your inner svengali

i've been auditioning a lot this summer for on camera work: mostly commercials and independent film, but occasionally a short here and there. i usually get a callback and then i don't get the job, for whatever the reason -- reasons that have absolutely nothing to do with lack of talent or effort on my part. that's hard to explain to people who quantify success and hard work and employment with an inside-the-box, 9 to 5 day job mentality, that way of thinking that has building blocks that lead all the way to success.

it's even harder to explain to people who've watched way too many episodes of that tv show fame, or who semi-worship the movie - people who honestly believe that if you have talent, you'll "make it," whatever that is. that's right up there with that idiotic all-american horatio alger "rags to riches" myth. nobody pulls themselves up by their own bootstraps. nobody.

let me say this loud enough for you to hear it, whoever you are: having talent does not guarantee your success on any level in the entertainment industry. while it's true that talent helps a great deal, in the grand scheme of things, talent doesn't matter. this is especially true if we're talking about on camera work. i suppose if i lived in hollywood, that's a bigger part of where my focus would be. like i fit into their beauty standard, anyway.

just because you're talented, just because you do a great audition and maybe even a great callback, just because you have presence, that doesn't mean that you'll get the part. and if you do get the part, that doesn't mean you'll keep it. the whole thing can fall apart at any point in the process. there are no guarantees, even when you're working. especially when you're working. because if they think you look funky in the playbacks on that monitor or if your chemistry with your co-star isn't up to scratch or whatever, they will replace you. it happens all the time.

there are so many variables involved. and it's usually stuff that has nothing to do with you. stuff like, how tall you are. or whether somebody thinks you're pretty. or not pretty enough. or whether the camera likes you. what does any of that have to do with whether you can act or not? not a bloody thing.

there, i said it.

let's get one thing straight. there is fat, as in overweight. and then there's hollywood fat, which looks fine in the real world. but in el lay or on camera, a size 8 is positively bovine. i'm not anorexic. i'm not bulemic. i don't have love/hate issues about my body. or food. or anything else. i am simply a theater actor that's hollywood fat. and by working this weight off, i'm doing something about it.

or i could keep eating and turn myself into a big black woman who plays caricatures that amount to little more than what can only be described as mammy for the 21st century -- usually with a lot more attitude and sass than she had in minstrelsy.

i don't want to have some long, drawn out post-feminist argument/discussion about how hollywood's obsession with youth and a size 4 body ideal has given a lot of girls and women in this country a complex and how you may or may not think i'm buying into that by doing any of this. all of that stuff is cute in theory. but this isn't theory. this is my career. and that's what makes it counterproductive - and moot. i realize that this is an important moment for me. i can either get it together and do what i have to do to make the transition to on camera work - get lean and get my teeth fixed - or not. this aspect of the business involves paying a great deal of attention to what i look like, and turning myself into something of a junior triathlete to get the leanness i know i need to look a certain way on camera is par for the course. now i understand why the actors i'd meet in LA were so foaming-at-the-mouth obsessed about what they ate, how they looked on camera, what they looked like, what everyone else looked like. and when they weren't looking at everyone else, they were expecting everyone else to look at them. everyone, constantly checking each other out. think about it: if you look that good, the compliments have to keep coming, you have to stop traffic, you have to look a certain way - or what's it all for, and how will you ever know what you're worth?

in this weight loss struggle, i am not alone. there are many bright shining examples of actors and actresses and performers in hollywood who did what they had to do to get that look. i just read lena horne's excellent bio stormy weather and i didn't get to the middle of the book before she was popping pills to get her weight down after having had two children, because the studio demanded it.

all in all, the results of such studied efforts have been transformative visually for many, to say the least. here's two of my all-time favorite examples:

once upon a time, greta garbo was a working film actress in sweden and happily studying theater. she was on her way to becoming a funny fat comedic actress with bad teeth, but filmmaker mauritz stiller saw something more.

 greta garbo at 16 years old. cute!

he made her take elocution lessons to walk and talk differently, and he got her a stylist so she could dress differently. he gave her acting lessons for the camera. and yes, he made her lose weight. she went on to star in two very successful european films.

 mauritz stiller and the much less chubby, frizzy haired virtually unrecognizable swedish movie star greta garbo, 1924

then they went to new york city. they languished there and almost went home but something interesting happened -- they took portraits of garbo and -- on the strength of those pictures alone -- MGM bigwigs decided to meet with them.

this is the photo that got her that interview.

look at those horrible teeth! but who cares about dental work when your beauty is mesmerizing. here she is again -- in 1924, photographed by henry b. goodwin in stockholm.

these photos were taken by arnold genthe for vanity fair in 1925, prior to garbo's arrival in hollywood.

irving thalberg didn't think garbo was pretty at all (remember, she is considered by many to be the most beautiful woman who ever graced the silver screen - and some believe that she is the most beautiful woman who ever lived) but if you consider what he saw when he looked at her -- a heavy set 21 year old frizzy haired swede with bad teeth who could barely speak english -- maybe you could cut him a little slack.

so he had her straighten her hair and get her teeth fixed. on a scouting trip to berlin, louis b. meyer actually looked her over and told her to lose more weight before she attempted to work in hollywood -- this, after she'd already lost enough weight at the onset of her on camera career to become a successful european star -- with the admonishment, "in america, men don't like their women fat." they groomed her for a few choice roles here and there, she made it through the transition to talkies and the rest, as they say, is history.

here's the finished product -- the one that most in the industry agree is the most beautiful woman to ever appear on film. wow -- she really doesn't look all that thrilled about it, now does she?

at the other end of the stick, of course, there's joan frackin' crawford - otherwise known as lucille le sueur.

joan's story is one for the books. she didn't have a svengali/lover at her elbow, telling her what to wear and what not to say. hers is a story of raw discipline, true grit and just plain old hard work on her physical self. i LOVE it! she knew everything that was required of her as a movie actress and as a star, and she handled her mutha-effin' business. period.

one day, joan was having stills taken by a cameraman, her friend johnny arnold, for a picture they were working on at the time. he told her offhandedly that her face was "built" - her bone structure was perfect for the camera but the camera couldn't get to any of it. for that to happen, she had to lose weight. joan took his casual remark to heart and promptly went on a diet of steak and tomatoes for lunch and dinner, and grapefruit for breakfast. in a month, she lost 20 pounds. her face changed so drastically, everyone assumed she got plastic surgery to make her eyes bigger. she didn't. at 5'1" and 149 pounds initially, she was pretty buxom. she dropped all the way down to 108 and never weighed more than 118 pounds for the rest of her career. and now -- to paraphrase paul harvey -- you know the rest of the story.

this is joan before the weight loss. (i'll bet you didn't even know this was joan, did you? i didn't.)

will you just look at that belly and those thighs? now that's hollywood fat.

and this is joan after the weight loss. of course, this new look garnered much more work and ultimately, success.

any questions?

i don't know. maybe i've got it all wrong but i don't think so. to make this transition, you have to plug into your inner svengali. after looking over pictures like this from back in the day, mine is totally on point.

The Farm of Tomorrow

The House of Tomorrow

The Car of Tomorrow

Classic cartoon that's got this month's "tomorrow" theme all over it. Enjoy.

A book review - "Are You Somebody?"

Are You Somebody?: The Accidental Memoir of a Dublin Woman by Nuala O'Faolain


My rating: 3 of 5 stars
When a really cool black female friend presented this book to me as a gift, she told me that other black women had been reading it voraciously and that through it, they saw themselves. I think her exact words were that they found their voice. I didn’t understand how an Irish writer, journalist and tv personality could pull that off but I decided to keep an open mind. I’m glad I did.

I think that ultimately, it’s the human experience that connects us and binds us. This is the stuff that transcends culture and gender and race and anything else that people tend to wallow in and use in divisive ways. It’s this human experience that touched me to the quick as she swung back and forth throughout moments in her life, from her childhood to her love life to her mother’s school days to her father’s career to her brother’s demise and more, much much more. Back and forth she swung like a pendelum, exacting and so full of feeling, swirling you into a conversation that she’s having with you, with her subconscious, with her very soul, perhaps. It really does read like an intimate chat, the kind you have with a close friend well into the night that reverberates within you whenever you think about that friend. No wonder so many have taken this woman to heart, and cherish her, and hold her close. Especially other women.

Here’s an interesting tidbit. At the end of the book, she talks about how you become invisible in society or are treated like a nutter after a certain age if you are a woman because you are no longer considered sexually attractive or viable. (Remember how they treated Susan Boyle?) The frustrating thing is that you still have those sexual feelings. What’s true is that women outlive men – females outlive males of every species, actually – and so the population curve is that eventually there will be a lot of single older women out there. Actually, according to stats, over 60% of African-American women are single and/or have never been married.

In the end, the snapshots that she creates with her words are so vivid, so painful, so real that I couldn’t help but think and reflect on my own life. I think that black people are used to being treated like they are a collective nobody by society but this is especially true for black women. Society wants us to believe that we are invisible, that we don’t matter at all. We don’t become invisible when we are no longer sexual objects. We are perpetually fetishized sexually. We know exactly how that invisibility feels at ANY age.

My black female invisibility doesn’t phase me in the least. It just makes it easier to get stuff done, to get what I need for me and mine, and to conquer the ground I stand on. And we black women, we can certainly see each other and stand together. Maybe that’s our strength, our advantage. Maybe that’s the lesson for our Irish sisters.

View all my reviews >>

another day, another list

when i said most actors have to do more than one thing well to make a living, i meant it. you don't even want to get into what i've done already, so here's a list of all the stuff i do currently. where's y0urs?

1. Freelance writer
   
2. Producer
   
3. Voiceover artist (commercial, animation)
   
4. Solo performer
   
5. Teacher/kiddie wrangler
   
6. Proofreader
7. Librettist
   
8. Vocal teacher/coach
9. Medical narrator
   
10. Lyricist
11. Blues singer
12. Playwright
    
13. Cabaret performer
    
14. Medical copy editor
    
15. Copy editor
    
16. Essayist
    
17. Musical theater performer
18. Actor (theater/film/tv/commercials)
    
19. Writer
20. Jazz singer
21. Performance artist
    
22. Torch singer
    
23. Songwriter
24. Jingle singer
    

Black Man Fridays: Bayard Rustin

this is a clip from the documentary brother outsider: the life of bayard rustin. most of us know this brother as a tireless activist, a civil rights strategist and the architect of dr. king's march on washington. not many realize that mr. rustin's career spanned 60 years (he died in 1987), that he was actually dr. king's mentor - he was the one who turned dr. king on to ghandi - or that he led an openly gay life as far back as the 40s.

what i didn't know is that he had a beautiful tenor voice, went to college on music scholarships, performed regularly as a member of the blues group josh white and the carolinians at the infamous cafe society in greenwich village.

he was also from pennsylvania. and he was a quaker.

clearly, this is a biopic that is screaming to be made. i can't begin to imagine who in hollywood - especially black hollywood - that would have the balls to pull it off.

this is what you do when you get a little money, a little power as an actor: you start your production company and develop projects that give you a starring role and grow your career. waiting for the phone to ring shouldn't ever be an option. but hey, that's just me.

take a look at this video clip. i think mr. rustin was even more radical than malcolm x.

DIY

if you're an artist, you learn pretty quickly that you are your own business - especially if you're an actor. maintenance and upkeep on all fronts is understood. expansion, vision and growth? now, that's something else. i don't get actors who don't do anything except act. they don't sing, they don't dance, they don't make a pair of pants. nice work if you can get it. most actors can't.

if you want to work steadily, you have to do more than one thing well. voiceover work is just another skill, like singing jingles. how much i work has everything to do with how i handle my business. how strong is my hustle? i'm never sure. it's always been a stick and move situation and like a shark, i can never keep still in this town. but it's stronger than it ever was. and that's something, i suppose. in a way, it's everything.

now that i've included medical narration in my voiceover skills, i've had to seriously think hard about what to charge clients. of course, i asked the internet and needless to say, i got some great answers, most notably from mcm voices voiceover blog's wonderfully concise and well-written entry setting rates in the voiceover business as well as a comprehensive voiceover industry rate card from the edge studio's voice design group. everything is up and off the ground now. i love doing voiceover work!

oh, yeah. i almost forgot. if you want to hear my demos, click here.

i've got it

i'm not sure exactly when the moment happened but i think i now understand the readjustment that's necessary when acting for the camera and the difference between that and what it takes to readjust on stage. it might have happened in the last class with the last monologue i did - something from the show sports night, as dana. i actually felt a switch click on somewhere in me as i was about to do it. pow, just like that.

i am painfully aware of this transition i'm making, and that so many genuinely talented theater/musical theater artists that i know never do this because of a myriad of reasons, most of them self-inflicted. i know from whence i speak. that was me not too long ago. but it's not me, not anymore. i am so grateful that i'm doing everything that i have to, to get to the other side of this. this is going to be some kind of adventure.

being able to watch myself on camera every week has had a profound effect on me. the truth is, i couldn't see what i was doing wrong - and i was doing soooo much! even my slate - the way i introduced myself was wrong! and to have someone at your elbow that reallly knows what they're doing means everything, everything. trust me - joanna beckson knows what she's doing. God bless her classes.

everytime anyone makes a mistake or does something that works, i'm taking notes. what worked? what didn't work? how can what they did work/not work for me? of course, everything matters - wearing primary colors and not patterns, keeping the make-up simple and low key, what i do with my hair. i just didn't realize how much it matters. it's a no brainer to say this, and yet i have to say it: it's a visual medium. they're looking and assessing what they see to figure out whether i'm right or not before i even open my mouth. am i comfortable with that? no. do i like it? no. i could philosophise ad nauseum about what's wrong with thinking that way and what it does to society and all that malarkey. or i can take the classes i need, get my body back so that i look a certain way on camera and get to work.

joan crawford had the right idea. more on that later.

on the road again

i have nothing further to add. not yet, anyway. leaving this sunny little town in a little while but first i'm making a pit stop for blueberry soda, sarsparilla, blueberry maple syrup and any other regional delicacies that would be happy to live in the kitchen of my west harlem apartment.

no junk food in the car, no fast food on the way. no edible garbage whatsoever - just ice water, good music and a sleepy disposition. hm. what i really want is a night light, so i can read and sketch and make lists...

tomorrow, i have to hit the gym with a vengeance and then i have an audition for a musical. i'm going to spend the afternoon practicing guitar and hammering out song ideas. then there's a 3 hour on-camera acting class in the evening and afterwards, i've got a gig at iridium with jc...

i like portland and i don't like it at all

i like it here. it's sunshiny and wide open and pretty and green, with a real folksy vibe that feels a lot like (south) austin in the 80s, before it got gentrified and all these movie stars that wanted to be musicians showed up and then sxsw happened and everything went to hell. it's very DIY and all, with amazing coffee houses and bakeries and tea houses and such on every other corner. it's hilly and there's lots of old cool architecture and there's two and three story buildings everywhere, and where there aren't well-tended gardens, there are wildflowers and blooming trees and tiger lilies jumping out at you when you least expect it. even the filthy bums remind me of dragworms.

this is the top end of new england, and so there's plenty of fresh delicious inexpensive seafood to be had, whether you make it or not. and that's the other thing - there are tons of 5 star restaurants and eateries boasting their james beard awards and such, all over the place. really amazing inventive shockingly delicious food. (yes, i have been to duck fat - twice! no, i haven't been to hugo yet. next time.)

and i love it that the picket fences aren't the least bit ironic.

right now it's somewhere in the 80s so everyone but me is feeling the heat. today as i walked down congress avenue (!!!) i thought, wow - i'm in the midst of a retired hippy commune of some sort. and that's just it. this place would be perfect if i were retired. or if i were a graduate student. it's a college town, it moves slow, and it's a walking city - so easy to get around and relatively inexpensive to live in. i would also love to live here if i were an artist and i needed to write a book or finish a screenplay or do a series of paintings or something. something that required isolation from, you know, the world.

and of course, that leads me to all the reasons why i don't like it here.

i don't want to launch into the dearth of black folk in these here parts and how disturbing it is to walk into a place and get stared at openly by seemingly intelligent rational adults who know that their behavior is the epitome of rude - but for some strange reason, they can't help themselves. i could really go on about that. but i won't. instead, i'll tell you that i'm not so sure where the black folk hang out, socialize, break bread and, well, live. it's my culture, it's who i am. i am the antithesis of everything that new england is. i'm not even anywhere near old england. (thank jesus.)

funny thing. when we see each other in the street, we speak - and we are shocked to see each other, believe me. when you are black, making that eye-to-eye connection and speaking is always like coming in from the cold, no matter where you are in the world or who you are with. and it's beautiful. so yeah, where are we, where do we live? where can i get my hair done? none of these questions have been answered so far. i'm sure you're not surprised.

the small town feel undoes me, as does the fact that most of this stuff is boarded up and gone when the tourist season is over - and then we would be left to tunnel our way out of here just to do simple things like get the mail, with snow plows and shovels and chains on the cars and whatnot. i'm a southerner. i'll have a snowball fight with you if the mood overtakes us, but i really don't do snow.

everything is too slow, too quiet, too relaxed. it's the wierdest thing: everyone - and i mean everyone - is eating and shopping and relaxing. the only people who seem to be doing any work are the baristas or the waiters or the chefs. or whoever was running that train museum. i haven't seen any outlets for growing a band or new music or anything like that, and although there are medium sized houses for a national touring act to breeze through on their way to montreal, i haven't seen any music venues to support that basic unsigned act that's just doing their thing. maybe it's me, but i haven't heard of any cool bands from portland, maine. the other portland, yes. this one, not so much.

this is a nice life. it's just not my life.

my life has a legit agent and a commercial agent that submit me regularly for work. it has a jazz quintet, a rock band that can strip down if need be, and a lot of guitar lessons and voice lessons and theory lessons. my life has a lot of twang in it these days. a lot of voiceover work. a lot of working out. a lot of underexposure and songwriting and auditioning and singing. my life has a lot of friends who are my family. my life is transitioning from theater and musical theater to film and television and commercials. my life isn't all that complicated and with any real degree of luck, my life will be bicoastal very soon . my life is a lot of fun, even if the fun is something i have to work at, sometimes. because sometimes my life is dark and strange and full of mystery. still and all, it's quite a ride.

where does any of this fit into portland maine?

larry the lobster

i'm having way too much fun in portland maine eating lobster and goofing off with my friends to blog anything of real interest today. or tomorrow, probably. i should say something cheesy about larry the lobster from that infamous eddie murphy saturday night live skit in the 80s but you probably won't know what i'm talking about.

that episode - and the angry sardonic way he confronted the racist viewer that wrote the show to complain about him - stayed with me for a very long time. i spent my entire childhood on charleston south carolina's coastline eating almost nothing but seafood, so the viewer's remarks made me laugh out loud - until i realized they were actually serious. after that, every lobster that hit my plate was definitely larry as far as i was concerned. the uprising, revolt and sacrifice happens in one fell swoop just as soon as the water hits a rolling boil. (it's a spartacus thing...)

i couldn't find it on youtube.com (big surprise) so here's a clip of the larry the lobster you probably do know, from the ever-popular spongebob squarepants series. and here's hoping you enjoy a larry of your own for dinner very soon.

i got it!

this evening in on camera acting class, something clicked.

we were looking at monologues that we'd put on camera during the previous class - a scene from a sit-com, actually - and i watched one person after another do their bit and then listened as the instructor joanna gave her insights and carefully gave balanced critique and made helpful suggestions. it was all very supportive and encouraging, a very safe space to do something new and uncomfortable and strange.

when she got to my take, i got really objective and i took careful notes - but something in me balked in spite of myself. joanna said to stay away from patterns and wear solid colors on camera, and that the camera especially liked solid colors. i thought, okay. i'll wear primary colors to auditions from now on. the red dress i chose was absolutely luminous. it looked orange on camera but it still worked. i had on that bob wig and it actually worked really well, too. the makeup was great, the accessories worked. but something was off.

joanna paused the tape and explained that i was giving what the people in the industry would call a soft read. i was way too subdued. then she told me why i should be bigger and i realized i was afraid to go in that direction, because bigger to me meant theatrical and that was always a bad idea on camera. but according to joanna, that's not entirely true if you're doing comedy or even dramedy. so i thought, okay. i'll try it. why not? the worst she can do is rein me in. and that's what you do - you do the lines, you're given direction, you make the adjustments, you keep going. sounds simple, right? it soooooo isn't.

somehow whatever she said sank in. when it was time for me to do the next monologue, i nailed it. i nailed it so hardcore, she blurted, "great read!" from the back of the room. i felt like something fell into my hands and i really didn't want to let it go. all i could think was, i got it. i got it! that transition that i never thought would happen, the one that would take me from theater to film/tv, has finally taken place.

to be completely honest with you, i stood in my own way for a really long time. let's face it - it's a visual medium. what you look like and whether the camera likes you or not is mostly why anyone seriously considers you for a part. so initially, i didn't think i was pretty enough, or light skinned enough. i knew that my acting abilities were largely irrelevant. there's plenty of people out there on tv every week and in the movies and whatnot, they're lousy actors and they're making bank. they know how to hit their mark and they know how to pose and make the right faces and say their lines "with feeling" - and they know how to work the camera.

i figured it was better to stick with what i did best, what i knew. i was wrong.

after class, i went for a walk to think and think and think. i like this on camera stuff. i'm warming up to the whole process, to letting the camera see my thoughts. and i'm working harder and harder on what i look like, for whatever it's worth. beauty is in the eye of the beholder but i think that if it's the camera's eye that's beholding me - that favors me - i'll be fine.

and yes. my gradual weight loss is totally changing the way the camera sees me. more on that later.

i wanted to post the winans' song tomorrow but unfortunately youtube.com wouldn't let me. but then i remembered this gem from a rather young and sweet-faced tevin campbell called - what else? - tomorrow, a product of quincy jones.

this song was everywhere. whatever happened to tevin campbell?

tomorrow

a short list to glimpse my life, in no particular order:

1. ride your bike absolutely everywhere you have to go -- unless it's raining, of course.
   
2. drop off donated items to the salvation army - and get that reciept for a tax write off. continue to do this every month for the rest of the year.
   
3. take a meeting with brad at adh for an as of yet unnamed jazz project for spring, 2011.
   
4. boxing conditioning class at 1pm and then hit the gym. hard.
   
5. manicure/pedicure at jeniette salon - it's the monday/tuesday special!
6. pick up another bio/autobiography - something definitive on nina simone or artie shaw or maybe thomas jefferson. and don't forget to loan joanna your copy of gladwell's latest book outliers.
   
7. pay the mad fashionista a little visit, and get an appropriate outfit for the mock audition
   
8. run lines ad nauseum for two scenes in on camera acting class
9. on camera acting class, 6pm - 9pm
   
10. schedule a voice lesson and a piano lesson for later in the week
    

...and tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow...

the national blog posting month - nablopomo - theme for the month of august is "tomorrow" -- whatever that means. i don't have to stick to the subject at hand. i just have to write something every day. let's see what develops.

of course, the first thing i thought about was the song tomorrow from the musical annie. strangely, most fans of jay-z already know at least one song from that show. i totally forgot that this little number is actually a really good song, that the show was on broadway forever and toured everywhere even longer than that.

it sort of begs the question: what happened to all the little girls who played the title role? there are quite a few of them. i always wonder what everyone does next, once the spotlight fades. i always want the backstory. usually, it's so much more interesting that what's happening on stage.

sure, we all know that andrea mcardle was the originator and sarah jessica parker was the 3rd actress to play the role on broadway. but what about charlene barton in the london production? frida von schewen in the swedish production? rachael marley in the australian production? beatrice visentini in the italian production? marissa o'donnell in the 30th anniversary production - the one that ran for 3 years? what about brittny kissinger?

what about annie #2? what about daddy warbucks? what about sandy, the wonder dog?

so wierd. there's a world of unknowns out there, full of bravado, singing (or acting) their hearts out in all kinds of shows everywhere - right up the street, all over the world. the strangeness lives within the sensation that there is wonder amongst us, that walks right beside us, that we can't seem to recognize until it's beyond us. or until it's too late. every famous someone was an unknown, weren't they? think about it - there's halle berry, considered by so many to be one of the most beautiful women in the world. and to think, once upon a time not that long ago, she was a former beauty queen/out-of-work actress/hostess in an upscale restaurant in downtown nyc. believe me, you weren't gawking at her then. you were wondering why this black girl couldn't find your reservation, or why she gave you the worst table in the restaurant, or whatever.

just about everybody has their new york city story of anonymity. thankfully, this seems to be a great place to disappear into a crowd.

anyway, here's some snapshots of a few annies.