life. It is that same spirituality that is keeping me sane, realistic, joyous, and aware that opportunities and life aren’t over until this body is finished working!

Do you remember the show Northern Exposure, back in the 1990′s? The actor who played the shopkeeper in the show was a woman in her 60′s named Peg Philips. It was her first acting gig, and it lasted 5 years, and I’ve been told that she launched some scholastic programs for high school students to teach life lessons! Peg was an accountant by trade, but at the age of 65 she started taking acting classes, and got cast in a show that was massively popular, and launched a number of acting careers including her own.

You can call that a miracle, but I call it taking the way of ease. That falls on our ears strangely, I know, but it doesn’t mean not working. It means to give up struggling as a pathway to success! I can’t vouch for anyone else, but I know that I’m tired of looking at the craft as a struggle. It is, in fact, an honor to act, to perform, to share one’s feelings externally, and it should be a joy! And I am putting my faith in life, that in investing in and nurturing my joy in life in every way I can, it will return life to me in the coin I know best: performance. And while I may be waiting for it to do so, I am not waiting for my joy. No more paying my dues by suffering the artistic path. It’s collection time! Bring on the joy!

Peace and love!

Lori

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Lori is an actor and Acting Coach living in the Bay Area. She teaches via Skype as well as face-to-face. For more information, go to www.LoriKirstein.com.

Actors! GET “PAID”!

This summer alone I have been offered three killer roles in three killer plays! One of them was Chicago.

I turned all three down. Why? Money as it applies to matching my output with the output of the theatre, and money as it applies to how long and far I would have to travel to the theatre for rehearsals and performances. Argh!!! It’s a tough one, but it’s a solid consideration, and I will tell you why!

I started onto the professional acting path in my early 30′s and it has now been a looooong time that I’ve been working on my craft. I started out in community theatre, for no money. That’s a great training ground, and I recommend it to this day for those who are starting out, and for those who have time on their hands and no financial woes to hold them back from just enjoying the participation in the art of theatre.

However, I am now of the mind that I should be paid for my work. We should be paid for our work, even if it’s just a little bit. I have been paid for my work many times, and I offer this thought for your consideration:

If we work for nothing, no money or other type of return on our investment of our time and talent, what are we saying to ourselves, and to those who “hire” us? That we’re dispensable, and that we are servile, and that we put our worth into the hands of those who hire us.

I wanted to be in Chicago, and it was hell turning them down. But when I learned that for this particular theatre (and yes, I should have found this out ahead of time), they offer one Union contract (translation: money – not scads and scads, but money), and for everyone else…bupkus!…I had to turn them down. For the first time, I felt offended by that discrepancy between the one Union (read: talented?) actor, and the reset of us, all of whom would be working equally hard!

Not acceptable! If a theatre is bringing in money to keep the theatre going, I think we all understand that that does not mean that they are bringing in corporation-style money! However, not to even pay for actors’ gas expenses is just wrong. Theatre is a 6-8 week undertaking at the non-Broadway level, and your time is worth something!

This is not a rant to go up against theatres, but a rant about how we tend not to stand up for ourselves. When we are offered something that is going to only take from, and not return enough “in kind” to you, there is a problem with self-respect. And we need to respect our art, our talent, ourselves and our time.

Theatres and actors can work together, but we actors have got to stop putting our wares out there as though there are millions of other options. There may be millions of other actors, but only one of you. And if you don’t make sure – when you choose whether or not to take a gig – that you are getting something back that makes you feel as though the exchange is even,  you are discounting yourself, and you are taking others down with you. That’s not the way to get to the next level.

So be it gas money, exposure, an important credit for your resume, or money big or small – make sure you are placing yourself at the top of your own pantheon. Nobody else will do it for you. That’s a part of the business of acting that nobody tells you, but I’m telling you. Think about what’s good for you too, because that kind of attitude will extend far beyond your acting world, into all kinds of life choices.

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Visit Lori’s new channel, Empowerment Vision TV, at YouTube.com. It is in the early stages of development, and moving forward.

Trauma and The Upgrade

Laguna Honda Hospital, SF – Spooky location for today’s shoot

It wasn't this shiny and clean, but does this give you an idea of the flavor of the place? We were told it's haunted.

This is big, y’all! 

It’s – what? – my fifth or sixth time going to the Trauma set to work an Extra gig, which, shhhhh, you’re never to tell anyone if you want to be taken seriously as an actor, right? But today I got lines! This is BIG!

Today I got “bumped”, which sounds bad until someone tells you that what it means is that you were just handed some actual lines. You get to act. What a concept! And you get more money! Snap! And you move up the food chain for that day! Rock on! 

I didn’t expect this. My day started with my car battery dying, so that I figured it was a sign for me not to go. Let’s see…kick my own butt finding some way to get there, maybe be late and not make it on set because I’ll miss the transport van, or just stay home and try to find some work? A day of being paid furniture, or stay at home and work on something else? Giving in to my responsible nature, I borrowed my friend’s truck, sat through not one, not two, but three traffic jams to make it across town to some unmarked place behind a mall – a place that all of us had trouble finding because it wasn’t marked by Trauma signs – and made it into a shuttle van by the skin of my teeth. 

I had brought a thermos full of decaf coffee, a crossword book, my iPhone, and my surrender to a day of likely sitting-around, or standing for long periods of time in order to walk from one side of a room to the other, and back. The life of an Extra! I was loaded for bear!

But I never even opened my thermos!

The first thing we did was go to wardrobe. I was slated to be a “volunteer”. So I was given a little vest to wear. Okay, I’m a volunteer; works for me! Then Ted, the Assistant Director, arrived, and had a conversation with the wardrobe ladies, and – *ping* – I’m a nurse! Don’t you wish life worked this way??? Ted then took a picture of me. Wait a minute – what? “Yeah, I need a picture of you.” Okay. I smiled and that was that. Right? No. “Nnnooo, no I need a smirk.” One smirk, coming up.

I am a graduate of Michael Kostloff’s Audition class – and someone who has learned that you don’t assume much, if anything, of some events until you know for sure that you should do! – so I just took it all at face value. This makes me either brilliant and balanced, or a flippin’ idiot! Your choice!

We were bused from the base camp – a small, gorgeous church – to Laguna Honda Hospital, and taken to the fifth floor (I think it was?) and told to grab a chair and hang out. Cool. Time to find food! Ahhh…the perennial peanut butter-and-jelly sandwich breakfast! I don’t know why Craft Services on Trauma always supplies this – and for all I know it’s some kind of industry thing…what do I know? – but it’s always there, and thank God for it!

Not long after we had settled in, Ted called out my name and took me aside, into one of the hospital rooms, and asked me, “Can you help us out with a rehearsal?” I could have sworn he asked if I would read some lines during rehearsal. I thought I was going to do some kind of stand-in assistance until the “real” actor showed up. 

So: “Can you help us out?” asked Ted. 

“Sure!” I said. 

“Are you AFTRA?” [American Federation of TV and Radio Artists - one of the two main film unions] 

“Yep!” 

And I read the lines out loud like you’d read an instruction to someone. But no! Ted wanted me to really do the lines! He modeled how he wanted it to sound, and I said, “Oh! You really want me to act!” How hilarious. I swear I heard him say he wanted me to “help out at rehearsal”! (And as I’m typing this, it occurrs to me: this was my audition! If I sounded like hell, he could easily and kindly move on to someone else. Hmmm. Nice tactic!)

We were filming in San Francisco in the Laguna Honda Hospital, built in 1866, and an absolutely perfect place to film a new version of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Fantastic, moody place; and, we were told, haunted! And patients and staff were there because it’s a working hospital! The patients on our floor were to a large extent in wheelchairs, 60′s and up, and either doing art therapy, or rolling themselves into the Extras Holding area and finding a sunny spot to bask in, or an Extra to stare at, wordlessly.  (Now that’s entertainment!)

So, in an environment like this, I had to ask Ted, “Do you want Nurse Ratched?” “No,” he said, “I just want a teacher scolding a student.” 

After two more rehearsals, he told me to say it without the script. Quick memorization??? Not my forte, I thought. I was wrong. Thank goodness. I repeated it, and he said, “Okay. Good. You can go back to Holding. [the Extras' Holding area] Just don’t tell anyone about this yet, okay?” 

“Okay.” 

Still numb. This didn’t seem like I was “helping” with a rehearsal. Was I being bumped? Upgraded? Ohmigod! I certainly was. 

My first time being upgraded! My first lines on National TV! A big step! A credit of my own! A mention on imdb.com. A now partially-opened door to someday becoming a SAG actor.

Remember my Oscar Night “Epiphany” blog? Luck, not talent, I said, gives us opened doors. 

Well, today, luck dropped by my house!

Trauma. Episode 19. “Crossed Wires” is the name of the episode.  If the scene isn’t cut for some reason, I’ll be on National TV! A-maz-ing! (I did do that National Comcast xfinity commercial months ago, but I haven’t seen hide nor hair of that! And so it goes.)

So, you ask, what did I get to do? Speak three lines, hit the gorgeous young lead, Wes, upside the head, and jettison him out of a wheelchair! This is big fun! (Yes, I did say “hit him”. Yes, I did say I threw him out of a wheelchair.) 

After we rehearsed a few times, everyone went to lunch. Someone came up to me and asked me if I customarily tipped people out of wheelchairs. Of course! I said. The same person gave me some beautifully veiled advice about how to play the scene: “Do you have kids? You seem like someone who could boss her kid around. That’s what that scene seems like to me.” 

Back on set, we were all wired for sound, Extras were brought in, and we were off to the races. 

“Action!“ 

Down the long, dark hall toward Wes (and me) walks Aimee, the female lead in this scene, and spots Wes in a wheelchair. Feeling tremendous guilt for his state – she feels responsible for putting him in harm’s way – she begins to apologize, choking up, when I suddenly burst on the scene, yelling, “Landers! Get out of the chair, dammit!” At this point I hit this gorgeous man upside the head. And then I take a firm grip on the handles of the wheelchair and throw him out of it.  “Save it for someone who needs it!” and off I go, leaving Aimee’s character to verbally kick his butt for trying to play her. 

The first time I pitched him out of the chair, he came over to me and said, “Hey, just really throw me out hard! It’s perfect! Makes me laugh, which is exactly what I need to be doing just then!” Hey, all in a day’s work!

Well, the 8th or 9th time that I hit him upside the head, I went over to him and asked if his head was still okay. He’s young; he’s a committed actor; he was fine; and I wasn’t really hitting him all that hard … I hope. 

So he was fine. Even I seemed to be okay – seemed to be doing what they wanted. People were telling me, unasked, that I was doing well. Nice! And my faith in my abilities suddenly stood me in good stead. I knew that I was doing exactly what was right for the scene: I was giving a natural, character performance without chewing the scenery, and I was aiding the scene rather than scene-stealing or posturing. There in service to the scene? Check! Doing it well? Check! What more is there?

Between takes I took a moment to sit down, and I saw a sign on the wall for veterans, offering them the opportunity to apply for $11,000 grants for schooling. I was tickled by the sign, because the first line read, “You Have Sacrified”. No, that’s not a typo. No, I didn’t forget the “c”. “You Have Sacrified“. I showed that to two other actors, and we giggled. It brought out the Southern Preacher side of all of us! “I. have. sacrified! Amen!“

Maybe you had to be there. 

Well, after a three-and-a-half or 4 hours or so, we wrapped. And finally, after the whole day, I got to share my good fortune with one of my friends on set, Diana. She grabbed me in her arms and shouted, “CONGRATULATIONS!!!” She was so generous in her praise! I was very moved and relieved. As exciting as today was, until I could share it, it was missing something. That’s just me; joy, to be really experienced, is to be shared. And I had made a new friend, Dustin, who had just graduated from law school, but is feeling the call to acting. He gave me high fives and a new friendship. Life is good!

The last moment of the day: an Extra said to me as we walked away, “Wow! You really scared me! I was sitting there [on set], and every time you came roaring out, you made me jump! Really scared me! I love that!” It’s the only career I’ve been involved in where scaring the s*** out of someone is a good thing! 

*sigh* How marvelous.

Well, 15 minutes (or 3-4 hours) of fame. And when episode 18 airs sometime in April, I’ll watch with my hands over my eyes, hoping to God that I end up on the screen instead of the cutting room floor; that I don’t look hideous (yeah, I know, I’m not supposed to care); and that the acting works. 

I have to admit something. I feel educated by this experience in a way I couldn’t have foreseen. I know how to act, so it’s not that. What it is is a personal understanding, an awareness of how much responsibility rests on us as actors when we work on film, and how precarious is that perch! In theatre, you rehearse, rehearse, rehearse, you have an opening night, and then the director goes away, leaving the show in the hands of the Stage Manager and the actors, and the show opens every night, applauded or not by the people who come to see it. It’s in your actor hands, and no one but the occasional critic and the Stage Manager can tell you that you’re not doing well enough. And unless you’re in a Broadway show where understudies are actually provided, you are probably not going to be fired for doing a less-than-good job because there’s no one there to replace you!

It’s different with film. I suddenly knew, standing there to do the first take, that if I stunk up the place and were summarily fired, there would be something like 30 or more people there to watch my humiliation. 

Ulp. 

Anyway, the day was now over. I bought – and drank some of – the champagne, to celebrate my step up. As for tomorrow, no return to 3-line stardom – at least, not that I know of (but phone lines are open!). 

Tomorrow, I’ll be transcribing. Back to the grindstone. 

But it’s all good. I’m happy now that I know that luck at least has my address in its vast Rolodex. 

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www.LoriKirstein.com

“Killing” the Audition

When I say I “killed” an audition, I mean something different than I used to.

Once upon a time, showing up, and getting up on stage and saying my lines without feeling my legs shaking uncontrollably would have been a “successful audition”…not to mention remembering my lines!

Then I got a little more seasoned, and showing up with the resume and headshot looking great, and learning how to dress along the lines of the character without actually being costume-y, and having my nerves there but no longer crippling, those were my signs of success!

A few more years in, some negligible graduate “training” under my belt and an understanding that I was on my own, success was when I auditioned without the nightmare voices of my detracting would-be “teachers” in my head, and just used the gift God gave me.

When I had fun – that was my mark of success.

Years passed, and nerves became – depending on the audition – nonexistent, negligible, or useful for feeding into the monologue.

I floundered, suddenly, feeling that I had reached the end of my abilities. Then I heard Dustin Hoffman say that “method acting” is whatever method you use to do your acting.

I was complimented by two professionals – one extraordinarily big, and the other at least waay bigger than me – and I did some learning under the latter. I took his advice, tried to put it together with what I know to do, and I killed the next big theatre audition.

But it left me with a really really cool philosophical question. If I do a “good audition” or a “good interview”, but no one around me likes what I did, did I actually do a “good audition” or interview?

But here’s the cool-as-hell answer, the one that comes from a place of knowing that I have the talent/ability, and that I prepared/interviewed my butt off,  so I killed it! It’s everyone else’s fault if they’re too stupid to notice.

Good approach to life! Work, prepare, find out if you’re as good as you think you are, and strut your stuff, knowing that the only reason it couldn’t happen for you is … not your fault.

Suh-weet!

New Life, New Focus, New Rules

Kirk Baltz – Headshot

Kirk as Marvin Nash in Reservoir Dogs

I took a weekend-long acting workshop with Kirk Baltz. Do you know who this guy is? He’s f*@#% amazing, that’s who he is. Seen Reservoir Dogs? That Kirk Baltz.

I hadn’t seen it either. I’ll be honest. I’d seen Will & Grace – he was in an episode of that that was very funny. I knew his face. But I didn’t know his name. And then an email crossed my path and I looked at the workshop announcement, and here’s what I thought:

I’m in trouble. I’m stuck in a life that doesn’t work no matter what I try. What I really want to do is keep acting, more and more and more and more and more! But what about the money? What about the money? What about the money?

Aaaaaack!!!!!

I didn’t want to spend the money on the workshop, but I did. Partly because my “dead” friend, Randy, was jumping up and down in my mind’s eye, going, “You’re an actor! You’re an actor! Go!!!” (so much for “dead”! Thank God!) and partly because I didn’t know what the hell else to do. I mean, when you’re stuck in the freakin’ mud, and someone offers you a hand up, who cares what the hand looks like!

Plus, actually, to be honest, the hand was the hand of an actor, and I know how much I love that. So I went.

Upshot? Walk, don’t run, to work with this guy. Wherever he is, whenever he is. And the upshot for me is:

I’M AN ACTOR! No, I’m not yelling at you, I’m yelling at myself in the hopes that I will continue to hear what I finally “got” this weekend: the reason that nothing else in my life works is because I haven’t been trimming my sails the in right direction, I haven’t been focused on the right area of my life. Whatever the imagery you want to come up with, the fact is that I was putting money first, and artistry second. And it just isn’t that way for me. It’s not!!!!

How do I know?

Because when I “got” it this weekend, I looked at my life – how it is, how it’s been, and how it’s going to be – and everything made sense! Incredible! It all made sense! I suddenly understood why I’m living where I’m living, why nothing else has worked out, what is meant by “follow your heart” because it means “do what you love to do” and I know what I love to do. And I’m walking the path now. The right path. My path.

You just don’t know how much friggin’ courage it takes to be an actor. How many societal voices and parental voices and even friends’ voices are screaming in your ear: “Be practical! Get a job! Don’t risk it!” And then, tragedy of tragedies, what happens when they all disappear is you take the screaming on for yourself! That’s how you end up, like I did, spending 30 years in the misery and artistically soul-crushing experience of working in cubicles in Corporate America.

[insert incredibly crass curse-word here!!!!]

So, while it’s been a long journey – since Randy, died, actually, back in early January 2009, and I realized that life was too short to be miserable – and one in which I haven’t brought in money for many, many a long, looooooong month, although I’ve worked my tail off to become whatever I could become to bring in the money, I’m letting it all go.

I’m starting a one-woman play. I’m also starting a god-knows-how-many-people play. And I’m going to perform them. And I’m going to make a movie. Who cares what it becomes? Who cares who frickin’ sees it! I have so many ideas perking around in there. And that beats the hell out of depression, self-doubt, uncertainty, not to mention failing to get anything started because it turns out that I’M AN ACTOR!!!  And only the acting is going to start. That’s it. Period. That is my grounding. That is my center, my soul, my raison d’etre, my insane pulse of life.

I’m older than I ever thought I would be to start this kind of shyte with such a vengeance, but hey, listen up: if Meryl Streep can be a romantic lead at 60 years of age, I can become the successful actress I have, up to now, only been in fits and starts. And don’t start with me about how Meryl is Meryl, so I shouldn’t compare, because lemme tell you: Lori is Lori, and that’s no small thing. I oughta know! Do you know how much effort it takes to be an actor? Probably not. Well, for now take my word for it. Efforting and whether or not it is what an underpaid factory worker might know as effort is a subject for another blog entry.

Well, I have to run. I have an audition in Seattle to prepare for. It’s a biggie, and I want to use the information from this weekend to make this the best friggin’ audition of my entire up-to-now-partially-misspent life!

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www.LoriKirstein.com
ActorTact@Gmail.com
YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDgWr7fBzGk

Turning the Ship – Full-On Acting, Please!

When you are brought up in this country, you learn certain lessons that are challenging to release.

Things like “trying your best”, “working hard”, “keeping your nose to the grindstone”. Now, as I sit here sipping one of my favorite wines - Peju’s Provence wine (and if you don’t know Peju, run-don’t-walk – it’s a Napa valley treat) – and watching Abraham-Hicks videos (and if you don’t know Abraham-Hicks, run-don’t-walk to YouTube), and having just gone through a major freakin’ birthday (no, not one of the big ones, but it hit me like one anyway, dammit), I have an awareness borne of pain (the best teacher, it is said) and videos of Abraham-Hicks, that pushing ain’t the way!

So, I applied this understanding to my day. When I felt bad, I chose to do something different so I’d feel better.

That sounds simple enough, doesn’t it?

But the fact is that if you want to apply this kind of technique – if you even want to call it that – to your entire life and to all of your responses, this is major.

It means that when you are working on something and it doesn’t so much take you out of your comfort zone as take you into your oh-hell-no zone, you stop! So, even if you’re doing something that seems to be taking you toward some financial reward – putting effort into your business – you stop! You say to yourself, “Self, this is crud! I feel hideous!” and you stop.

This is downright un-American.

But I’m willing. I have had too many years of beating up on myself in an attempt to mold myself into whatever shape will bring the financial reward, the love reward, the career reward. And the funny part is, I haven’t been all that successful, at least as far as the American dream goes. No house plus husband and kids. No millions of dollars. That kind of thing.

I want to be an actress. More than anything in the entire world, I want my full-time job to be acting. So why would I work on anything else?

Other, that is, than what I love to do, which is writing, talking about, and teaching communication.

But what about money? I need money. Who doesn’t? So in the pursuit of my speaking career, I was told, I need to make cold calls. And that feels like crud. In a major way. I’m not talking about your garden variety resistance. I’m talking about your entire insides screaming at you.

So the heck with it. I’m turning my ship away from its normal mode of fighting its way upstream, to doing its floating downstream. I mean, hey, since it hasn’t worked yet, why not!

So I switched today. From trying to force myself to make cold calls, to practicing my monologue.

Sometimes, you just have to let go.

Sometimes you finally learn to believe that turning your ship from upstream to downstream will bring more effortless rewards (I told you: un-American) than any amount of swimming upstream.

And sure enough, hours after I’d made this decision, I got home and found that I was called back for a second audition for the lesbian play, and someone had contacted me for a 3-month job that I might actually want to do!

As an actor in my very soul, I choose to believe that this is proof.

Onward and…downward!

(To see my Communication Arts speaking website, go to www.PossibilitiesSeminars.com. To check out the whole upstream-downstream ideology, check out Abraham-Hicks on YouTube. Good stuff. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12BhS22ZySA)

Waiting for the Tide to Come In – Auditions and Expectations

When you’re an actor, you’re nuts. It just goes with the damn territory.

Part of the insanity comes from the setup: (1) learn to act, (2) become irreparably addicted to acting, (3) learn about the business, (4) despair – how does anyone make it in this business?, (5) figure out how to find auditions to apply for, (6) apply, (7) apply, (8) apply, (9) get invited to audition, (10) prepare for the *@#% audition, (11) go to the audition, and kick ass!, (12) wait for word … (13) …of a callback… (14) …or a casting… (15) or maybe never hear from ‘em again.

So we’re nuts. And it’s not our fault!

If you know me at all, you know that I love to bash the way our society has crushed the soul out of nearly everything: community, the arts, emotional range – and those are just a really good start!

When it comes to the arts, our society is supreme! Supremely good at killing it. Oh, wait, you thought that the arts was music videos? Uh…no.

Now I know if you’re reading this that you are not one of those who thinks that the artistic world begins and ends with Beyonce and Project Runway (though I admit to being a fan of both…usually).  But as an artist by soul, and a would-be artist financially, I have to admit to having returned to despair. I mean, what are my options? I’m 52 years old – which freaking stuns me (no one told me that old people were shocked to be old! Oh…wait…that’s right – 50 is the new 30! Whew!) – and I could, I suppose, move to L.A., but why on earth would I do that unless I had a sitcom to go to? Or far better yet, a co-starring role in a Meryl Streep movie (that woman is an artistic Goddess!)? At 52, just how much resilience do I have left? Quite a lot, actually, but it would feel a lot better to have a whole bunch of money while trying to drum up that resilience for yet another move, no?

Or I could wait and see if Hollywood East gets the funding it needs to become a reality. Hollywood East – a brilliant idea of having a Hollywood on the other coast; you know, the sane coast. Okay, I get it, some people really really love the Bay Area and L.A. But I was born in the midwest and then moved to the East, and I have a feeling that that is where I’ll end my days, a 96-year-old curmudgeon who was famous in at least one of the Hollywoods for a while, and who went on to drop the acting in pursuit of becoming a fabulously insightful teacher, philosopher, writer, and bad joke teller. What the hell! Plan ahead, right?

But coming back to my present insanity, I want to know this: Where are the art patrons of old? Where are those people who, for the sheer understanding of art and its importance in the world (a world now gone so dry from the combined perils of ignoring art in schools, and taking only the shiny, easily-palatable types of art that spit at us from TV and radio), supported our contributions to that world?

But wait! I see a glimmer of light up ahead! A play! They’re casting a play! And they want me to audition! Ohmigod! My identity is back! My reason for living! I’m auditioning! I’m kicking ass! Woo-hoo!

“Do you know when you will be letting us know about the casting?” I ask, after my audition has been completed. One of the casting women smiles at me and says, “Oh, soon.” Specificity and accountability, it is clear, are out; dragging feet is in.

I leave the audition and walk back to the subway – the Bay Area’s ubiquitous BART – through the Mission District. At least there, on buildings everywhere, is art, reminding me that art doesn’t die. Even if I don’t get cast. And even if I do.

Act up, y’all!

Dreamin’ in the Mission

Art in the Raw

I’m an actor – I just don’t play one on TV…yet

People say we actors are crazy. Guilty as charged! But without people like me, what would the world be? Dry as dust and emotionally under-represented to boot. So there!

New Year’s tomorrow. And my birthday last week. I hit a low spot there, looking back at my life, and looking forward and not seeing anything but mist!

I thought, “Gee! Maybe I should issue a blanket apology to everyone in my life that knows how completely out at sea my life is right now,” as I watch the tide going out, and out, and out, and waiting for what the next incoming tide will bring. But I don’t feel apologetic. I feel refreshingly pissed off! Not the kind that makes you mean – the kind that makes you feel cleansed; the kind that makes me say, “None of this is my doing! This I can blame on God – on the rhythms of my life that I do not create! So, I’m waiting, God, poised like a surfer waiting for the next wave, so don’t for Christ’s sake let me down! Because if you do, that’s your fault too!“

Right now, people who tell me that I create my own reality, and people who tell me that my thoughts create my future can just piss off! There are times in life when you’re just standing on slippery ground and you have no purchase – no “positive thoughts”, no “thinking and growing rich”. The seeds have all been sown and all you can do is sit and wait for the plants to come up, even when you’re not at all sure that the freaking things are going to come up!

So, while I wait for my ship to come in on that mysterious tide, I am preparing to apply to audition (yep, it’s that convoluted) for a group of theatres up in Washington State. Last year when I went to New York to study with the unbelievable Harold Guskin (Kevin Kline’s long-time acting coach – yes, accomplished actors use coaches; Harold coaches more stars than I could name), Harold told me to check out Washington State. “Let them see you,” he said, “You’re a good actor.” When someone like that tells you something like that, your doubting voice takes a major hike. But life intrudes eventually, and if you’re me, which I am, you start looking for the Road to Money. The money never came. Is it God once again saying, “Stop trying to be a ‘normal girl’ – you ain’t!”?

Whatever the case, forget driving myself crazy about money! I’m going to do an audition, God willing, and then – that crazy God willing again - I’ll be hired to do some professional theatre again (it’s been a year and a half) and I will be exactly who I am, only now I’ll be in a place where who I am makes sense; I’ll be who I am while on stage as well as every single day of my life; I’ll be an actor.

Lori and the Rap Video

Mabel the “Don’t-Interrupt-Me-When-I’m-Talking-On-the-Phone” Secretary

Mabel On A Good Day

That is one medium I never thought I would find myself in, but if something is meant to happen – I’m telling you – God’ll find a way.

PG&E shot an industrial video about behaving at work – not using the copier for personal use, not ignoring your co-workers in order to talk on the phone…you know, all of the things that will never ever change until the entire structure of Corporate America and human nature changes!

But the rap was good, and I’m not a fan of that medium, generally.

I played Mabel, the secretary with the phone glued to her ear and the nail file in her hand, ignoring the long line of people waiting for help. It was over the top, which suits me (paging Bette Midler!), and it was even more fun when they let Mabel get up and start boogeying to the music.

I’m getting younger as I get older, and it freaks a lot of people out. Sometimes it freaks me out! I was sitting at lunch with my dear friend Vince the other day when I got a surge of joy flow through me. I threw up my hands and laughed out loud and said, “This is so great!” I was feeling so happy about how my life is going. And he looked around at others and said, only a little tongue-in-cheek, “I’m not with her.”

But I digress.

I received another email this morning from the Trauma people looking for Extras for an airplane crash episode. Dare I do it? Should I do it? Will whatsername remember me (doubtful!)? Will I stick both feet in my mouth again (for certain sure)?

No, Lori, here’s the question: do you like the money, and is it your general career path?

Well, I do like money, but I’d rather not be a career Extra, right?

Right.

Maybe I need to save it for my new career as a rap artist.

Acting up,

Lori (P.S. My new actor website is up at www.LoriKirstein.WebsiteAnimal.com. Eventually (maybe even today) it will be simply www.LoriKirstein.com, so check both if you’re checking either, if you know what I mean.)

Lori’s L.A. Story – Wings

Sodom and Gomorrha!

Tell me why, as a non-biblical person, I should have those words reverberating in my head as we circled L.A.

Maybe because this is the land of make-believe, and as such it demands that one confront any remaining self-image issues…or drown. Whatever the case, I made it.

My day began appropriately weirdly. Starting at midnight I was in tears. I suddenly felt the Big L.A. Change as a reality. When you have dreamt a dream for a long time, your emotional body can actually tell you ahead of time when you have jumped into a current of that dream’s making. It’s a feeling that shakes you. Tears are in fact to be expected. Still, the reaction takes me by surprise.

In the morning I’m still teary and feeling as though I’ll never come home again. But I pull myself together -more or less – go to breakfast with my roomie-cum-adopted-and-beloved-and-maddening family member, Vince, and get dropped off at SFO.

Ahhh…the airport! Bastion of love and trust and adventure! HAH!!!

In the long take-off-your-clothing line, one of the guys who is checking driver’s licenses is a gas! And kind! And friendly and welcoming! To EVERYone! Who IS this man? Quick! Canonize and then replicate him!

Unpleasantly, when I reach the human X-Ray machine, even though I remove what feels like most of my clothing, the lady ushers me into a little glass-enclosed closeted area behind her – no way out, baby! – and I hear her call out what sounds like, “Alarm, female pat-down!” WHAT? My English skills instantly blown along with my sense of normalcy and personal safety, I squeak, “I alarmed???” the lady rounds on me, ready for a fight, “NON-alarm…” and then sees that I am bemused, not ticked, and her voice drops, “…I…said…”

Another woman wearing blue latex gloves and an uncomfortable, apologetic expression that said, “Can you find me a job doing ANYthing else?” comes over and liberates me from my glass prison. She pats me down. Me, Miss I-think-I-underpaid-you. Miss Law & Order.

My only sin: wearing a voluminous skirt so they couldn’t see the contours of my body. Sad commentary on trust levels in our country, not to mention personal rights.

Anyway, I made it through without a cavity search.

Anyway, L.A. I’m excited about the trip, but mostly tired. Who can sleep the night before a major step? And I’m trying to shake money fear, because to be doing this at this time in my personal financial history – not to mention the country’s – is a true leap of faith.

Remember the last blog? “Delivered neck and crop to the will of God.” That’s me.

Prayers and bearer bonds are accepted.

Acting up!

Lori