Monday, November 30, 2009

Say cheese!

OK, so the play reading went really well on Saturday night. I was a little nervous actually, because although I know all these plays have been well received in Australia, I wasn't sure how well they would translate on the other side of the Pacific - especially the comedies. Aussies and Americans have a slightly different comic sensibility. Anyway, I needn't have worried because everyone got the jokes and are excited by the idea of putting together some of these scripts to create a show for ourselves. Woo hoo! It was quite a riotous evening; hey, you put five actors in a room, we're not shy! So the next step is to suss out some local theatre spaces, see what they cost and what is available.

I bought some fabulous cheese to accompany the reading from my favourite cheesery in Studio City. It's a cute cafe and very serious about cheese. The guys behind the cheese counter are always friendly and cheerful - quite flirty actually - which adds to the fun. They had some wine tasting happening when I went in, so tried a few lovely things and bought a cheap bottle of French something (white burgundy?) which was delicious and went beautifully with the cheese. For the foodies out there, I'll describe the cheese (apologies, I can't remember what each was called): a French lightly blue veined cheese, wrapped in vine leaves which had been soaked in brandy - the overall effect was sweet, with a slight tang from the blue; a Spanish goat's cheese, much like Swiss cheese in consistency, almost floral aroma; and lastly, a very stinky French washed rind soft cheese. Pure decadence.

Yesterday I met up with some Aussies, referred from my friend Laura in Melbourne (thanks Laura!). Kevin is a familiar face on Aussie TV and is travelling in the U.S. for a holiday (next stop Las Vegas) and to celebrate his 50th birthday with some mates, also turning 50 this year. They've known each other since high school. Amazing to think of friendships lasting that long, and I hope my current close friendships will too. I expect they will, some of them have already lasted more than a decade. You guys mean a lot to me. Also meeting up with Kevin yesterday afternoon was another young Aussie, Paul. We had already "met" on Facebook, thanks to Laura, so it was nice to meet in the real world. He has also won a coveted green card, the same draw as me, and arrived in L.A. barely three weeks ago. Kevin said he was really happy to help facilitate a bit of Aussie networking here, that's what it's all about baby! The more connections you have - be they friendly or purely professional - the easier it is to tackle this big weird town.

Friday, November 27, 2009

Thanksgiving

My first Thanksgiving. When I was here in 2007 at this time of year, I skipped town with Nick, Tiffany and Anthony; we headed to Vegas. This time I'm not just visiting and scored an invitation to Thanksgiving dinner with Regi and his friends. Mark and Karen provided their home and Regi provided The Turkey. A 26 pound bird that barely fit in his ancient oven, Regi spent about a day and a half preparing it; 24 hours in brine, and several more in the oven with regular basting. He refused to give up his stuffing recipe, but it was a delicious concoction which included figs, ginger, croutons, some kind of liqueur and... secret herbs and spices. All up, it was quite a spread; turkey, two kinds of stuffing (Mark made a traditional batch, which seemed to include beans, onion, garlic, breadcrumbs), cranberry sauce, yams (sweet potatoes), mashed potatoes, sauteed green beans, pumpkin pie and apple pie. We were joined by Michael, Steve and Stacy, and a merry group we were, full of opinions and good humour. Conversation ranged from the quirks of the Aussie accent, through national treasures and embarrassments (Aussie and U.S.), So You Think You Can Dance (and my Mary Murphy impersonation; the frozen face of shrieking hysteria) and American Idol through to cross-dressing and transgender surgery.

Emily is away this weekend, spending the holiday with her family, which puts me in charge of the warring cats and their litter trays. Not my favourite thing. I like cats, but I'm not a big fan of keeping them in an apartment with no outside access, forcing them to use litter trays indoors. Both cats are very good about using their respective litter trays, but it's still a stinky job to remove the poop and refresh the litter. Bleurrgghh! Pilot is such a bully, any chance he gets he corners Pearl (the young interloper) under Emily's bed. This is a safe spot for Pearl because Emily stores a lot of stuff under her bed and with Pilot's partial blindness, he can't see her under there. Besides which, I don't think he really cares whether or not he gets the chance to jump her, he seems content to simply bail her up and deny her access to the rest of the house; in other words, let her know who's boss.

Cat grumbles aside, I have much to be thankful for. I'm very lucky to have scored a green card and the opportunity of living and working here, pursuing my dreams. I feel so very welcomed by the people I meet in my new home, the new friends I'm making. I also feel loved and supported by my dear friends and family in Melbourne (and Paris), I know that if I reach a point where L.A. no longer feels like the right place to be, that I'll be welcomed back in my old home.

Tomorrow night, I'm meeting with some of my new actor friends to read some of my short plays, with view to putting a show together. It will be interesting to see how well they 'translate', I suspect some will need a bit of tweaking and some may simply not work at all. But hearing new voices (and accents) reading them will no doubt provide me with inspiration to write new material.

As I write this, I'm half-watching Footloose starring a very young Kevin Bacon, Sarah Jessica Parker and John Lithgow. Oh, those 80's bouffant hairstyles! Oh, those high-waisted jeans! Oh, that awesome 80's soundtrack!

Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Busy, bizzy, buzzy

Very bizzy weekend. Actually, it's been a very busy two weeks what with improv at UCB almost every day. What a great group of people, we had such fun! Our graduation performance took place on Saturday afternoon, and went pretty well. I'm a harsh personal critic of course, and I look back on it and think about where and how I could have been funnier/made better offers etc, but we made people laugh and enjoyed ourselves so what more can you ask for? For the performance, we called ourselves "Full Grown and the Chastity Tools"; absolutely an in-joke. I can't quite remember where the "full grown" came from, but Chastity Tool is the name of a girl that Jen (one of the girls in the group) went to school with. They were arch-enemies by the sound of it. Jen is the daughter of a judge and Chastity is the daughter of a pastor; they were highly competitive with each other, from schoolwork and grades through to boyfriends. It's now many years hence but Jen still can't stand the thought of her. Chastity Tool.
Saturday night was Mike's birthday so Nic gathered a group of friends together for dinner at a local Greek restaurant. It's a merry place, with lots of mirrors and live music. The cocktails were awful (my fault for ordering an Orange Cosmopolitan - tasted like cough syrup) but the food was excellent! Phwoar... flaming saganaki!
Sunday was spent shooting Lost Girls. The scene takes place in a garden, and we were able to shoot at a private home, belonging to the in-laws of one of the other actresses, Jenna. It was a lovely setting and afforded us luxuries (such as bathroom and changing area) that a public park would not have. The sun is setting just before 5pm these days, so we had to get it all in the can before then. I was grateful to finish then, and looking forward to crawling into my nice warm bed. I love this photo, it reminds me of Weir's Picnic at Hanging Rock; somehow mysterious and dreamlike but with a strange intensity.
Monday was a lovely relaxing day. I slept in, ate a leisurely breakfast and went to yoga in the afternoon. So good to get back to yoga! I didn't manage it last week at all, between improv classes, auditions and rehearsals for Lost Girls.

Great to get news from abroad; Marit and Elias are making progress with house renovations (I'm planning a visit next year), Bridgette has a webcam and Mum has headphones (all the better to Skype with, my dears). No Regrets was well received at Short & Sweet, and BB's Vienna Syndrome is taking the stage this week. I wish I could be in more than one place at a time! Now come on, Tiffers, when are you getting married?







Friday, November 20, 2009

Fail?!?!

Failed my driving test. Failed badly. Failed on several counts in fact. Driving to pass a test is different from driving in the real world. One of the unexpected manouevres I was asked to perform was to back 30 feet along a curb. Really? Now when exactly does one find that necessary in real life? I would argue in fact that it's a slightly dangerous thing to back that far on the street. Well, I was pretty close to the curb to begin with, having been asked to park the car curbside, so I didn't have much wiggle room. About 6 to 10 feet behind me was a driveway, in other words, a break in the curb which allowed me to ride the curb a little. If there had been no break, I wouldn't have been able to ride up the curb as I wasn't "wobbling" at such an angle (or speed) as to have pushed up and over a 4 inch barrier. However, because I ended up just on the curb, instant fail. If that wasn't enough, when instructed to pull out from the curb and resume driving, I didn't look over my shoulder to my blind spot; rear vision mirror and side mirror, yes, but not the blind spot. According to the box ticked on my test form, this is regarded as dangerous driving. I always check my blind spot when changing lanes, but pulling out from a curb in a very quiet street, no I didn't. Instant fail. One has to treat pulling out from the curb in the same way as changing lanes. Reading the report of my test, Andrew (the tester) also noted that I failed to stop behind the lines. Not that I failed to stop, but that I did so over the lines. Honestly, I thought I was behind the lines in every instance; I was regarding the front wheels as the marker (I think that's what I was taught all those years ago), but it seems I should take it from the very front of the car. Lessons learnt. Very frustrating.

Allow me to let off some more steam by describing Andrew to you. A white guy in his 50's, Andrew moved slowly and heavily, much the way he explained the reasons for my numerous failures. He had a pot belly and seemed uncomfortable sitting down. His voice sounded a little strained, which added to the impression of his general discomfort. This is not a happy man. He didn't introduce himself (so I did the honours) and grunted when wished "a nice day". He used to be an instructor and was good enough to spend some time at the end of the test explaining exactly what I'd done wrong and why it was important that these rules I'd broken needed to be adhered to for the safety of everyone. I appreciated the advice, and there's certainly no arguing with it, but his explanations were so laborious, and his voice so whiny, that I just was about ready to strangle him. Instead I thanked him and silently hoped that I get a different tester next time.

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Short and sweet

Hey there, I got cast in Lost Girls! I'm to play Wendy, whose playtime with Peter Pan is well in the past and has now settled down to a life of middle class boredom with her husband. Lady Alice and Dorothy from Kansas allow her the opportunity to open up about her "dreamworld" life. We had a rehearsal on Sunday night at the director's house. Jerry showed us some pictures from the original graphic novel online; they are beautiful, dreamlike and very pornographic. I've never seen so many wet pussies. Ahem. These are not the scenes we'll be shooting. Tonight we present the relatively chaste picnic scene to Jerry's class for discussion and feedback (for Jerry's benefit) and this Sunday we shoot. As it turns out, we have an American playing an Englishwoman (Alice), a British girl playing an American (Dorothy) and me playing a Brit. So none of us are using our natural accents!

Improv at UCB is going well, and we're getting more into scene work. We have a graduation performance this Saturday afternoon, which I think I'm not alone in feeling both nervous and excited about. Good to know we've still got more three sessions before we go public.

On Thursday afternoon I have a driving test for my Californian driver's license - wish me luck!

Sunday, November 15, 2009

Improvising

Here's what I love about LA. Took myself off to Aroma for a double espresso and some kind of sticky cake arrangement and got talking to a New Zealand guy and his American wife. He's been here about 20 years, came over to race motorcycles and had quite a bit of success until one too many injuries put him a few milli-seconds off his game. We chatted for a few minutes, I told them my story in a nutshell, and we exchanged cards. This kind of thing happens a lot in LA, more than in Melbourne I find, people are more open here.


It's been a busy week as on Monday I started a two week intensive improvisation course with Upright Citizens Brigade (UCB). It's every weekday except Wednesdays for two weeks, culminating in a graduation performance this Saturday. The class comprises an even split of guys and gals, a diverse and friendly group of people. I'm not even the only new kid in town, although I am the only non-American. The classes are pretty intense - 3 hours with just one 15 minute break - and lots of fun. Part of our course requirement is to see at least 2 shows at the UCB theatre (free to students), which offers the opportunity to see some UCB alumni who have been working together in improv for several years; they're pretty awesome. On Wednesday night a bunch of us went together and saw a show called Facebook. The way the show works is a volunteer from the audience is interviewed on stage while looking at their Facebook page. They sign in and big screens show the audience what is on the computer screen. The interview is efficient, slightly cheeky and elicits a lot of details about the person, their experiences, hobbies and view of the world. The improv troupe - comprising 4 guys - then proceed to use various details from the volunteer's story to kickstart a series of scenes. It is not intended as a replaying or reinterpretation of the volunteer's life, the details are just used as launching pads, but because the audience knows the reference point our enjoyment is enhanced. Very clever stuff.


I've also had a couple of auditions for student films this week. One is a scene study, which is a practical assignment for the film student in casting and directing actors. The scene is taken from a previously produced work, in this case Woody Allen's Hannah and her Sisters. I read for the roles of Hannah and one of her sisters, Lee, who is having an affair with Hannah's husband (something the audience knows at this point in the film, but Hannah doesn't). Great scene, audition went well, I'll know sometime next week if I got it. Cross fingers 'cos it would be fun to do. The other audition was for a USC (University of Southern California, well reputed filmmakers program) graduate student film. This film is an adaptation of a graphic novel called Lost Girls, which is the story of female heroines of children's literature (Alice from Wonderland, Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz, Wendy from Peter Pan) and reimagines them as adults. There are overt lesbian overtones, very saucy. I auditioned for the role of Wendy, who is now a 30-something married woman who overhears 20-something Dorothy and 60-something Alice talking about their "dream world" childhood. Wendy follows them to a park where she spies Dorothy sunbathing topless while Alice rubs sunscreen on her back. And they are eating peaches. With their fingers. You get the picture, it's all rather nudge-nudge, wink-wink.


My frustration with my Saturday morning class continues. This week was "callbacks", where we performed the scenes assigned to us last week, with lines learned. It's a big class and not everyone was in pairs - in fact, most weren't - so it took a long time to get through everyone. Also, Rick worked quite a lot with some actors, trying to elicit their best performance or at least help them understand where/how they were falling short. By the time I got the chance to strut my stuff we were already running overtime. My scene partner, Andy, hadn't been there last week and I didn't know if he was going to be there this week. He was emailed the script, so he had learned it but we hadn't had a chance to run through it or talk about it at all. This put us at a disadvantage, especially as our characters are a couple whose relationship is faltering and they are arguing about their son's future. I don't want to make excuses, but this was an element which compromised our ability to do our best. The first take felt almost like a cold read, as we hadn't worked together before and were improvising the blocking. Rick gave us a couple of brief notes, purely technical, then bang, take two. A bit better, not great. That was it. After seeing how much time was spent with so many of the other actors, some of which Rick practically gushed over, assuring them of how great he thought they were and they just need to do this or that to slam dunk their audition, Andy and I were shortchanged. I felt like, boy, we really underwhelmed him. He was bored, keen to move on, and apparently doesn't see enough potential in us to spend time on. Even if that's true, this is after all a class, not an actual audition, so we deserved more than to have his back turned on us. Perhaps I'm overreacting, but it was very upsetting and frustrating. As I walked back to my car after class I was ready to cry. I caught up to an older gentleman who had been sitting in on the class. He appears to be someone Rick knows, probably with some connection to the biz - writer? director? casting director? producer? - we haven't been told. Anyway, he said "good work", which I really needed to hear but which opened the floodgates. I thanked him and scrambled into my car, feeling like a hysterical actress. I calmed down enough to drive home, at which point I called a friendly shoulder to cry on. Regi was a champ. He came and picked me up, bought some food and a bottle of wine, and drove us to a lookout point in the Hollywood Hills for a picnic and a pep talk. I felt much better then, and we had a really lovely afternoon. Later on I performed Bridgette's awesome monologue for him, which he loved and which helped restored my faith in myself.

Today I watched the video of Beaten Hearts, for the first time, and was reminded what a great little show that was, how much combined talent made it happen and made it special. My new theory about the Problem with Rick, or Rick's Problem with Me, is that I don't think he knows how to cast me. He doesn't know which box I fit in. I'm not generic. That's ok, neither is Toni Collette. Neither is Steve Carell or Rachel Griffiths, or Judy Davis or Katharine Hepburn for that matter. I've been waiting to be told who/what they see when I walk in the room, but no-one can tell me because they don't know what they're looking at. So it's up to me to show Them, whoever they are, what I can do, what I'm great at.

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

A little patience

Blimey! How did 5 days go past so quickly? I'm failing in my pledge to blog every two days. Um, ok so Friday I started the day with a fairly intense yoga class. It's an intermediate to advanced level class so it is definitely challenging for me, which is why I like it. One of the challenges is how hot the room gets. The class is held in the smaller of the two studios at Black Dog and is very well attended so it doesn't take long for all that collective body heat to rise. Friday night I caught up with Aussies Nic and Mike, and Norwegians Julie and Dag for a few drinks at a local bar. Good wine list, tasty bar menu, not too noisy or packed with people; altogether quite cosy. On Friday nights, we discovered, they have a jazz band play a couple of sets. This was at just the right pitch; loud enough to hear and enjoy, but quiet enough to talk over without undue effort.


Saturday was another glorious sunny day. I spent the morning inside a theatre in Hollywood, attending the second of a series of classes with Rick Pagano and Russell Boast. As is often the case, there were a few people missing this week, I guess they decided it wasn't their cup of tea. Anyhoo, Rick handed out sides (scene scripts) to everyone and made a point of not letting us out of the room to go rehearse them. We had time to read them over, but he wanted this session to be about absolutely cold reading. He gave each of us some redirection, a few notes, and next week will be treated as a "callback" audition for which we will learn the script. It's funny; sometimes in a class like this I feel like I stand out, maybe I get lucky with a script that I immediately click with or that allows me to display my comic timing or something. Or maybe the average talent level in the room is lower. There's a lot of talented actors in this class, and while I feel that I match up to them, I don't feel that I've demonstrated that yet. It's frustrating and I think I'm psyching myself out. At least this week I can learn the script and prepare.

Quiet night Saturday, stayed home and watched Sleuth - the remake from a couple of years ago which recast Michael Caine in the Laurence Olivier role, and Jude Law in the Michael Caine role, directed by Kenneth Branagh. Sadly, it was not a patch on the original. The film got too caught up in technological wizardry in Caine's mansion; remote control lights, sliding walls, hidden doors, sophisticated video security etc. With so much attention paid to the bells and whistles, the essential tension and mind-game playing between the two men was somehow lost. When I switched that off, I discovered The English Patient was playing on TV and got drawn into that. I remember loving the film when it came out (now approaching 15 years ago, would you believe - 1996!) and it attracted a lot of Academy Award nominations, most of which it didn't win, so it then had this reputation as being overhyped. Not true. It stands up well as a beautifully shot, elegantly written and superbly performed piece of cinema. It's an desert epic with some Laurence of Arabia splendour, but also a meditation on the personal effect of war, the displacement of people and the actions it leads them to take which would have seemed inconceivable in peace time.

Thursday, November 5, 2009

Sweet

Wednesday night I attended a workshop at TVI with Ben Harris, the casting director of The Office, among other shows and some features (including the next Judd Apatow film). There was some discussion about the audition process for The Office. One of the other women in the class had a friend who auditioned and had been told "do less, do less". What does that mean? Keep it simple, don't act, just be. Ben talked about the style of the show being very "real" - basically, you've got Michael (the Steve Carell/Ricky Gervais character) behaving bizarrely and everyone else just reacts to him. So the casting process is really about finding the person that fits the role perfectly, without "acting". They'll see SAG and non-SAG actors in their search for the right fit, and have Taft-Hartley'd several actors (that effectively means, paid the necessary fees to SAG to allow them into the union).

With the emphasis on "being real" and "doing less", we got a lot of very subdued performances in the cold reads, although I don't think there were any Office scripts used. In fact, there were two scenes I recognised from the movie Knocked Up. Some people were asked to do less/simplify while others were asked to lift their energy level a little. My scene partner Melinda and I scored a script from the short-lived Aaron Sorkin show Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip which was about the behind-the-scenes of a TV show. It was Sorkin's next project after The West Wing, but I gather it only lasted one season. Anyway, our scene was a bit of a face off between two executives, the old guard (Melinda) and the new (me); not laugh out loud funny but had some moments. The dialogue was quite brisk and logical so after reading it over a few times we almost had the whole thing memorised which made it easier to keep eye contact during the scene. After all the discussion of "being real" I considered whether or not I should adopt an American accent or stick with my own, but decided to go American. I'm proud to say that Ben held us up as the perfect example of the naturalistic style he had been talking about. Sweet, go team! He didn't say a word about my accent, which I also took as a good sign. In wrapping up the class, somebody asked about sending him showreels and he said actually right now is a good time as they are in a bit of a lull until casting for The Office picks up again in December. So today, I posted him a copy of my reel on DVD. Oooh, I would LOVE to be on The Office!

When I got home last night, I found Emily had left some groceries out on the bench, comprising almost entirely of breakfast cereals. When it comes to cereal, she is the female Jerry Seinfeld; just loves the stuff, eats it any time of the day as a snack. Well, this lot looked more like candy than anything else: Marshmallow Mateys, described on the box as frosted (that means covered in sugar glazing) whole grain cereal - so, healthy, right? - with marshmallows; Cinnamon Toasters, described as sweetened whole wheat and rice cereal with cinnamon; Raisin Bran (aka Sultana Bran - ok, I recognise that as breakfast cereal); and Caramel Popcorn with Peanuts. It's possible the Caramel Popcorn is in fact candy, not masquerading as cereal, but then again it's hard to tell.

Yesterday afternoon I recorded the narration for Ginger, the student film I worked on over the weekend. Into the booth, a few takes per section, in and out in 30 minutes. The director and the sound guy love my voice. Actually, a number of people have commented on my suitability for voiceover. I need to put a voice reel together - it's time I started getting paid!

Pussy cat update: Pilot and Pearl are making some progress, and have even deigned to share the same couch occasionally (under Emily's watchful eye). However, Emily still thinks Pilot will take any unsupervised opportunity to bully Pearl, who continues to hide out in Emily's room most of the time.

Monday, November 2, 2009

Gingerbread house

Three hours drive north of LA is the town of Visalia. This is where a little student film called "Ginger" was filmed over the weekend. The drive was all freeway, so generally tedious, but it did take me through some different landscapes of southern California (aka SoCal). The cracked concrete river wound through rocky, yellow hills, followed by scrubby hills and flat farmland. My destination turned out to be a large red brick house decked out like a wedding cake, complete with gables, ornate decorative iron-work and formal English garden. Inside it was a crazy funhouse with black and white tiling, plush royal blue carpets, a spiral wrought-iron staircase, jars of lollies behind the bar, an old-fashioned wrought iron stove (who knows whether or not it was actually functional), archways dripping with fake ivy, gothic statues and a fireman's pole; it was like a Tim Burton film set, cleaned up for the kiddies. The college these film students are associated with have some connection to the house - possibly the owners? - but it is also rented out as a wedding venue, as evidenced by some brochures lying about and the Laurelwood website. Check it out, I'm not exaggerating! I highly recommend viewing the Laurelwood movie (link on the home page), it's a divinely cheap exercise in sentimental, misty-lensed cheese.

The place lacks the authentic sophistication of Ripponlea, but it was the perfect venue for the whimsical tale of young Ginger whose four year vow of silence is broken by the charms of an amiable cable repairman. I played Ginger's self-absorbed mother, and also the narrator of the film in British accented voice over. The crew worked efficiently and were running on schedule so in the end I spent more time on the freeway than at Laurelwood. I felt quite bleary by the time I got home on Sunday evening.

Today (Monday) I researched some good female monologues. Alas, my favourite monologue to date (the marvellous work of one Ms Burton) is a good 10 minutes which is waaay too long in an A.D.D. town like LA. Well, to be fair, it would be considered too long as an audition piece anywhere. I need to find a couple - dramatic and comedic - that run under 2 minutes. The internet yielded a few promising results. Monday is a yoga day - bliss! - and I also rehearsed a scene in preparation for my acting class tomorrow night. It's a very funny, fast-paced scene of a bickering married couple in therapy. I'm also reading John Irving's 'A Prayer for Owen Meany' which I'm enjoying very much. I've not read John Irving before, but I like his style; warm, witty and wryly nostalgic.