La La Land

First of does any one call it that any more??

Guess it's snobbish of this Northern Californian to say so....especially since I'm starting to consider that I may want to take the plunge and join the hordes trying to "make it".

Consider the Shakespearean "joke" of it -- 44 female, solid community theater experience, training, a few medium roles -- going to Hollywood!

But I'm thinking that I've never been willing to admit out loud that this addiction is merely a thin veneer behind which to hide. And that fact is I am an artist and I yearn for the joy and honor to express myself in film and theater professionally. To step up and move to a bigger playing field.

So it may come to pass that I figure out a way to pull up roots (figure out what to do with all my books) and move to a strange land. Well, being that I'm Jewish, it would be somewhat like the modern Promise Land. And Hey! Only about an hour a way via SW.

Yet it would be quite a foreign experience. Do they still speak English there? Or is it Ilarian?

I giggle to myself when I think of myself as a "professional". It is a secret I've kept from myself my whole life. I guffawed suggestions by theater friends of getting an agent. Who me? Come on...(and yet, my heart whispers now....why not?)

It is perhaps absurd, far-fetched, out-landish (really), but why the hell not me?

I'm losing sleep at night with fevered half-plans and fears. The strangeness casting a different light on my present life. I look around my apartment and see how much it is my home, it's where I set down roots. I remember how impermanent it felt when I moved in - how unsafe I felt. How unhappy.

But I am stronger now and willing perhaps to go even further out on the limb of life challenges to live my dream. To live my fate.

If we truly only go 'round once - again I ask, why not? Why not me? (though I believe we go around and go around -- we just don't have the memory so it's pretty much the same thing).

It is messy. It is unsure. Lonely. I already miss books that I know I'll have to leave behind or get rid of. I choose DVD's in my head and think about getting a laptop instead of my Apple with a swivel head (which I l.o.v.e.).

For now it is my secret and yours - because no one I know is actually reading my blog yet.

Shhh - don't tell.

La la land....giggle....and....sigh.

Rejection

Yes. Rejected. Again. A part of the actor's life. Preparation, hope, wish, pray, prepare, train, coach, sing on the street, in the bathroom, elevator, in bed. Audition. Best you can. Thank you. Wait one sec, please.

Would you please read this? (yes!). We'll call you in a few minutes. Prepare - apply technique, read all scene, read out loud to wrap your tonsils around it. And wait. Wait. wait.

We're ready for you now. Any questions? Yes.... and then you read.

and it's fine. pretty good. Not great but feels good. Good enough. Good enough for a call back -- after all they did ASK you to read. Right?

No call back. Weren't right for the roles. Too young...too old for...

Just like "Tootsie".

I cry. I'm disappointed. I'm distracted at work, resentful, bored, angry with a thought or two about who do I think I am to think I can go pro and quit the W-2 when I CAN'T EVEN GET A PART IN COMMUNITY THEATER!???

Then I'm shamelessly grateful to the W-2. It buys my character shoes. It pays for my gas to go the rehearsals. It pays for food at Whole Foods and that Benefit foundation I love that perfectly matches my skin tone. Spin the bottle.

This my life. Spin the bottle.

Place the bottle carefully in the circle. Spin. It's my game and the damn bottle doesn't even have the grace to pick me.

sigh.

And then I say and sigh. There is always another show. more auditions, more classes, more rehearsals, more "I can't wait until this @*X^!!" show is OVER cause that guy is driving me crazy with his "ACTING". God. Help. Me.

And there is always more little deaths. more rejection.

And why do I do it?

I can't help myself.

I am an addict.

My name is {bleap}. I am a theater addict.

I'm not addicted to the pain of rejection or hooked on the anticipation of "We'd love you to come and be Maria in our show..." (well maybe a little).

I'm hooked on the beauty and scope of emotion of theater and the way it makes me feel to act. To sing. To dance.

Like it is the food and breath of my essence. It restores the world for me. I reach equilibrium when I am in doing it. And I am normalized in the most un-normal way.