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Summer Is A Bummer

Published July 23, 2009 acting , Actress , auditions , film , show business , Uncategorized 8 Comments
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There’s a thing about being an actress that happens a lot. You can’t wait to get a job. And then when you get a job,  you can’t wait until it’s over. And then when it’s over you’re afraid you’ll never get another job.

This is my current state of mind. Add the fact that it is the depths of summer and NO ONE is calling me to audition-you no longer have CRANKY ACTRESS-you have CRAZY ACTRESS.

I almost agreed to go to Philadelphia for an audition for an Indy film. Not just Philadelphia, but when I got to Philadelphia I would have to take another train to some scary place called Jenkintown. So I would be doing approximately 5 hours of round trip of traveling for the CHANCE of a role.

My first tip off was when my husband answered the phone and a guy said, “Ah, um, is this an actor?” It was the director. He didn’t know who he was calling. But I still was gonna go.  It was a total desperation move.

And who was I gonna meet when I got there? Freddy? Is there a crazy man inviting actresses to come and audition in obscure towns in Pennsylvania? Are the actresses never seen again? Does Freddy tell them before he kills them, “Look, you had a chance to use your head. You could have refused to come to Jenkintown. But you came of your own free will.  You did. You came. You traveled five hours for an audition. What kind of idiot does that? You are so stupid you deserve to die.”

I didn’t tell anyone because I knew they would tell me I was nuts. I only told a very close friend. She said, “Ah, Cranky if you need to get out of the house that bad why don’t you go to the beach?” Then she looked at me with that funny look people give you when they are thinking to themselves, “Geez I didn’t know she was that bad off.”

Doing a play where the script had MAJOR problems is torture. But not doing anything is WORSE TORTURE. So today I donated five pairs of shoes to housing works, rearranged my closet, hand washed all the hand wash, and checked facebook where people are making fun of Sarah Palin, talking about Neti Pots and playing Bejeweled.

And now I’m thinking maybe I SHOULD go to Jenkintown.

Cast Pictures Anyone?

Published July 10, 2009 acting , Actress , comedy , show business , Uncategorized 2 Comments
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Had a performance last night with the FACHADICK COMPANY. They asked the actors to be ready and dressed in costume by 5:30 so they could take cast pictures. So I would have to get there at 4:30 to put on makeup and squeeze into my skintight gown and then sit around until 7pm with the spaghetti straps boring into my shoulders. And then do the show. Do the show. After hanging around in costume for two and a half hours.

All they had to say was, “These pictures are for you people! We’re doing this for you.” Oh really? Really? They’re for me? Just what I always wanted! Pictures of myself with the FACHADICK COMPANY that I can look at for the rest of my life and reminisce about my mini nervous breakdown at the Westway Diner. So my answer was, “Too busy, can’t make it.”

So I walked into the theater at 6pm yesterday and everyone was sitting around the stage and in the audience. I ask the director, “Oh, are you done with the pictures already?” “Ah, no,” he says, “the photographer never showed up.” Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha. I got that wonderful feeling inside, when you trusted your gut and you were right. My husband’s grandmother would have said I was QVELLING. Yes, yes, I was QVELLING inside.

Then he said, “But he might show up, so if you want to hurry and get your dress on you can get in the pictures.” Cranky had no intention of hurrying. Cranky just gave him a blank stare. When he didn’t show up for tech he lost his director status in my mind. So I go to the powder room. And when I come back the stage manager says to the director, “Did you tell Cranky the photographer isn’t coming so she doesn’t have to hurry?” My response was a genuine guffaw. I didn’t mean to laugh in his face. I really didn’t. It just came out.

We had a very kind audience. They were laughing, laughing, laughing. You gotta love that.

During the performance a couple of us were hanging out on the fire escape stairs waiting for our entrances and two people from the show in the theater two floors above came walking down the stairs. They went right to the entrance to the stage and mouthed, “Is this the bathroom?”

Was Cranky tempted to say yes? Was there a kernel of truth in that because there was crap involved? Would it have hurt the play if two strangers wandered onstage? Well we will never know because Cranky did the right thing and directed them to fly hallway, where now half the lights are burned out, so you can’t see the flies coming.

Opening Night Horrors

Published July 7, 2009 acting , Actress , rehearsal , show business , Uncategorized 5 Comments
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So opening night arrives. Or should I call it opening day? Because we have to be at the theater at 2pm to do our one and only tech and our one and only speed through on the actual stage before the curtain at 7pm.

I take the subway there and a person sitting opposite me on the train is reading “The Secrets of Mental Health.” I don’t know about you, but if I were reading that, I’d be putting a plain brown cover on that puppy. And if I had known what I was in for later, I would have asked if I could borrow it.

I arrive at the theater. The cast is sitting around in the audience. The lead guy who is also the set builder is in an Italian t-shirt in a sweaty frenzy placing furniture on the stage and hammering supports to hold a door in place.

The stage manager is already having a meltdown. “THERE’S NO ONE HERE TO SHOW ME THE LIGHT BOARD! IT WAS IN MY CONTRACT THAT SOMEONE WOULD BE HERE WITH ME! THERE IS NO ONE HERE. HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO FIGURE OUT HOW TO WORK THIS THING?” This is a show with like a million telephone ring cues. And a blackout. Oh-oh.

The director is a no show. I repeat. The director is a NO SHOW!!

The stage manager comes down from the light booth. She lies in the floor in yogic child pose. “Can someone go and get me a beer? And don’t talk to me for the next hour.”

A beer? A beer? Is that gonna help her “figure it out?”

Ok. I’ve been here ten minutes and am asking myself, “WHY WHY WHY?”

Something looks weird to me about the stage. I go and sit in the audience and realize what it is. If you sit on the right side of the audience you cannot see the right side of the stage. The door has been placed downstage and almost in the center on a perfect angle to block all the action stage left. As luck would have it most of my action takes place stage left. No one has thought about sight lines. But you cannot be wielding a hammer and checking sight lines at the same time. This is where a director who shows up comes in handy. I am now thinking they need to change the name of the company to the FACHADICK COMPANY.

I ask Mr. Hammer, “Would you come over her for a minute?” He comes and sits next to me. “You can’t see half the stage,” I tell him. “Hmmm,” he says, “maybe we can move the furniture around a little.” Yeah, maybe if we tip the whole fucking stage and all the furniture slides over to one side everything will work out perfectly.

“That’s not gonna help,” I say, “Most of my action takes place on that side of the stage. If you don’t care, I don’t either.” “Well, you’re in the play so you should be seen,” he says. Like it’s some new idea he just thought of. You mean I’m on the stage because people are supposed to see me? As opposed to in the wings or behind a curtain?

After a little back and forth with the ingénue who delivers two lines from the other side of the door and wants the audience to see her two lines, Italian t-shirt makes the call. “Well, most of the action happens on the stage, so I think we should see the stage,” he says. We are fucking reinventing the wheel here.

We get to the speed through and I am like rattled, tired and tense so I blank TWICE. I mean like totally blank. I could have stood there for an hour and the line wouldn’t have come to me. This is some scary shit. We are opening in 90 minutes.

On my little break I go to the Westway Diner on Eighth Avenue. I sit in the booth. I put my head in my hands and say OUT LOUD, “Dear God Please Help Me!” And I am alone. I am alone and talking to myself. But Eighth Avenue is full of crazies so nobody cares. This is what the FACHADICK COMPANY has driven me to. I order soup. I can’t eat it. I order eggs. I figure it’s two mouthfuls and you get a lot of protein.

I walk back to the theater. I hear the death march in my head. DAH DAH DAH DUM DAH DAH DAH DAH DUM…

I go up to the dressing room. It is up two flights of fire escape stairs. The bathroom is in the basement. You have to walk down fly hallway to get there. Big flies, little flies, all kinda flies must be batted from your face to get to the toilet.
The dressing room isn’t air-conditioned. It is stifling and the ingénue asks that the fan be turned off because she has to flat iron her hair. I just love putting makeup on and then watching it melt off my face.

We begin. My first entrance I feel like and empty shell in sandal heels. “Pull it together,” I tell myself. I start getting it together. Then there is a scene when I am sitting on a loveseat and other cast members enter. The ingénue comes on and stands directly in front of me with her ass in my face. Her butt is literally an inch from my face.  I have a choice.  I can move and look like an actress who is aware of being upstaged, or I can stay. But I have to deliver a line. If I stay where I am and deliver my line is it gonna look like the ingénue is doing ventriloquism with her butt hole? To stay or to go? To stay or to go? I stay and opt for the talking butt.

We get through it without any mishaps.

When I get to the theater the next day, the lead guy tells me he was out drinking until 4am. So when we do the show, he gets his lines twisted. For example, he is supposed to say, “What do you want?” And I answer, “What does anyone want? Sex, Love, etc…” But instead, his hangover leads him to say, “What can I do for you?” So I have to reply, “What could you do for me? What do I want? What does anyone want, etc…..”

But he IS a member of the FACHADICK COMPANY and they have to work hard to stay fachadick. He’s handsome and talented, but being a member of a company that just spews out plays that no one cares about hasn’t done him any favors.  And I’m sure after the many years he has been doing theater it takes work to remain fachadick. But determined to be fachadick he is.

Acting Career Depends On Air Conditioner

Published June 27, 2009 acting , Actress , rehearsal , show business , Uncategorized 2 Comments
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I haven’t done theater in a while and I forgot about the horrors of opening night.

It started two days ago when I realized it was upon us. We were still looking at our scripts and calling “LINE!” I was still grasping for when to enter and what line to say when I did enter.

So I started having trouble sleeping. First, I had the super install the air conditioners. Then I had him come back the next day and switch them because I felt the bedroom one was making too much noise. Then I couldn’t sleep because I thought that one was too noisy. So by the next morning I was in a state of nervous apoplexy and felt like my life depended on getting a new air conditioner immediately. If I didn’t get one I would get no sleep, totally screw up onstage and get a bad review and morbidly embarrass the nice guy who recommended me.

This is a nervous transference thing that happens sometimes. My husband does the same thing. He once had a presentation the next day and became fixated that the medicine cabinet was going to fall off the wall. “We have to take everything out of the medicine cabinet! He yelled. “It’s going to fall off the wall! I better remove the door of its hinges!” I knew what was really off its hinges, but I went along with it. After the presentation the medicine cabinet was OK. So was my husband.

So in my crazed state I got a friend from around the corner to go to J&R with me to buy one and a neighbor down the hall to help me put it in. Don’t you love that I got the whole neighborhood involved? I couldn’t ask the super again because he already thought I was completely nuts. “Cranky come on!” he said when he had to switch them.

So after the air conditioner fixation there was nothing else to think about.

Then my acting teacher called me. “I understand you open tomorrow. How’s it going?’ he said. This is a man who teaches at a university, teaches private classes and just lost his wife and is about to go to Europe (“Blow the country” is how he put it) to scatter his wife’s ashes in the Seine. And he remembered to call me the day before I open in a little show on 45th Street. Okay, I am crying as I write this. Cranky may be cranky, but she is also extremely sentimental.

He talked to me about my character and how rehearsals have been going. “THEY’VE DONE NO SCENE WORK AT ALL!” I said, “All we’ve done is run the play from beginning to end.”

“Ah,” he said, “these people don’t know what they are doing. You have huge resources to draw on. You’re intelligent. You can work it out.”

He calmed me down.

I love him. I love my Mr. Inscrutable. Someday, I will be directed by someone like him. I hope I hope. Then my life will be complete.

At the end of the conversation I told him how he has been in my thoughts since he lost his wife and I started blubbering. The minute he heard the hint of a sniffle the got the hell off the phone. “Ah, I gotta go,” he said. No blubbering for Mr. Inscrutable. Oh no.

I Think I’m Feeling Very Chinatown

Published June 20, 2009 acting , nyc subway , rehearsal , show business , Uncategorized 3 Comments
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There’s been an Asian theme running through my week.

First, I thought I had found a great new way to get to rehearsal. I looked on a map and it looked like a subway stop at a place called Chrystie Street was closer.

So next time I went to rehearsal I got off there. Now Cranky cannot tell north or south for at least three minutes after getting off any subway. But this train left me off at an intersection I had never seen in my life. I felt like the train had entered a vortex and gone through the center of the earth and come out in China. Like when I was a kid and I thought you could dig your way to China on the beach.

The sidewalks were packed with a lot of Chinese people in a hurry and one slow moving confused looking Caucasian. There were mounds of fish piled on wooden stands. Scary carcasses in the windows. And crowds and crowds of people. Not the tourist land Chinatown of knick-knacks and restaurants. Nope.

I wasn’t sure which way to walk. “All the buildings look alike.” I thought. So I picked a direction and started walking. When I had a feeling I was going in the wrong direction, I asked a man on the sidewalk, “Excuse me, which way is Little Italy?” And then I immediately felt horrible. Is if OK to ask a Chinese man in Chinatown the way to Little Italy? Are they in competition? Was he thinking, “What’s wrong? Chinese food not good enough for you?” Of course I thought of all this AFTER I had opened my mouth. So he pointed in the direction I was already going thus adding five more blocks of going in the wrong direction until I finally wised up. Mr. Man On The Sidewalk got me back. So, I arrived at rehearsal huffing and puffing and fifteen minutes late.

Next, yesterday, I had tea with an actress friend and she told me that she’d been asked to do a reading of a screenplay and the director wants her to read the role of an Asian woman. Huh? She is as waspy as they get. “Why?” I asked. “The director said he couldn’t find an Asian actress,” she said. “In all of New York City?” I asked. “Well, he’s won awards for his filmmaking.” She said he had won an award like THE GOLDEN BALLS or something in Cannes.

She was told that she would be reading for the wife role and when she got to the rehearsal he switched her to the Asian woman. “Do you think I can do it?” she asked. “Can you wear pointy sunglasses?” I answered. “The days of Mickey Rooney as Mr. Yunioshi are way over.”

“What are you gonna get out of this?” I said. “You know I’m glad I’m talking about this,” she said, “When I was there a couple of times I felt like I should have left. But I’ve been convincing myself that it was OK.”

This is what we do ALL the time. Your gut says no. But your actor self hates to turn down any opportunity no matter how disturbing or annoying it its. This is why actors need other actor friends to talk then down from these situations. Because when you feel that way, no good is gonna come of it. She is not gonna get cast as the Asian woman when he makes the film.

Maybe someone should start a hotline for actors. Actor’s Anonymous. It could be staffed by other actors. I could just imagine it. “THEY WANT ME TO BRING TEN CHANGES OF CLOTHES AND I HAVE TO SLEEP IN THE PARK AND PAY MY OWN CARFARE.” “Just say no,” says the person on the helpline.

Just Learn Your Lines And Keep Your Trap Shut

Published June 14, 2009 acting , rehearsal , show business , Uncategorized 2 Comments
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I was recently talking to an actress friend of mine. I was telling her about the project I’m working on and how bare bones it all is. “I don’t know Cranky. It all sounds a little festivally,” she said. We had made a pact not to do any more festivals. You know, the festivals that are aggravation from beginning to end. The festivals where you bring in the entire set, costumes and props for each performance and carry them out at the end of the performance and then back again for the next one. Those festivals. The festivals where you cannot get necessary information out of the people running it. The festivals where you end up paying your own money for rehearsal space and then they keep every penny of the door.

“I know,” I responded to her, “”They treat you like a child. They treat you like a desperate child. I’m tired of being treated like a desperate child. I AM NOT A DESTERATE CHILD. I’M A DESPERATE ADULT.”

Hence I am working with a group who is gonna tech the afternoon of the first performance. So our first full run through of the play is gonna be opening night.

When I asked about it, the director said, “Well, if we do it the day before. that would cost us an extra eighty dollars.”

You’re fucking kidding me, right? I came THIS close to passing around a hat to the cast. There are six of us, so it would cost us $13.35 each.

But I didn’t do it because these kind of bright ideas do not go over big with the powers that be. It’s hard, but I’ve figured out I really need to keep my mouth shut like a lot.

“Go with the flow. Go with the flow,” I tell myself when I see people doing stupid stupid things. I’m a cast member. Directors don’t like cast members who have too many ideas. Directors like cast members who smile a lot and don’t say much. Saying things takes time.

Also good is learning all your lines in a timely manner. I have to be off book tomorrow. So I have been procrastinating. Hence, my apartment has never been cleaner. And I’ve called every long lost friend I can think of. And I did every machine in the gym. And I finished a mailing list I started in October 2008. And it is now 3:42 pm and there is no busy work left to do, so I am sitting with the script. And now the sun just came out for the first time in like a month and I’m thinking about the park. I wonder if Denzel Washington ever has these problems?

I better get it together. Because as a desperate adult I should be thankful for this role. Especially considering my personal axiom that if you are an actress over 40 and your character is having sex, grab that role.

Cranky In Rehearsal

Published June 9, 2009 acting , Actress , rehearsal , show business , Uncategorized Leave a Comment
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So I’ve been rehearsing the play. I like the director. Especially since he has let me do what I want.

When I got the script I realized my character was horribly, grossly overwritten. A bad cliché rich woman from a drawing room comedy circa 1932. “OY VEY” I said to myself, “I’m a better writer than the writer of the play I am acting in. I took a chance and decided to be honest.

After the table read the director told us that if there were any lines that bothered us that needed changing we could discuss it at the next meeting. So we have the next meeting and nobody else had any. And I was like, “Well, let’s go to page 14.” That’s when my character enters. And I worked my way down the page and through the rest of the play. Cutting burning and slashing extraneous words.

For example my character is supposed to say, “Oh, you are just too funny,” and I changed it to, “Funny.” Which is actually much funnier in the circumstances my character is in.

He got it. I love him.

Fighting stilted dialogue is a losing battle.

The director also said to ignore the micro managing annoying cloying stage directions that are there before and after every fucking piece of dialogue. All I have to see is something like, “she says sarcastically,” to make me lose respect for the writer. I’ll say it however the hell I want. That’s why you hired me.

I’m also getting to know the group I am rehearsing a play with. I’m a guest artist and it’s a company and every company has its own culture.

This is a new one. Rehearsal by committee. People have opinions about other people’s characters and what they should be doing. Especially one guy who I have dubbed the “REHEARSAL NAZI.” He takes over. The director says two words and Nazi jumps up and says, “Wait. I should go here, He should go there. She should sit there.” And everybody does it.

The blocking first method (if you can call it a method) totally sucks wind. Organically figuring out where your character really wants to go onstage and why is THE ONLY thing that makes sense. Otherwise you get that mannequinesque feeling that you have to work really hard to shake.

You have to like work backwards and fill in why you are doing what you are doing after you are already doing it.

I’ve learned the hard way that even though they have given you a stack of postcards and a beautiful email invite for the show, do not send one of those suckers out until you fell solid in the role. Which may sometimes be never.

There is nothing worse than knowing that people you know are in the audience and that you are moving around the stage nonsensically in a way that shows you are doing what you are doing because the director told you to do it.
Oh no, I have learned.

But I am staying calm. Aren’t you proud of me? I get to wear a fabulous outfit. I keep reminding myself and that keeps me happy.

And by some miracle I am quite often able to pull a performance out of my ass even after only counter intuitive rehearsals.

Yesterday in rehearsal I overheard the rehearsal Nazi tell another actor; “No, you don’t understand. You might think this scene is about you. But actually every scene in this play is about me.” AND HE WASN’T JOKING.

And I found out last night that our first time working in the theater is opening night. Never done that before and if I didn’t have a sense of humor I’d be scared.

Then the director goes, “Listen people. I want you to take care of yourselves. If one of you gets sick everyone is gonna get it.” Then the stage manager says. “I know but I’m under so much stress, I feel like I’m a little under the weather already.” And the director says, “WELL, THAT’S OK, YOU DON’T HAVE TO KISS ANYBODY.” How sweet. Since her sickness won’t disrupt the production she can go ahead and GET AS SICK AS SHE WANTS. She can die really as far as the director is concerned because the curtain WILL STILL GO UP without her. This is how single-minded directors and producers get about projects. I know, I’ve been there. I’ve had to ask myself if I was putting on a show AND losing my humanity.

I told the director that he was being very Coppola. As in “Apocalypse Now” when Martin Sheen’s heart trouble threatened to hold up production. “He might die,” someone said. “He’s not dead until I say he is dead,” said Coppola. The director just gave me a weird look.

The Fucked Festival

Published June 1, 2009 acting , Actress , comedy , show business , Uncategorized , writing 2 Comments
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It all started when I tried to make a phone call on my husband’s IPod. “What are you doing?, he said. “Huh?” I said, “trying to make a call.” “That’s my IPod!” he said, as I tapped the screen with my forefinger. “Oh. Really?” I said. Oh oh.

I thought I was keeping it together really well. I was like, “Wow I am under duress and I am handling it very well.” Then these kind of things started happening and I realized I wasn’t handling it well at all.

A few days later I picked up my cell phone and listened for a dial tone before I dialed. Oh oh.

This is the kind of stuff that happens to me when I’m stressed.

Then I got up this morning and told my husband I wouldn’t be home for dinner tonight because I had a rehearsal.

Then I emailed a director to ask if I could bring a guest to tomorrow night’s screening of a film I was in.

Then I got a call from a friend and she consoled me when I told her how I had spaced and had missed an audition last Thursday afternoon.

Then I emailed my scene partner to tell him we could work tonight if we went up early because my rehearsal was at 8pm.

AND THEN I got an email from the director saying, “Huh? The screening is NEXT WEEK.”

So then I ran to my Filofax and realized I had had it flipped open to the wrong page and had made all these plans based on NEXT WEEK’S schedule. So I had to call my husband, email the director, email my scene partner and change everything and find the sides for the audition I didn’t miss.

This is not good.

I have an ex-boyfriend from high school who is basically a shut in. He stays up all night watching TV, gets up at 2pm, takes his psychotropic medication and starts watching TV again. Once when we were talking he said, “You know Crank, I know all about what is going on. I know all the news and everything. But they never tell you what day it is.”

I immediately sent him a couple of World Wildlife calendars with a note saying:

Dear Bob.

Not knowing what day it is is NOT ATTRACTIVE.

Cranky

Oh Oh.

Now Bob and I are in the same boat. And I had to fix it. So I looked at my life and identified the stressors. A sick relative that I take the loser bus on a horrible trip to depressed upstate to visit. Can’t change that. Rehearsing a show. Don’t wanna change that. The specter of co-producing a piece that I wrote with a summer festival in NYC. Ah-hah! Must change that.

I realized that my mind has been going in circles ever since I got accepted into this apparently fucked festival. I was notified in April that I had been accepted and would get the performance dates by May 6th. I needed the dates to figure out what the hell to do. The festival runs for a month and if my dates were far enough from the dates of the play that I’m IN, then I was gonna perform the piece myself. But if the dates were close to the play I’m IN, then I would have cast another actress. It’s a 20-minute one-woman piece. Also, just in general it would be kinda nice to know what the hell I can DO for the rest of the summer.

So May 6th comes and goes and no dates. So does May 7th. 8th, 9th, 10th, 11, 12th. 13th, 14th, 15th, 16th. 17th. 18th, 19th, and 20th. I send the festival four equally spaced emails explaining that I cannot proceed until I know the performance dates. Do I get an answer? OH NO. Oh oh.

All this time my mind is stuck going in circles. “Should I start working on it? Should I talk to the actresses I know and love? Should I start working on it? Should I have an audition? I wonder if that blond actress I like is doing anything now? Is someone gonna wanna learn a 20-minute piece for three or four performances?”

I feel like this festival is now torturing me. On purpose. How long does it take to make up a schedule? Does the festival care about the playwrights? Or does it just wanna collect the door? Is this usury? Do I hate them now? AH, YEAH.

So I run to my computer and write this email:

Hi All -

I’m sorry to report that I have accepted a role in a production that runs until mid-July.

I have been waiting to hear the performance dates for my piece since May 6th – the original date given to me that we would be receiving our dates.

I’m terribly sorry but I have to withdraw from the festival, as I can no longer keep my life on hold waiting to figure out what I can and cannot do.

I know you must have your reasons but it seem inconsiderate to me and a sign of bad organization.

It does not give me a good feeling about the festival to be continually put off about what I will be doing with my life for the summer.

I do need to be able to make plans and say yea or nay to job offers.

Cranky

And the minute I send it I can think again.

Excuse Me Mr. Director WHAT DID YOU SAY?

Published May 18, 2009 acting , Actress , rehearsal , show business , Uncategorized Leave a Comment
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Had a first table read of the play the other night. Everybody was very nice. Not a psycho in the bunch. No one vying for all the attention or anything. It’s a theater company so they have a lot of repeats so the nuts probably don’t get asked back.

I kinda hate the first table read. Because even though I shouldn’t, I feel like I am meeting the other actors for the first time and they have never seen my work and they are judging how good an actor I am and there is not much I can do because I am still finding my way and I know I shouldn’t feel this way. My insecurities are showing I know.

Anyway the director has the aura of a former whiz kid or something. I know he got all A’s and probably skipped a grade. And he was friends with all his teachers. And was in every club. You know bright. Talks fast. Thinks fast. That’s good. Smart is good.

So before we start he says, “I know everyone says don’t try to do anything on the first read, just read. But I don’t want that. Try to do something.” OK NOW YOU’VE MADE IT WORSE. So we all become laugh whores and push for the laughs.

When we finish the play he says he has a problem with two scenes. “I noticed people were yawning while you read those last two scenes.” He is talking about tightening up the writing of the scenes, but I know the actors who read the scenes can’t hear him now because the words “ YAWNING WHILE YOU READ, YAWNING WHILE YOU READ, YAWNING WHILE YOU READ, YAWNING WHILE YOU READ are now reverberating in their minds and they can’t hear anything else. Hence the uncomfortable phony panic smiles on their faces and the glazed expressions in their eyes. And  their attempts to nod at the appropriate times to show they know what he is talking about.

Eh, uh I don’t think he should have mentioned the yawning thing. Actors are so like hard on themselves and sensitive you gotta be careful what you say to us.

Directors need organization, talent, intelligence and sensitivity. I think. I once worked with a film director who seemed to specialize in saying inappropriate things to actors. I was doing a scene in a kitchen where my character was desperate. We did a few takes and it went fine. Then the director said, “Just for the hell of it take it really far. Go all out.” So we do the take and I was shaking and crying. When we finish the DP looked impressed and turned to the director and said, “What do you think? Should we print that one?” And the director turned to him and said, “No, no, that was way too over the top, no!” “Ah, HELLO I AM THREE FEET AWAY FROM YOU. I CAN HEAR YOU!” I thought. Thanks. Nice. What am I a moron? I asked one of the crew about it. “How can he say this stuff? Does he think I’m a retard?” “No,” they said, “he talks like that to all the actors.” Luckily for us he ended up a film editor. In a dark studio. Where he doesn’t have to talk to anybody. Good thing.

Actors Get In Line

Published May 11, 2009 acting , Actress , comedy , film , show business , Uncategorized 2 Comments
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I woke up on Thursday morning to find this email in my inbox. It was sent at midnight  on Wednesday:

Hi Cranky,

I’m an undergraduate student shooting a short for my Columbia film
class with Laura Wolfstein. She recommended you to me personally. My
project is about a reclusive former film star and her relationship
with her guilt-ridden son. I’d love for you to be in it. Would you
be interested and available this Friday? It’s such late notice but if
so, I’d be happy to send you the script right away.

Thanks for considering this on short notice. Hope to be in touch soon.

Michelle Kan

So it is Thursday morning at nine am and I am reading this thing. My first instinct is to say no. I mean I am Cranky and it is nine am.

And I’m like wondering why anyone would wait this late to cast something they are shooting TOMORROW. But maybe the actress dropped out. That happens. So I decide to try to be a good egg and all and answer immediately:

So at 9:00 am on Thursday morning I write:

Hi Michelle-

Do you mean tomorrow? How long is the script?

I think I can do it. Send me the script, OK?

Cranky

So I wait for a reply. Nothing at 10. Nothing at 11. Nothing at 12. Nothing at 1.

Now I kinda need to know what I am doing tomorrow. And the window of opportunity for actually studying the script is closing, as I will be busy from three o’clock on. So now I start obsessing about something I didn’t want to do in the first place.

So I go to the computer at 1:45pm and write:

Hi Again -

Could you call me when you get this so I know if we are on for tomorrow?

Thanks so much,

Cranky

So at 2pm I get a called from a wimpy girl saying, “Ah um, oh hi, ah, actually I found someone. But now I need to find a guy to play the son. So I might not be able to film tomorrow. If I don’t find someone to play the son today to shoot tomorrow are you available the day after tomorrow if I have to do that?”

Ok, so now this whole thing is giving me a fucking HEADACHE.

Besides the apparent complete retardation of this director there is the question of WHEN she found someone. She emailed me at midnight saying how she would LOVE for me to do it. I answered her at 9am. So what does this mean? Are there actresses poised at their computers between midnight and 9am ready to reply to casting inquiries? The answer would be YES.

And how many actresses got the “I’d love for you to be in it” email? Why would you love us? Because we are breathing?

These situations where the race goes to the swiftest are the suckiest most demoralizing situations for someone in the arts. Because it’s not about art. It’s about who got there first.

The worst example of this was when I went to an EPA for a theater out in the Hamptons. The bus from the train station was full of actors going to the same place. When we disembarked from the bus everyone realized that we were all going to sign in and audition in that order. So they started to run. It was a fucking ACTOR STAMPEDE down the main street of Sag Harbor. I’m not kidding. What did that look like? People dressed up in city clothes. Guys in jackets and women in heels and character shoes full out stampeding down Main Street, and this was before reality TV. It was sooooo embarrassing. My friend and I refused to run. She has since dropped out of acting. Do you blame her? So we had to wait like two and a half hours to go in because we didn’t join in the panic jog.

Actors feel like they are always waiting on lines and sometimes get so used to being ill treated that if you like offer them a glass of water and a place to sit it’s like huge.

I used to get my headshots done at a place on 14th Street, which has since gone out of business. Well deserved if you ask me. It was uncomfortable and not nice. And there was always a huge line that was right there as soon as you got off the elevator.

The guy who worked the counter had a drinking problem and somehow kept his job. Maybe they figured he was good enough to wait on actors. I don’t know. Anyway, he was an evil drunken southern queen.

So one day I am waiting on a line to pick up headshots and the evil queen sees me. He yells out the most offensive thing he could possibly say to me and laughs. I just turned on my heels and left. I was done. He came out from behind the counter and chased after me and said, “Oh, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry! Come back. I didn’t mean that.”

So I went back in with him. I did need to get the headshots. What else was I gonna do? I turned to him and said, “LOOK, I GET MY BALLS BUSTED ALL OVER TOWN I DON’T MY BALLS BUSTED WHEN I’M PAYING FOR PICTURES!”

And another actor turned to me and said, “Wow! You actually have any balls left?”

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