This week, between marathon work sessions for Bloomberg and rehearsals for the Christmas Show, I met with my consultant at TVI Studios. TVI is a resource center for actors#–a place to take classes and seminars, meet casting directors at nightly workshops, and generally get a handle on your career. They also have studio space for practicing monologues, songs, scenes, and anything you might need to do that’s too loud for your apartment. Their offices are a few floors above the Actor’s Equity Audition Center, so it’s also a good place to warm up before auditions.

My consultant helped me come up with a game plan to attack pilot season for 2006: I’m already on the right track, so her guidance will really hone my decisions for the next two months.

First and foremost, I need new headshots.

Since I’m interested primarily in television and film, I need to keep pace with industry standards#–and that means color photos. I’m scheduling an appointment with Dave Cross sometime in December to get new pics to send out for the Spring. This should lead to some different photos on my demo reel and website as well.

Today I met with the director of A Christmas Carol to discuss the basics of the project, and the roles I will be playing.

As I mentioned before, the project is set in New York (modern day) and there are some basic given circumstances that differ from the original#–Scrooge will be a woman, and a few of the characters change gender as a result. One of the characters I will be playing is Ben, Scrooge’s former lover (the one who breaks up with her).

Since the script is going to be a result of guided improvisation, I am left with the task of fleshing out the background and behavior of the character. The first actual rehearsal is on Thursday (Oct. 27th) and the director has asked that each actor give a presentation explaining and describing his/her character. That leaves me a few days to gather photos, images, writings, etc. that help illustrate my conception of Ben (as well as the smaller roles I will be playing).

As I ate breakfast this morning, perusing the news outlets, I started to make a list of the movies I want to see soon: movies like Good Night and Good Luck, Capote, and Shopgirl. And when I told my girlfriend that I wanted to see them, I didn’t stop there. Oh no. I told her I want to see them in the theater and support them with my box office dollars.

See, I’m afraid that if I don’t see them in the theater (and contribute to their box office take) then my "vote" doesn’t count in getting more movies like these made.

Are we really at that point? Do our dollars spent at movie houses really mimic votes in an election of content? I don’t know. But they might just.

#—

Here’s the first review listed online for Murdering Marlowe. I’m not mentioned (I don’t speak!) but the scene in which I do the most was listed as one of the best in the play (the torture scene I mentioned the other day).

We’re also currently listed on New York Times online as the highest rated off-off Broadway play.

I’ve moved all of the posts on "Opportunities in Work Clothes" to this blog, and created a new category (Articles). I’ve decided to combine that effort with this blog#–in keeping with my goals to a) simplify my fractured life, b) improve the content on my blog, and c) reduce the number of web presences I currently control.

I also cancelled some magazine subscriptions.

See, I find that I fill my time with unnecessary tasks#–things I may not even actually enjoy#–and tell myself that the reason I am not [writing/practicing/drawing/creating] is that I have too much to do. In reality, I don’t. I don’t know why I do this (I’m sure it’s some latent fear of something or another ) but I’m hell-bent on ridding myself of the habit. I’ve kept all of the activities that I truly enjoy, and the paraphernalia related to each, but I’m making an honest effort to reduce the clutter#–all of the clutter#–that’s holding me back (from security, contentment, and success).

I just clicked back through my archives and realized I’ve been blogging for over a year now. A year and four months, actually… an anniversary that came and went with no fanfare, and no reason for it. When I started this blog it was essentially as a way to fill spare time… the seemingly endless amounts of spare time I had when still in Missouri trying to make Ozark Mile happen. And while that project is still alive (though slumbering), the reason for this blog is unclear: am I writing here simply as a promotional tool? I hope not. I put far too much time into it for it to only serve that purpose. Is it to explore ideas, thoughts, and feelings? Sometimes. But maybe not enough.

Okay, so I’ve taken the T-Shirt idea and run… a long, long way. I created a site to post the T-Shirts I make (mostly so I can buy them for myself). Here’s the latest:

It’s a posterized image of George W. Bush with the words "All Your Base are Belong to Us". The phrase has been banging around the internet for a while, but I wanted a shirt that included the frowny frownerson of GWB. Click on the shirt to see the other stuff I’ve made.