the things i'm going to miss

i'm going to miss boxing class today and all the stuff that goes with it -- the run that happens when i come out of the room and the steam/sauna that happens after that. but mostly sparring with my instructor and pounding that bag.

i'm going to miss that long and arduous bike ride up and down the west side highway's bike lane, because i've got so much crap to do that only a fast-moving train will accommodate me.

i'm going to miss sleeping in and daydreaming and chugging water mindlessly and yes, i will miss my guitar.

i am in audition and callback purgatory. that means everything and nothing. it's like chasing a shadow in the midst of a fog that disappears as suddenly as it arrives. even if you get whatever it is, there's always the possibility that it can slip through your fingers like a vapor. they can edit your character out of the scene or even the entire episode. they can call you back ten times and then not give it to you. or they can go in another direction after you're absolutely certain that it's yours. (that one is my personal favorite - it's such a great way to say "we don't want you.")

and yet, i jump through those hoops.

it's a full time job, to stay in a constant state of readiness. more and more, it feels like that's a battle that i'm winning. probably because i'm into boxing and it's fun, and i'm getting my body back. once i get the gig in question, the work is fun, too. getting lost in that process, growing into a character, shooting ideas into the air and trying new things. that's too much fun.

no -- the audition is where the fun stops. the audition is the work. it is punishing, it is backbreaking, it is unforgiving. sometimes i'm good at it. (i think.)

i've got to stick to my routine in my downtime. (stick and move, stick and move...) tom petty was right. the waiting is the hardest part.

hair apparent

guess what, sports fans. i got a callback for a capital one commercial. yeah, that's right - the series with the visigoths tromping around wrecking stuff. maybe it's me, but i think they all look like bears. imagine that! (heh.)

frankly, i was totally shocked that they wanted to see me again because i didn't wear a wig. i was totally going to wear a wig. i was planning on it. i had it all picked out and everything. even my agent told me to wear one. (think about that.) should i wear a wig or not, i asked her assistant innocuously and i could hear her yell out in the background, wear a wig! like she was a little kid in class and she had the right answer and she had to just let it out.

wear a wig! that little phrase reverberated all the way through the rest of my afternoon like an echo. i made every effort to make it happen. and therein lies the rub. doing my hair is an all day event. the longer it gets, the more upper body strength i need. they called me in the middle of the afternoon to let me in on the audition that was happeing the next day. no bueno. i wore myself out with a 14+ mile bike ride and a thorough gym workout that's still kicking my butt. i had the strength to ride home after class, to make a spectacular dinner, to houseclean. but i simply didn't have the strength to do my hair. again, no bueno.

and you know what? this is impossible to explain to anyone except other black women out there with a head full of healthy natural hair. if you're not in that particular group, i honestly don't expect you to "get" what i'm saying. it's just hair, some idiot said to me last week. no, it's not. in certain situations, it's a fairly bold political statement. and here's why.

my hair was (um, i mean is) a freshly undone and filthy, tangled, glorious mess of raw heavyness. it is a mystery and a wonder. it is indignant. it is unapologetic. it is relentless. it is unforgivable. indeed, it is the epitome of what i like to describe as unforgivable blackness. my hair is a highly visible societal indicator, the one thing i've got that shows my compliance to the powers that be. to walk into a situation with this african face and hair so raw and full that african cab drivers give me the dap as i traipse up the block means that when i show up, i will be considered suspect, no matter how shiny my penny loafers are.

you have to think about this stuff when you audition for commercials. you have to think about everything. they will type you out in a flash, solely based on what you look like. and exactly where are they getting the idea of what they think i should look like, as a black woman? you tell me.

good thing they caught me at a weak moment -- too weak to wash my hair. oy! and oh yeah. i thought i did a super crappy read.

great news

guess what? i got a callback for that commercial i auditioned for earlier this week. (yay!)

i don't think anything is going to happen with that progressive spot until april, maybe. i was probably too black for them, anyway. (and isn't that always the risk?) we'll see. maybe they'll totally surprise me.

like i said before, commercials are a complete crap shoot. it's freaky-deeky that i got this far - and yeah, that's the way it goes with any kind of on-camera work. but you probably already know how i feel about that.

i'm not sure which part they want for me, so i'm learning the lines for both characters. i'm not taking anything for granted. of course, the script will probably be on display somewhere near the camera while we're doing it, but i don't care.

needless to say, i'm wearing the same outfit, too. funny tidbit, that - the casting agent let me wear my snowpants on camera. why not? he got a medium shot of us, so who would know. besides, it would have been such a hassle to take them off. heh. i was all styled out from the waist up.

and yes, my hair was natural. (sort of.)

guess what?

friday the 13th is working for me, apparently. or maybe it was that natural afro wig. who knows. all i know is, i got a callback for that PSA commercial. i go in again on monday afternoon. go figure.

auditions and callbacks and go-sees, oh my!

sorry i haven't written anything in a minute. things have been a bit hectic, in a good way.

i got a call on friday for a commercial audition on saturday, and then i got a call on sunday that i got a callback for this morning. so it's been a weekend of blowing my hair out, basically. that's the good news: i didn't wear a wig. i was totally naturally all afroed out -- and i got a callback. still shaking my head and going wow over that one. maybe things are changing.

as far as i can tell -- and yes, of course there are exceptions to this all the way across the board, but this seems to be the invisible rule that gets reinforced with most casting choices -- the black women that get cast in commercials are usually natural, with unprocessed "ethnic" hair and a minimal amount of makeup -- whether they lean toward that neutered mammy stereotype or not. they represent the wife, the young mom, even grandma: women of color who populate your everyday world. the black woman that gets cast in movies are usually the fantasy, so they've got the perms, the weaves, the make-up, they're usually a size 4/6 and all that rot. i know that when my agent leaves me a message that says, they want everyday people, that means a minimal amount of makeup and no wig -- or if it is a wig, it should look as natural as possible.

unbelievable, how little acting ability has to do with getting considered for something like this. you could get the once over and get typed out just like that, on looks alone. or height. or whatever else someone is seeing that they don't like. i think that getting callbacks is terrific. it means that i'm close.

bizarrely enough, the commercial -- a christmas spot for wal-mart -- shoots all day tomorrow. can you say fast turnaround?

in the meantime, i got called in to audition for another commercial tomorrow morning -- for applebees. thank God i'm losing weight -- can get back into my audition clothes. for this, i'm probably going to buy a bright red baby t on the way home, so i can look like i'm wide awake when i'm on camera tomorrow.

let the games begin.

guess what?

you're probably not going to believe this, but i got a callback on that "opportunity of a lifetime" situation. it's for a doc series called "black to my roots" and here's the kicker: an exec at BET is producing it. and you know what i think of BET.

heh.

i am more than a supposed african-american anomaly. to tell you the truth, i just might be the epitome of everything that they are not expecting. this week, i do a 15 minute on-camera interview. this should be interesting.

...and yes, i have to admit it. i really am kind of happy that i went to the new york reality tv school. twice.

prego. it's in there!

i thought i looked like crap. i wasn't exactly in love with the wig i wore. i didn't think that i was dressed casually enough. and i was so sure that what i did on camera was sub-par, i practically ran out when it was over. yet in spite of all those things, my agent called this afternoon and told me that i got a callback for the commercial i auditioned for last week anyway -- the national for prego.

i'd like to say "wow" and get happy about being one step closer to my second national commercial -- but at this point, i know better. it's only a callback. even if i actually get the part, i can't get excited about it. getting the part is like starting all over again with this process. getting it doesn't mean i'll shoot it. shooting it doesn't mean that it'll air. having it air doesn't mean that it'll run for very long. the bottom line is that in film and television, there are no guarantees -- especially after you get the part.

my agent was right when he told me to forget about that ocean spray commercial i got last fall. he was right. i shot it in october and it has yet to air. they could send me holding checks for the next three years and not use it at all.

still and all, it's a callback. i've been getting a lot of them lately. let's see how this one goes.

callback: NY Lotto

i think i botched this one. they put a bunch of guys who looked like plumbers on hippity-hops and had them come at me from across the room and i froze. nice, right? here's the kicker: one of them was a black woman. very pretty, too. she kept laughing and falling off her hippity hop (three times) and i didn't do anything when she did. i think i was afraid that she was going to pull me down to the floor. and i had a wig on. and pumps. frankly, i didn't want to risk it.

of course, all of the black people in the waiting area spoke to each other and ignored everyone else. (no, white people, we black folk don't all know each other -- we just act like we do.) before i went in, a black actor picked me off from the it factor, the reality show i did on bravo a hundred years ago in 2002 and introduced himself. (i think his name was curtis but i'm probably wrong about that.) when i came out, he introduced me to portia. as we greeted each other, i told her i'd seen her name around a lot and she said the same of me. she's in the LAByrinth Theater Company, along with philip seymour-hoffman and daphne ruben-vega. i remember auditioning and getting a callback for the last days of judas iscariot at the public and hearing her name floating around.

oh, well. back to the drawing board.

more, more, more

FedEx/Kinko's audition yesterday. A&E promo audition today. Guitar lesson tonight. New York Lotto callback tomorrow. a day spa visit somewhere in this action-packed weekend of fingerpicking and songwriting. two weeks and counting with that fluidity bar. and all i can really think about (aside from the next guitar i want) is hanging my newly rewired old-lady chandelier in my kitchen...

verizon: the callback

when i didn't hear from my commercial agent by friday, i figured that meant i wasn't getting a callback so i sashayed my angela davis afro to the edge of staten island, where michelle at ethnicity salon arranged my nubian knots just so. in about two hours, she was done. so fresh, so clean was blaring on my mental iPod until i checked my messages after my guitar lesson on monday afternoon. the words "you got a callback" reverberated all the way through me until my teeth rattled.

a callback is a beautiful thing but the thing is, the way you look is a key element to cinching the part. i had to show up the way they saw me initially but now that my hair was done, that wasn't an option. the week before, i pulled my soft afro into a bun at the nape of my neck and wore something grey and conservative. now my head looks like a minature bucky ball. sure, the look will soften in a week or so. but i didn't have a few days and they probably wouldn't understand that. i had to show up the following afternoon. and since i wasn't willing to take my hair down for a maybe (i honestly didn't have the time) and i couldn't get a wig (same reason), i thought i'd take a chance and be myself. when you look as black (read: ethnic) as i do, it's quite a risk.

when i called my agent and told him my tale of hair woe, he went, "Bunch, you're killing me." he scolded me for not calling in before i got my hair done. the thing is, they pushed the shoot date back by at least a week, so that gave them until after the weekend to let anyone know anything. to his credit, he encouraged me to go in without a wig because he didn't want me to look fake. i figured it was a wash but there was no way i was going to not show up. so there i was, at house productions again, with the some of the same nervous actors again, some of whom i recognized from the audition (and yes, their hair and clothes were exactly the same as they were then) -- only this time, there were lots of kids there with their strange overbearing parents for some kiddie call or something and they were all over the place. everyone was so exasperated with them because they showed up in masse over an hour earlier than their call time. so for a minute there was a bizarre overlap and everything kind of ran together in the middle of the room, like some 21st century vortex of commercial bunkum and pap.

honestly, you could cut that "need to please" vibe with a machete. feh.

i was a little on edge because i had someplace else to be and i couldn't be late. i scanned the sign-in sheet and then i scanned the room. would anyone let me jump line? i asked the guy who was waiting to go in next. he refused me because he was running late to meet a friend for lunch. (lunch?) then i saw the name jose. jose. that had to be the older distinguished looking black gentleman in the back of the room by the loo. he had an accent and he said that he was cuban. as i was touching up my make-up, he asked me if i was from south africa. "of course i am, sweetie," i smiled. he laughed. i love making strangers laugh. it's an instant connection and it never gets old. i ran back to him and started in with a very good explanation. he said yes before i even finished my sentence. ain't life grand?

i ran back to the monitor, took my place in line and zipped in and out of the room before i really knew what hit me.

how did i do? it's hard for me to tell when cameras are involved. i can leave a theater audition and know if they loved me but film/tv people like to blow sunshine up my butt, so i can't ever really tell what's going on. i didn't think that me or my hair was so hot the first time around and i got a callback so i guess i'm not the one to ask. one thing's for sure: when there's a callback possibility on the line from now on, i will call my agent to make sure i'm not in the running for anything before i change my hair. (i promise.)

another day, another audition: verizon

they said local, regional. they said casual business attire. they also said that there was no copy. i knew what that meant: almost everyone would get typed out at a glance. still and all, i wanted to be a nice enough girl and make a genuine effort. i blew my hair out, put on a light camera-ready daytime beat, got into a dark grey cowl neck woolen dress and some flat comfortable boots and hit it. let's face it, it's too cold to be cute or impractical about these things. i suppose i could have changed clothes there but i was betting that they would use a medium shot (and i was right). the shoot date was in a week. there would be callbacks. cool, i said. but what i was really thinking was, i'm getting my hair done this weekend so if they want me, they'd better call me before sunday because i'm not undoing my china bumps once they're in and i've made that commitment -- especially when they're fresh. they pretty much undo themselves, anyway.

i walked into that oh-so-familiar space at House and rounded the corner and saw all of those uncomfortably well dressed actors pacing and fidgeting and glancing at each other furtively, and i thought i am so far removed from all of this, i may as well be on the moon. maybe i was unfazed because i had already done my first commercial late last year. i was over that hump. that can i do this? pressure was gone. sure, i was nervous, in the moment. but i was confident and i was also objective, so nerves really didn't matter. this wasn't going to make or break me but everyone around me was sweating bullets. it was almost laughable, the tension in the air. what was it? ah, yes. it was desperation.

i sat there and stifled a yawn as it dawned on me: i'm not desperate. you treat auditioning like a job, you do it full time, you'll book something eventually. it is what it is -- no more, no less. it's not magic. it's just life. some guy passed by me as i checked my make-up in the mirror and said, good luck. i laughed and said, it ain't up to me, mister. i do everything i can to do the best i can, with that in mind.

and what do you know? the woman who auditioned me was the one that saw me through the audition/callback process that ultimately landed me the ocean spray spot. everything comes back around and around, and always when i least expect it.

guess what?

i got the commercial.

another day, another (commercial) callback

i had a 1pm appointment at HOUSE for the ocean spray commercial callback. they wanted me to do lines and they were prepared to put me on camera, upload my takes online and have a decision for me before the end of the day. i went in with the usual joie de vivre: crazy mad starving (i hadn't eaten all day) with no make-up on and, like always, i gave the assistants at the front desk my usual hello as i breezed past them to prep for my close-up. i've been in and out of there so much for auditions/callbacks in the past 2 years, they actually know me. one of them, rebecca, knows me no matter what my hair is doing. needless to say, she's my favorite.

i like to put my make-up on when i get there because their floor-to-ceiling windows means strong daylight even on a cloudy day, so i can't overapply it. i usually don't have much time to hang around so i'm also quick about it. and my eyebrows are always finished, which helps tremendously. the result is a natural, well-rested look. i know it sounds like no big deal but it took me forever to figure out how to put make-up on for the camera, to get this result. it was a constant learning process: what make-up to use, how to angle my face, how to relax the muscles in my face and smile slightly, so i didn't look deranged or constipated. i ended up experimenting by using my digital camera to make readjustments. i would put on make-up and take pictures of myself in natural light until i looked unmade-up. sounds oxymoronic, i know -- but that's the effect i knew i had to have. too much make-up can make you look a lot older than you really are on camera. it also looks amateurish -- a major no-no.

and you don't want to get into clothes and how you have to dress to pull all this off. you don't even want to know.

it took long enough to learn how to do the make-up/preparation/clothes right for stage but the camera is a strange animal. i had to learn how to audition well, how to prepare for it, all of it. is there a class for that? i seriously doubt it. if there were, i'd still have to go through the process of doing it, and that has its own learning curve. i couldn't have afforded to take them. i simply didn't have the money for those things. all i had was my creativity and my determination and my nerve. i was never afraid of showing up and doing a bad audition or looking stupid. i was afraid of missing an opportunity, even if i didn't get the gig, because i knew that the chance to be in front of that camera was school, and i had to take advantage of that.

so by the time i walked into that callback, i had it all down to a science. as i casually applied make-up and readjusted my look, i chatted with miryam, a blactress that was there for a k-mart commercial. she was on her way out the door, so she was readjusting in the other direction. somewhere in there, they brought out a massively huge platter of sandwiches for the staff. i involuntarily winced as i watched everyone dive in, thought about taking one, changed my mind and went to the front desk to sign in.

as it turns out, i was the only person there to read for the role.

as divine providence would have it, my favorite assistant rebecca was the one to put me on camera. this was important because i like her and she likes me, so i instantly feel comfortable in her presence and all of this translates to what i do on camera. the lines were quirky and fun. i actually enjoyed myself. like always, i was in and out -- and on the way out, rebecca let me have her sandwich because she was wheat-gluten intolerant. is she cool or what?

i find out either way later on this afternoon. in the immortal words of tom petty, the waiting is the hardest part.

well...

i called talentworks at about 4:30pm. did i get the commercial? weeeelll, they drawled, the people at ocean spray said they'd figure it out by "end of day" and it's not end of day yet. i say, oh, okay but i'm thinking, it's the end of my day. so i'm thinking, somebody is shining somebody on, but it ain't me. i didn't get it. and that was that.

about 30 minutes later, phil calls me. i say, are you calling to tell me i got it and he says, you got it and you didn't get it. huh??? it seems they want me to come back in tomorrow afternoon at 1pm to HOUSE and read lines. i'm thinking, lines? dollar signs pop out of my eyeballs like something out of a tex avery cartoon. you see, getting a national commercial with no lines that runs a lot means recieving a nice-sized sack of money when the quarterly payments start coming in. having lines in a national commercial that runs a lot, however, means you just won some kind of residual payment lotto. it's a money train, people. and it's got your name on it.

well. i'm still on hold and they want to hear me do lines. this should be interesting...

anatomy of an audition

I was seen for the role of Caroline in the London company of Caroline, or Change for The Roundabout Theater on Monday. Unfortunately, I didn’t see the production on Broadway but the music sounds like a soulful operetta (almost all of it is sung), very rangy, with lots of jazz moments that reminded me of Porgy and Bess. So lush, so beautiful. I picked up the audition material on Friday and got lost in it, in spite of the fact that I had to gig all weekend. I went into the audition knowing that I had done all that I could but wishing that I had done more. The music was too layered and dense for a finished performance in the audition. It made sense to give them the arc of what they wanted.

When I showed up, it was empty except for the accompanist, who was sitting in the waiting room. I’m 15 minutes late. I change my shoes and sprint to the toilet while I have the chance – oddly enough, you have to walk through the audition room to get to it. When I came out, they were ready for me – they being Jim Carnahan, who sat behind a long table and spoke to me warmly before I sang “Lot’s Wife.” When I finished, he stood up abruptly, saying, I’ll be right back, and left the room. The accompanist and I looked at each other. I rhetorically asked, what was that about? He smiled, shrugged his shoulders and said, I don’t know but you were fantastic. We introduced ourselves and began to chat. Suddenly, Jim burst into the room, dismissed the accompanist, nodded in my direction and said, come with me. We went down a flight of stairs and through a door that opened directly onto another audition room, identical to the last. This time, I sang for the MD, a sweet-faced woman whose voice I recognized immediately from the CD I was given to learn the music. We shook hands like fast friends. After I sing “Lot’s Wife” she looks at me as if she’s seeing me for the first time and says, your voice is amazing. She gives me notes, has me sing it again. We review the other material. All of a sudden, I’m done, I’m dismissed, I’m thanking them for their time, they’re thanking me for mine and Stephen is following me to the elevator as I make a hasty exit. I remember Stephen from the audition for “At Least It’s Pink!” from a few weeks ago. As I’m standing by the elevator thinking, I’m not sure if that’s ever happened to me, an audition and a callback in the same day, Stephen asks if I’m doing anything later that afternoon. I’m like, no, I’m free. He says, can you come in to sing for Tony Kushner and Jeanine Tesori at 4:30pm. I say, sure. I make sure I say it in this really polite way. And I make sure that I’m a little flat about it, like I’m slightly preoccupied because I’m so freaked out. I think I casually asked if George was going to be there. And then I left.

Rarely ever does anything move fast enough for me, ever. In one afternoon, I’ve had an audition and two callbacks. What in the ABC Wide World of Sports is going on?!

I can’t think about it too much. I change my shoes in the elevator, from high heels to flip flops -- i don't know why, but when i wear the "right heels," i sound better. i go to Jeniette Salon because they have a really great deal on Mondays for a manicure/pedicure (only $27!) and I’m thinking that having someone rub my hands and feet will take the edge off. It doesn’t. My friend takes me out for dim sum in Chinatown. It’s fantastic. Afterwards, we get Chinese ice cream and sit in the park with the old men playing their strange Chinese checkers betting game while I dream out loud. He’s happy for me, for the good job that I’ve done. And he means it. He even says that no matter what happens, we’ll work it out. My going away for a long time doesn’t mean that everything has to fall apart. I look at him like I’m seeing him for the first time and I begin to wonder just how dumb my luck really is.

The next thing I know, I’m back on that couch, waiting to be seen. I’m 15 minutes early. There are two ahead of me. I lose myself in my book – Marshall Chapman’s southern fried bio Goodbye Little Rock and Roller -- and in short order, I’m back in that room. The first thing out of Jeanine Tesori’s mouth as she shakes my hand is, I’m a huge fan. She saw Harlem Song and she loved my opening monologue. It was trippy, watching her move her arms through the air, affecting my poses as i strolled. Wow. Tony Kushner is adorable. He says his partner thinks we may have gone to high school together -- but no, no such luck. Jeanine mentioned that before I came in, George Wolfe called and I ended up blurting out that I had a crush on him while we were working together. For a minute there, we were all very chatty. It was the just right environment to open up and sing and be vulnerable. I told them the entire process was like trying to eat a turkey in one bite, which made everyone in the room laugh in agreement. And then just like that, it was over. I was walking in the sun with a feeling of confidence welling up in me and all I could think was, I did the best I could.

Like I told my manager on Friday when he was telling me otherwise on my cell while I was at the Starbucks watching Matt Dillon fend off those two unwashed masses – doing my best doesn’t mean that I’ll get the part. Doing my best doesn’t mean that I’ll get anything at all. There are so many variables involved when it comes to getting cast in anything that how much talent you have sometimes comes in dead last. and theater ain't like film or commercials. you can be in a film and not know how to act. case in point? matt dillon got his first movie because he cut school and a casting agent saw him and thought he looked right for a role. or what about robert downey, jr? after years of working steadily in hollywood, he found an acting coach and asked him to teach him how to act when he was cast in chaplin. with plays and musicals, you have to not only know what you're doing, you really have to have presence to pull it off. you have to be five times better than anyone, especially if you're black, because there are so many actors and even fewer parts. white actors loooooove to complain about how little work there is but it's actually not true. not from where i'm sitting, anyway. and no matter how they slice it, there's way less work for actors of color. way less.

ah, but it felt so good, to leave that room knowing that I did a great job. That's why there's no need to second-guess myself or wonder through the moments, reliving each one and wondering "what if" -- oh, no. I won't even be sitting around waiting for the phone to ring. It's out of my hands. The end.