"All that begins..."

“This too shall pass” was probably the phrase I heard the most from my mom when I was growing up, closely followed by “Try me”, which is entirely different blog! She said this when things went really rough, when I was studying a lot or when the general pressures of high school just got me down. And as she said, it goes for the bad as well as the good. And so it is with a production. No matter how long you have a run, no matter how long you work on a show, from the beginning you know that you will have that last show. Sometimes you’re quite thankful for it, but you know it will never be the same again. It will never be the same cast, the same place, the same audience, the same mistakes, or that line that you keep messing up and eventually get it right on the last show.

Just before our final show for CHASING, at the Krekvars Festival, one of my fellow cast members said that she had had such a feeling of gratefulness during the last performance of the previous show she had worked on while being on stage. And standing in the wing, waiting for the audience to come in for what we knew was going to be a full house I had that exact same feeling.

Marketing, or creating a spectacle.. .either way people took note!

I had survived Krekvars. I had climbed on ladders to put up posters of KNEES, I had marketed to everyone person on my path. Between Spotlights blowing and suddenly replotting the lights for KNEES 20 minutes before curtain up (only to see a fixed spotlight after our last performance in another theatre), between microphones suddenly not working halfway through a performance of SUIKERBOSSIE and cast members forgetting their words. Through the room divider in KNEES falling over halfway through my very emotional monologue and falling over a prop left in the wing. Through the salt burns on my feet, the corns on my toes from turning and turning and how the choreography of CHASING will always remind me of the smell of peppermint because of the transact plasters I had to wear to get through the performances on an injured knee. Through messing base on my dress 5 minutes before I have to go on stage, rehearsals which sometimes had me in stitches, sometimes in tears and sometimes in fits of anger clouds of curses Krekvars was almost over for me.

What makes live theatre so interesting is because it is live. Our director for CHASING, Nicola Haskins, would often say to us “Guys, it’s live theatre. Somebody is going to make a mistake somewhere”. And that’s the beauty of it. Never again will there be a moment exactly like this in time. It’s not like film where you can watch it over and over again. Each performance is unique and special.

I remember having the most surreal monologues in my head when I was dancing in competitions. Halfway through a dance, or a routine, I would find myself thinking that it was so odd that I had prepared for months and months and hours on end for these few minutes on stage. All this hard work went into these few seconds, which would be over before I know it and so much was at stake. In this little fraction of my life so much could be made or broken. And it, too, would pass. I had a similar feeling on stage when I performed in THREE WALL TEMPLE the first time I was in Grahamstown. I spent about 5 minutes during the show lying onstage with my back to the audience, and every time I lay there I would think about how amazing it was to be on stage, and I would think about how, in 30 minutes or so it would be over. I would be in the dressing room, taking off my costume and washing off my makeup and carrying on with the rest of my life. And I would try to hold on to that moment in time that I was on stage before I started dancing again and I had to concentrate on what I was doing.

Back to the moment before I stepped on to stage for CHASING all these ideas where spinning through my head. On the last show we abandoned our usual strict group focus and just jumped around in our circle holding hands to the Chris Chameleon pre-show music that was playing while the audience was walking in. I knew it was going to be an amazing show.

I think one of the sweetest moments was when one of the male cast members of SUIKERBOSSIE for who this production was his first, came and said goodbye after the final run of the show. I noticed his eyes were red, but I didn't say anything. His friend noticed and said loud enough for the auditorium to hear "Dude, are you crying?". This had me in tears. Even though the show was finished, I told him that it didn't mean that the friendships he had created in the cast were nos finished too.

And now, this Monday morning, Krekvars has passed. In the words of Ingrid Jonker that we said in CHASING “Alles wat breek, val of eindig” (Everything that breaks, falls or ends). Krekvars has come to pass. And if I’ll be here again next year I don’t know. But this year, I was on stage, and I have moments that I can hold on to.

Keeping it Fresh...at Krekvars!

This week the craziness in my life reached new heights with opening of the Krekvars Student Arts Festival here at the University of Pretoria Campus. I landed in Johannesburg late last Saturday evening, downloaded my script, and started rehearsing Sunday morning at 10. Since then I’ve been pulling eight am to 10pm rehearsals to get the three shows I’m involved in ready to go on the planks this week!

I landed in Johannesburg last Saturday evening. When I got home I downloaded my script and started rehearsing on Sunday morning at 10. I finshed that evening at 11 and the rest of my week carried on in a smiliar fashion with 8 am mornings and finishing after 9 in the evenings. All this in an attempt to get the three shows I'm in ready to go on the planks this week at the Kekvars Student Arts Festival held at the University of Pretoria.

Now, obviously, with my schedule as it is there is little to no time to wash my car, and this ingenious bystander decider to share (I’m assuming) his frustrations on my car! I found this after a rehearsal on camus:



I'll give him this... it's original! Unperturbed I drove around with this message for a week!



Friday brought about another performance of CHASING for the press opening at Krekvars, and I do believe that we as a cast really outdid ourselves. We were informed, however, before our performance that the Dean of Humanities would be attending the performance. Not only was the funding for the show to go to Washington riding on the quality of the performance at the Press Opening, but also extra funding for the drama department. So basically, if we screwed up we would be in the popular position of being the reason why next year’s shows have no budgets. Not exactly where I would I like to be. I looked at my director when we were informed of this: “No pressure hey”.

I am happy to report that we did do really well and if we don’t to overseas, or if we don’t go to Washington I think we as a cast will still be proud of what we did.

Now Krekvars is quite a small festival when it comes to festivals, and its mostly productions from local students that play here. I was exceptionally lucky that I got cast in my second year of studies to perform in a show that went to The National Arts Festival in Grahamstown. After my first year the older students were celebrities who did well at Krekvars, but before I even had the chance to perform at Krekvars myself I learned that the world of the arts is much, MUCH bigger than a few 45 minute shows at Krekvars. Each university had their own celebrities from their shows, and I was just one performer of many in the over 300 shows that are on the planks in Grhamstown for 10 days. I didn’t get the opportunity to feel like a celebrity at Krekvars because I knew what was waiting outside the gates of the Universtiy. Real life is quite scary. But none the less, Krekvars is a great experience and always promises to be a lot of fun for everyone who’s working and performing at Krekvars. It is also a good testing ground for shows, and a good motivation to get them finished!

Tomorrow and Saturday I do 3 performances on each day of three different shows. It’s wild ride doing what we do. But after all the craziness of the last three weeks, come Monday, I need to start looking for the next adventure!

Now while I'm at it, Catch KNEES, CHASING and SUIKERBOSSIE tomorrow and Saturday at The Masker Theatre at the University of Pretoria!

KNEES: Friday at 11:30 at Saturday at 13:00

CHASING: Friday at 17:30 and Saturday at 20:30

SUIKERBOSSIE: Friday at 16:00 and Saturday at 22:00

Chasing an audience!

I did not post last week, as I climbed in a quantum last Monday morning to travel to Grahamstown for the opening of CHASING (directed by Nicola Haskins) at the National Arts Festival. Two days of travel, many stops for Wimpy coffee by our cast members (and rooibos tea for me) a pub and Bed and Breakfast in Colesburg and we arrived in Grahamstown ready to perform.

The wall at the Horse and Mill Pub in Colesburg, where in 2009 the cast of Three Wall Temple, which I was in, wrote their names on the wall. It was amazing to return and see it again this year.

 

Saturday evening, at 22:30 at the Centenary Hall in Grahamstown we started our last performance of CHASING for the National Art’s Festival. Now, finding an audience to watch a show by a university little known for physical theatre and a thousand kilometres from our friends and family is a challenge. Even though we are doing what has been considered by the few who have seen CHASING to be a fantastic show, we struggled to get audiences. 

Last year the same director, and almost exactly the same cast, won a Standard Bank Ovation Award for the piece we took to The National Arts Festival. Last year we also performed 6 shows at the beginning of the festival in comparison to the four we did this year, and last year we only really started drawing audiences with our fifth and sixth shows. This year we ate a healthy serving of humble pie. Our first show was free, so we had a relatively large audience. Our second show we had about 30 people. Our third show we performed to an audience of 5 and for our ten thirty show that evening we had had no pre-booked tickets, even though an audience member of our first show considered it to be so good that we got invited to perform at the Fringe festival in Washington DC. We learned the value of an intensive marketing strategy this year.

After learning that we had no pre-sold tickets for our last performance our director, Nicola Haskins, and my long-suffering boyfriend hit the streets and pubs of Grahamstown with a pocket full of complementary tickets to try and bribe an audience into watching our show. Between the two of them they managed to hand out 30 tickets to pub-hoppers, drinkers and generally bored students at Grahamstown’s Long Table and we eventually did our best show so far to an audience of about 15 complementary tickets. Thank heavens the university was footing the bill and we were not at the festival to try and make any money.

Making a living from a show, or simply covering your costs is so much more than simply putting on a good show. You need to market your show like mad. Posters and flyers and engaging with potential audience members and creating hype on social media are all part of the process, and something which our more inexperienced cast members didn’t realise. Part of being an actor is ‘whoring’ yourself for an audience.  We awaited any news as to our potential audience with baited breathe. Breathe was baited for different reasons. Some cast members were hoping that we wouldn’t have to perform in the cold. I was hoping that my boyfriend and Nicola would pull the metaphorical rabbit out of Grahamstown and we would perform to an audience greater than 5. Nicola returned, claiming that all thirty comps had been given out, and that my boyfriend had been superb in chatting up potential audience members. To this I received, with the greatest respect: “What a good little whore you have”.

“Yip, and I’m the pimp!”  

Speaking to people, getting them excited about your product, about the brand that you have created is as much part of what we do as the acting and dancing and warming up. For me it’s not simply ok to accept that we didn’t have an audience for our last show. I felt that we had gone all the way there, travelled and worked to get a good piece together and that accepting the fact that we did not have an audience for our last show was a great defeat in my eyes. Especially as I had performed our first show that day on an injured knee.

I somehow managed to damage my left knee during the second run of our show. I felt fine during the day, as I climbed the stairs in the evening I realised that something wasn’t right. By the next afternoon, before our third show I had, what one of the cast members described, as one thin knee and one fat knee which could neither extend properly nor bend entirely. I panicked. I considered cortisone injections, amputation and suicide. I had to perform two dancing shows in the freezing cold of Grahamstown, and I know that as an actor you are only as good as your last performance. I knew I had to do them well, and that doing them well was the only option. A cast member asked me if I was going to ask our director to perhaps cancel the show, seeing as we had no pre-booked tickets. I replied, simply, that doing so is career kamakazi. I would bite on my teeth.

My director was quite concerned, and called in one of the lecturers in the cast that had performed before us. She looked at my leg and her first words were “Don’t over medicate yourself”. I found this amazing, because the first thing I wanted to do when offered anti-inflammatory medication was to swallow the entire cartridge. She then recommended ice, and performing so well from the waist up the no-one even looked at my pumpkin knee. My director was amazing, and we quickly decided where it would be appropriate for me to perhaps stand out of the choreography or change it. I slapped on a deep-freeze plaster, swallowed some pain killers and did the show. The evening show was much harder due to the cold, but I survived and we did two amazing performances to our limited audience. I’d been in a serious car accident before, and my body feels worse for wear today than it did then. I’m stiff and sore from performing in the cold and I look like a pirate with my fat knee. I have a few days of rest before I fly back up to Pretoria to start the process all over again, and I couldn’t be happier. We are already making plans for the show that we will be taking to the National Arts Festival next year.

Working it!

Last Monday was shoot day for me! And getting myself there was no easy feat. Sunday morning threw me to the rails, or rather the bowl, with a terrible bout of stomach flu. So this morning, with a handful of meds keeping my insides inside I left for Johannesburg.

And who would I park next to, at work, at Clive Morris Productions?

My call time was at 12:00 at Clive Morris Productions in Randburg. I passed various other television orientated buildings on my way there, and even got there without getting lost. I was one of the first of the actors there for my call, and as it would still be a while until we moved to our location we waited in a courtyard, outside in the sun. About half an hour after we arrived a rather skinny women, in well worn high heels and one hell of a pair of boobs entered the courtyard. She sat that there smoking a cigarette, and asked us if we were all waiting for the same shoot. We were indeed (could have guessed she would be a ‘hot stripper chick’ with us).  She then promptly removed a large bottle of Amarula and poured herself a tot. The second one she spilled most of on her skirt. And left again. It was barely 12 in the afternoon and we were about to start working and she was slinging liqueur back in plain view of the producer. Upon her return she asked if we knew what we would be paid for this job. I honestly did not really know, and I would probably have done it for free anyway. Someone gave a number, but she seemed somewhat unsatisfied: “I usually get R2 500 just for my butt, but then I suppose we have clothes on for this shoot”. “Darn tootin we do” I said in my head.



Location, location, location...

 Some time after this encounter pizza arrived. About an hour after that we left to the location for the shoot. The Lollipop Lounge. Now, to those unfamiliar to the Johannesburg area, the Lollipop Lounge is an honest-to-goodness (well, as in I’m speaking the truth, not that the club is ‘goodness’) strip club. Upon entering the premises we walked through strips of hanging plastic that would make any butchery proud and entered the inner circle of the Lollipop Lounge, erotic art work and stripper poles all there in their mid-day glory with the club’s cleaning staff cleaning like crazy (I won’t lie, a small part of my was really relieved to see the bleach and chemicals being liberally applied).

And it was off to wardrobe and makeup for those of us hired to be strippers for the shoot. I was quickly ok’d in my choice of outfit and shoes, and I went off to change. Now one of other ‘hot stripper chicks’ I had never met before but as it would strangely turn out we both grew up in Secunda (not the largest of towns). The two of us became a team quite quickly, especially when confronted with some of the other cast members. As we walked to the bathrooms to change one of which asked me what I did for living. I replied quite sheepishly that I was still a student and trying to working as a freelance actress.  She quite loudly and proudly claimed that she was not only a stripper, I believe it was for 16 years, but that she was also a single parent. I put my head down and changed.

Myself and my hometown companion made the change into our costumes quite quickly and headed off to makeup. I was already on the chair, fringe clipped up, hair tucked behind the ears and eyes closed for eye shadow when I heard a fellow actress enter. From the little experience that I have when I’m off to work on a set I don’t put anything but sunscreen on my face after I washed it for the morning. I gathered from the head of makeup’s voice (from now on Makeup Lady) and questions that the newly arrived actress was applying base behind me. The first question asked was if she was applying Almay. No, she wasn’t. The makeup artist then asked her to remove whatever she had applied on her face so that she could use the products that she trusted and was familiar with. The actress assured her that she had mixed some things together and the resulting product was similar to Almay. Makeup Lady asked her to take it off any way. I heard footsteps, and the clippety clop of heels and then the same voice, do you think I should wear the 8-inch heels? I heard Makeup Lady’s assistant, who was busy doing my makeup, snort and I felt her remove the brush from my face, I looked over my right shoulder, just opening my eyelids enough to see a pair of mule high heels, with the highest platform in the front I have ever seen, in combination with a decently high heel. The sole and heel of the shoe was made of that see-though perspexie plastic stuff. I closed my eyes and moved my head back so that the assistant could carry on with my makeup. I heard Makeup Lady ask how on earth she could walk on those stilts. The balancing actress defended them, apparently the angle is very comfortable (I have no idea what this means) and the heel itself isn’t so high due to the platform on the toe (that bit I could comprehend). The actress sat in the chair next to me so that Makeup Lady could start her makeup:

“What’s on your face?”

“Just base and powder”

“You’ll have to fly the base and powder”

“Sorry?”

Makeup Lady handed her a wetwipe: “Wipe it all off”

What ensued after this was some argument about her eyes being made bigger to which Makeup Lady said she was instructed to keep the eyes plain and make the lips bolder. Eventually the actress folded, but shortly started as new quest when the producer arrived. The new question was as to whether she should put in her blue contact lenses. At this point, my makeup was finish and I had to leave, even though I genuinely wanted to stay and see how exactly this scenario played out.  I did however have quite a self image boosting moment when the producer after seeing my earlier completely plain faced saw me when my eye makeup was completed: “Wow, eyes. Nice”

As I arrived in full makeup and costume I met my friend, under direction from the director upon a raised stage area complete with two poles. Luckily my job was to strut. As we were being given direction one of the lead actors walked in. I happened to know her from my university days. She greeted and asked if I was eye Candy for the afternoon. “Well would you believe it” was my very sincere reply. As someone who is in a contest of will with the scale, sometimes winning and often losing for many years being considered the ‘eye candy’ is somewhat of an achievement. The actress balancing in her 8inch heels arrived. One of the leads, who is a rather short portly women gave the shoes one look and proclaimed that she would like a donut on stilts if she was ever to wear those… I struggle to call them shoes.



Working, but not working it.



shooting in the lot, well, the parking lot.



No, working with strange people is genuinely one of the things I enjoy about being in the arts. However, one gets very many degrees of strange, as I am learning. Including extras who are more than willing to waltz around with a lit cigarette in a room littered with no smoking signs. As a non-smoker I really don’t appreciate the smell in my clothes, and as an assisted blonde the nicotine in the smoke can make my hair go yellow, so I avoid it like the plague and was quite shocked to said the said extra waving a cigarette around nonchalantly while most of the crew were to dumbstruck to say anything (a staff member had just complained about the actors smoking in the no-smoking areas).

Another incident included an extra running around in a tiny outfit, apparently unaware of the length of the…well…shirt and the fact that it was slightly see-through. I suppose it takes all types to make a cast. Interesting enough most of the male cast was not as an enamoured with her as one might think, considering our location.

So poles were worked, shots were taken, lights turned and the location itself created a lot of the laughter and fun of the day in between the shoots and the scenes. Wigs were worn, wigs moved in takes, and somewhere through the day you stopped realising that all the pictures on the wall had naked women in them. Cameras followed heeled shoes, and costume changes were made and I finished my work just before six. I signed my contract and climbed in my car for what was supposed to be a 45 minute ride home. Not so.

One gridlocked William Nicole, due to a non-function robot gave way to about 5 kilometres of driving at the speed limit, just to toy with me I think, and  then to a gridlocked N1 highway. An hour’s travel on the high only changed the length of the journey on my GPS by 3 minutes. Literally. Add that to the fact the my medication was working out of my system and my insides were desperately trying to become my outsides my journey was not what one would term pleasant.

Two hours and 15 minutes after I left the Lollipop Lounge (a woman looking at me in complete disgust when I walked out of the club and to my car in full ‘stripper’ makeup and a bag over my shoulder) I arrived at my flat in Pretoria. Upon my arrival home my mom jokingly said that since I had worked she would not be sending me my desperately needed pocket money for the month. I claimed that I hadn’t worked that much. My mom laughed: “The 135km back to Secunda would have been faster and when you’re home for a weekend I pay enough to last you the month”.  

Scheduling-Shmeduling

Today I get to be on set again! This time I will be doing featured extra work for a local comedy show called Sketch U Later. The great thing about this job is that I didn’t need to audition for it, which I think is what threw me completely off guard when my agent called me last Friday. Upon answering my phone I was asked if I was free on the 18^th, and if I would be prepared to do the work for a local series. My only other commitment was at six that evening, so I told my agent my day was theirs. I was told that the details would be emailed to me. So I waited. And waited. And then I thought the work might not happen anymore. And on Thursday I decided to check. Thursday afternoon was as long as I could wait so I emailed my agent to hear if the work was still on for Monday the 18^th. Friday afternoon I received a call sheet in my inbox.  There was my name, albeit spelled incorrectly, upon the call sheet for Monday and right next to it: “Hot stripper chick”. My first reaction was “Oh my gosh my agent thinks I look good enough to play a hot stripper chick!!!” shortly followed by : “Oh my gosh my agent wants me to play a stripper chick!!!”.  The reality set it.

My first work for television, the advert I did in February, I was covered from head to toe in a period costume.  Literally all that showed were my hands, my face and my fringe. Now, role number two, I will be dressed in fishnets, heels and a mini skirt, and shooting in the Lollipop Lounge, a genuinely real strip club in Randburg. Oh the irony. At least getting this past my parents wasn't too hard, as long as nobody expected me to be getting naked . . . no one asked me about it . . . 



These shoes were not made for walking. What I've termed
my 'Hooker Heels' that I'll be wearing for work today.



After this initial shock, and shock it was, I saw the estimated wrap time. At seven in Johannesburg, which meant travelling backwards in time if I were to be in time for my rehearsal in Pretoria at six.  Murphey really has it in for me. For the first quarter of the year I was bored stiff and not getting work. Now, when I had nicely enough work to keep my going at break-neck speed now I get supplied with work I didn’t  even audition for. Needless to say, I called my agent (in true Hollywood style)!

Question one: For the sake of safety, will I need to be taking off my clothes, because if that’s what they hired me for they would be quite disappointed in their purchase.

Question two: Can I leave to be in time for my rehearsal in Pretoria?

Question three: My name is spelled incorrectly in the call sheet, this needs to be fixed if my name is going to be in the credits.

My agent confirmed that firstly my clothes would be staying put. Apparently the show is quite conservative (hmmm….a conservative stripper?) . After calming my nerves my agent joking said that I should take my clothes off if that’s what the part required. I dryly told him that he might have misplaced faith in what I look like without my clothes on.

Secondly, I would be quite in time for my rehearsal in Pretoria, I should expect to leave about four hours after my call time, and thirdly I should speak to someone when I’m there about my name.

Before I was able to reach my agent I think I gave my director for my six o clock show a heart attack as I contacted her, mild panic in tow, to ask if we could possibly start later so that I could get to Pretoria from Johannesburg. Luckily no one will be cursing me under their breath as we can again start on time.

It’s going to be one hell of a day: mail my study supervisor the last work necessary for my proposal for my Masters, to get to Johannesburg to shoot from 12, to get  back to Pretoria to rehearse physical theatre from 6 to 10. I LOVE IT!

Top of the Billing

So Yesterday morning (Sunday) I awoke at 5:30. I washed, devised, drew, painted and constructed myself into some semblance of class and presentability (I hope!) and left my flat two hours later to pick up a friend and then head off to Johannesburg. We arrived at the Bidvest Wanderers Stadium in the cold and wind and after edging my car assisted by a car guard into a harrowingly narrow parking spot the two of us, CV’s and photographs in tow, headed off for the Top Billing Presenter competition. So we filled out our forms, got our photos stapled, pinned our numbers to our shirts and headed off to sit in the stadium and wait.



Miss Rozanne Mouton, my friend, companion and competitor on Sunday!
Looking much more composed than I did when we arrived!



Before the proceedings for the day were to commence the obligatory shots for Top Billing needed to be taken. We were all told to remove the extra clothing and blankets, and to look ‘glamorous’. I’m not quite sure how possible it is to look ‘glamorous’ on the grass of a cricket pitch on a grey Johannesburg morning in June but some ladies certainly tried. Now for some context. I was wearing two trench coats over each other and I was still getting cold. For the camera shots on the field some girls stripped down to mini dresses, and miniskirts with cleavage and heels. Before we started the takes one of the Top Billing presenters (Ursula) looked at one of these hopefuls in her short, blue one shouldered dress: “Darling, nothing is worth getting pneumonia for”. Now this same presenter I have to say made my day. While we were standing in the cold on the cricket pitch the four presenters delivered their lines for the camera with us in the background (not getting cold for the sake of the camera). One of the other presenters botched her line, and upon doing so blasphemed. Ursula calmly said: “Don’t blame him”. I decided then and there that I would adopt this phrase whenever I was in the presence of someone who did the same.



Me: Dishevelled, wind swept and desperately clutching my flask
for any heat it might still have upon arrival on Sunday morning.



The morning dragged on in rather epic variations of catching a spot of sunshine to shivering in the shade. My friend, Miss Rozanne Mouton and I sat distracting ourselves and talking about everything else other than what we had planned, or not planned, to say during our audition. I eventually asked her if she would like to practice. I think perhaps more out of boredom than anything else. We sat there, she had decided that she would go through it in her head, not out loud. A second later I heard “Damn it. I made a mistake in my head!”

And nine o’clock moved to past noon and eventually our row moved forward, and we would be moved from the stadium seats to the elusive backstage area where we would audition for presenters and various members of the crew and production team. As luck, or fate, or Murphy would  have it Rozanne was number ten for audition room one and I was number one for audition room 2. We were split and would face the rest of the journey alone.  Rozanne hit it lucky with some sort of promotion, who photographed her and sent the photo directly to her phone. Below is the photo they took of her!

I entered the audition room. Bright and smiling and greeting my panel with a great confidence over my shaking body. If it was nerves or the cold I certainly wouldn’t know but I’m an actress. I can fake the hell out of anything, so I did my link. Walking and talking from point A to point B. Apparently according to my panel of judges it could have been smoother, but  good none the less. Again. I’m an actress, we make things interesting when we move, but so I learned. I was told to keep my number and wait and if I didn’t get a phone call by Monday night then I know I didn’t get a call back. I felt quite positive, but then again they might be saying the same thing to everyone. And all that is left is to wait and see i I recieve a phonecall tonight.

So Rozanne and I grabbed our (many) coats and headed for the car. The GPS showed the nearest mall to be Melrose, and after decided I could afford to spend R30 on a cappuccino if that happened to be the price in Melrose and that I would pay it off we went to go discover Melrose. We headed to Europa for a cappuccino for Rozanne and a Chai Tea for me (No caffeine!) and the post-audition-now-tradition phone call to the mothers.

Europa - feeling very European

As we drove  back I jokingly said to Rozanne that I had such a nice time at the coffee shop. It was fantastic that we could fit in the audition as well!

Learning Lessons

I have this joke where I always claim that I will never grow up and remain a kid forever (maybe I watched Peter Pan too often in my childhood). And for all my joking I learned a valuable life lesson today, I grew up a little bit today. Yet simultaneously I feel more childlike and naïve then I have in a long time.

When I was at school I thought that the biggest decision I would have to make for my future would be what I would study, and that after that decision was made it would be easier. I realised, upon completion of my degree that I still didn’t really know what it was that I would do with my life. And after a year of honours I had even more forks in my path, and no singular direction. At every step of the way I thought I would know what would be coming next. And the honest truth is I still don’t. If I will end up being a theatre actress, or a film one. If I will make it at all and end up lecturing of teaching.  If I should focus on writing for now or if I should be doing more auditions. For acting, or musical theatre of physical theatre.

And today I learned a life lesson. I learned how to make my voice heard within difficult circumstances and I learned that sometimes the result can be better than you could have imagined. I knew I needed to speak to a director, and although I dreaded doing it I knew I needed to do it for me. And the result was even better than I could have imagined. Too have somebody respond in the most understanding way when you’re dead frightened of what you feel you need to say was probably one of the most cathartic experiences of my short existence. And it was something I didn’t expect.

I know I will be in similar situations in my career and life, and I know that this time was probably the exception. Sometimes people won't react in a kindly manner. But I also learned that sometimes, if you approach it in the right way, you don't always have to be the one on the short end of the stick. Although I've been in the same circumstances before this is the first time I actually stood up for myself and the lesson was in that.

Maybe what I said was somehow true. Maybe I’ll stay a kid forever in my own way.

T is for Tuesday.

Tuesday was supposed to be a busy day. I thought it would be when I woke up early in the morning. I was going to have two sets of rehearsals and teach in between in the afternoon. Supposed to be. Before my first rehearsal my classes were cancelled as my students weren’t performance ready for a show later this week and before the end of my first rehearsal my rehearsals for the evening were also cancelled. To add to this, the only rehearsal I had that day didn’t exactly go that well for me and to add insult to injury a choreographer messaged me to let me know that the cast for a musical I had auditioned for more in March was still not finalized. Perhaps in June the message from my inside source revealed.

I think everyone has days where they question themselves. Where they question their abilities, if they really have what it takes to make it. Today was my day. I usually love the fact that no two days of my week are cut from the same pattern, and normally the thought of a job that starts at 8 and ends at 4 or 5 would scare me half to death. But there’s something truly terrible about being lonely and depressed in the middle of the day. While everyone is busy with their work or class or lives.

The trick, I think, to this whole performance thing is just not to give up. I think those that make it are those that just carry on through the disappointment. Through the Tuesdays of their careers.

Dancing for auditions

When you audition for a musical there is a kind of model which is followed. You start with dancing. Everyone learns a routine from the choreographer, and then you dance in a group of four of five. Once this is done they call out either the numbers who move through to the next round, of the numbers who don’t: “Thank you for coming, but you can go” or some other variation of the same thing. Then you sing, and if they still like you they ask you to stay to read cold from a script.

Perhaps because these things start with dancing there tend to be a LOT of dancers. Skinny little people. And that being said, there is nothing quite like a dance audition to make you wonder about the merits of anorexia or at the very least to make you question you self-esteem and once healthy body image (I consider myself to have a ‘healthy’ body. It’s what helps me sleep after dance auditions). And entering the world of dance and musical theatre auditions is completely different to television and advert commercials and straight theatre. The first time I arrived at one of these a skinny blonde girl, in crop top and spectacular abs, came up to me: “You’re new”. Well…to me, you’re new too.

As an outsider, its sort of like entering into a secret society. All the same girls tend to be at the same auditions, so over time they get to know each other. And all they are able to talk about is the last audition they were at, or the last show they were in.

And yesterday I realised a terrible thing. When I arrived at the auditions I, for the first time, bumped into a group of four girls that had studied at the same institution I had. It was fantastic to see them and catch up. And you know what? We spoke about the last auditions we were at. The most difficult ones we had had up to now and the shows we were currently working on…