nothing about this is okay

"Hey can I smoke in here? Fuck yeah I can smoke in here. I'm a fuckin' countess. Kelly, your box looks fantastic in those pants."

So I did actually get a part! As an Amazon in A Midsummer Night's Dream, what else? Rehearsals start next month, and then the show is in rolling repertory until October. I realize, looking back, that waiting to find out has been the focus of this blog (my life?) the last few posts, and I wouldn't want to leave all two of you hanging. Is it a small part? Oh yes it is. Will it get me into Equity? Also, yes indeedy. So, because this is how life works, I will be doing less work on this play than any I've been in in years, and I will be getting paid exponentially more - even though zero times "something" is still zero, I think my point is obvious enough. So, you know, KALOO KALAY and all.

My "lesbian-adjacent" song-singing-standing-up act is on Sunday. I am really afraid of hecklers, but I also really want a heckler. I think it might actually be fun to have every right to just rip some person I've never met to shreds in front of a bunch of people. Maybe that kind of thinking makes me a sociopath? NO! THAT'S SHOWBIZ!

Ah, yes, showbiz. Now, theater has my heart because I've always been fascinated with the ephemeral, with moments that waft by and then are gone in the same instant, never to return again, just as they do in our own lives blah, blah, blah - no wonder nobody likes theater, it's all SO melancholy and precious and boooOOOOoooring. SHAZAM! KABOOM! ZAP-A-DOO! THESE ARE THE SOUNDS OF ENTERTAINMENT! MOVING PICTURES, LADIES AND GENTLEMAN, MOVING PICTURES ARE THE FUTURE!

What I mean to say is, working this job, I have had several strange/awk interactions with famous show-people. Most are actually pretty boring, (answering Dick Van Dyke's phone call with, "He is in his office, I'll transfer you right over," is not very exciting except for the part where I get to say, "---, I have Dick Van Dyke for you," and then I click transfer and spin around in my chair, pumping my arms up and down screaming, "YES! YESSSSSS! YYYEEEEEEEESSSSSS! THE FIRST DYKE ON THE TEEVEE!"

Anyway here's two good ones:

(This is about five days into working here)

Me: Office of ----? (I can't help but sound like the receptionist in Office Space when I do this. It always sounds like a question.)
Larry David: This is Larry David for ---.
Me: Oh, good morning. Let me make sure he's in his office. May I put you on hold for a moment?
L.D.: NO! No, you may not!
Me: Uh...uh...(high pitched whining sound) uhm...
L.D.: IT WAS A JOKE! It was a joke. ItwasajokeItwasajokeItwasajoke.
Me: Oh.
(Pause.)
Me: Yes, well. I am humorless.
L.D.: Right.
Me: I'm going to...I'm going to put you on hold now.
(A Beat)
Me: Alright, I'm going to transfer you now.
L.D: (something unintelligible)

(Yesterday)
Me: Office of ---?
Debbie Allen's Assistant: Hello, I have Debbie Allen for ---.
Me: I'm so sorry, he's not in the office. May I take a message?
D.A.Ass: Yes...I
(small commotion)
Debbie Allen: Hi there, this is Debbie. You tell --- it was, "When You're Alone." From Hook.
Me: Okay. "When You're Alone?" From...Hook?
Debbie Allen: Yes, you know, (sings)"Wheeeen yooouuu're aloooone..." It won the, well, you just tell him. That's what he wanted to know.
Me: I will be happy to tell him when he gets back. Would you like him to return?
Debbie Allen: Well, uh, no, I think that's what he wanted to know. Bye.
Me: Tha-
(Dial tone)
Me: Wha?

I can't decide whether to love Lady Gaga for being absurd or hate her for being such a rip-off of 15 years ago...

Anyway, more pictures. I found a lot of these via National Hoax and Audrey Hepburn Complex and, of course, FFFOUND! - among other places. You know, at some point I thought I would get writing done with the huge gaps of downtime at this job. But I don't. I look at things on the internet. And that's all, really. It makes me think I might really enjoy working as an archivist - but only if I am archiving, "Things that I find funny, intriguing, and/or beautiful that have already been well-archived elsewhere." There's probably a huge market for that.

from the annals of the internet:

Bullshit.

Get it???? Get it???? GET EEEEET?????????

I am hilarious.


!!!!

The [wonderful non-profit theatre's] Gala was last night. It was so so so much fun - and Mary Steenbergen told me she like my shoes. I was like, "Payless!" And she smiled. Carol Burnett was there and Dick Van Dyke rapped (sort of) and there were many, many desserts. Super fun.

Anyway, I have put lots and lots of pictures I think are funny on the desktop of my work computer. I probably shouldn't leave them on the desktop, so I'm going to put them here. I'm not going to give credit (even where it is due) since I have no idea where all this shit came from, jeeeezzzz. Without further ado:















This is actually a picture of my mother and myself - but I did find it randomly on the internet. NONE OF US ARE SAFE!










I bought boots on sale for 20 bucks today and they are epic in their greatness. Epic.

Got a call-back from Theatricum Botanicum! Am trying not to exhibit freak-out-joy symptoms until I get off work and can schedule...but I haven't been super succesful. Eeee!

i dropped my mobile phone. it's full of silicon chips.

I can't believe I've lived in LA since July. Almost 8 months exactly. It feels like it's been an impossibly long time even though I know that at some arbitrary point in my life I'm supposed to start thinking of "two or three years ago" as not such a long time past. Yo, waitress, still waiting on that perspective-shift!

Today at work I really just could not do anything right and, although I was supposed to go to my mom's, I had to stay home and cry for a while instead. SCINTILLATING! Seriously though, I got really down on myself and freaked out about "WHAT I AM DOING (or failing to do) WITH MY LIFE." I know that I should be proud of what I have accomplished, but it is never quite enough. Maybe that is good, maybe that's drive?

I made a sorta-kinda-temp job into a real temp job (w/ regular paycheck instead of getting paid per script!) and another internship into a paid gig! I live with my boyfriend and I have a really great relationship with him! I have a funny kitty cat! I've been singing in public much more often and people don't seem to hate it! I think I'm writing better songs, I don't hate the stories I've slowly started eeking out, I've lost 25 pounds, I'm beginning to make some good contacts, blah blah blah blah. But all I can think about is the songs I haven't written yet, all the weight I have yet to lose, all the fights I pick with Joe, whether all this working back-stage/behind the scenes is preparing me to have my own company one day, or just setting me up for a lifetime of being dissapointed that I'm not the one who's in the play, or the one who directed it, or the one who wrote it. Whether I'm really doing enough for my mom, it scares me a lot how fragile she is, how much pain she deals with every day. She's been doing well, but it's a struggle, and I am selfishly so completely deer-in-headlights-shit-my-pants terrified of losing her...

I wonder if there will be this point when something will happen and I will think to myself, "Wow. Well done, kiddo. Nice work." Or, alternately, "That'll do, Pig." I've been trying to be more joyful, less dour, less self-destructive. It works sometimes. I dunno.

My boss as --- Playhouse said if I wanted to try writing a "Christmas/Holiday" play, he'd really like to read it. And I have so much anxiety about it. I have the story (adapted O. Henry story - I know, ugh, but it's cute) and the way I want it to go. I just can't seem to do anything. I had told him I'd send him a draft by the end of February. So much for that. Oh well. You know what they say about that first leap.

I have an audition tomorrow that I really want to go well, so maybe that's part of why I'm freaking out. I'm doing a new monologue - Julia's from The Two Gentlemen of Verona. Don't. Fuck. Up.

Deep down, my problem is likely an unrealistic, narcissistic self-regard - I want something (or everything) I do to be straight-up brilliant and I don't think that's, uhm, entirely realistic.

In other news, months ago I auditioned for a variety show looking for "women's stories." The producer later explained that, more specifically, they wanted pieces that were, "lesbian adjacent." Anyway, they cast me, and the show is actually happening now. In...two weeks? I think? Last Sunday of the month.



What a ridiculous poster, right? Apparently Rose is kind of a big deal sex worker advocate/legalization activist. So that's fun. I'm going to make jokes about queer theory and sing songs. Oi.

And you know, my ma told me about how the dump truck got stuck in the mud at her house today. And the company sent another dump truck to try and push the first truck out of the mud and broke the axle on the first truck. So they had to find a way to get under the truck (apparently all the mud made using the giant jack a truck that size needs very difficult) so they could re-weld the axle...and, well, at least I didn't have to deal with my dump truck being stuck in the mud all day. Things can't be all that bad.

book i want: Los Angeles - The Architecture of Four Ecologies

This is one of the more depressing things I see on a daily basis, and by far the most annoying thing about casting notices:
"Pay: None. We are a pro-production theater. There are pro-production fees."

What does that mean? To me it means: "Pay: None. We are a scam. You pay US! Yippee!"

But, of course, things are indeed more complicated than that, and some (though certainly not all) pay companies are less of a scam than others. You pay to be a member (usually a voting member) of the company/ensemble, but if you get a part or you stage manage or whatever, you do get paid for your time. Many of the better pay companies/ensembles charge membership to remain a producing entity, certainly, but offer members workshops and classes for their money. Of course, it's sort of up in the air whether the class they offer is in any way worth your time, money, whatever. Discerning that, actually, can be surprisingly (embarrassingly) difficult.

For example: very soon after I moved here, I took a class at Playhouse West, which John recommended. And I liked it alright. Back to Meisner exercises - kind of nice to work on fundamentals a bit. But, it was at 6 pm in North Hollywood. So driving there meant, for me, at least an hour and a half in terrible, terrible traffic. So I'd arrive stressed out and with frayed nerves - and then have to sit in perfect silence (save my five minute exercise) for three hours. I think it's a pretty good school but...well, let's just say it was pretty unpleasant for reasons that aren't the school's fault. So I quit.

A month or two later, I got a forwarded e-mail from a friend about a class at the Promenade Playhouse (which is, like, a mile from my apartment). I felt a little funny about the sketch level of the guys teaching (if you've got so many ties to The Actors Studio, why don't you teach there?) and the fact that, apparently, half the class would be Italians (what?), but it was basically all scene study, and it was so close I could ride my bike or walk there. +1 exercise bonus too! So I felt like I was working on things, albeit in an independent way, since I largely ignored the two instructors, not that they offered much besides pseudo-psychological babble vaguely relevant to the scene they'd just watched. They just never seemed to know what they were talking about. Maybe that sounds mean but, well, if you assign a scene to someone and then a week later have no idea what the play is about, I have to assume that you don't spend much time preparing for the class. But whatever, it was nice to do scene study for a while and laugh and cry about various imaginary things. I got sick of paying, so I decided to stop going and audition for more things. This has had variable (or: very little) success, but, well, I'm in a show right now (w/ Vox Humana), so that's nice at least.

THE POINT OF THIS LONG-WINDED STORY is something I have not yet reached. But I am so close. The point is that one of the students from that second class recently sent me an e-mail inviting me to join his class. THE ONE HE'S TEACHING. I found this very, very funny. Oh, how I laaaaughed. Because, not to be a total bitch, but this guy is in no way at all qualified to be teaching acting to actual (or wanna-be) professionals. IN NO WAY AT ALL. I mean, obviously, neither am I, certainly not to teach a class anybody is paying for. But, hey, I guess it's a way to make a quick buck, which I suppose he needs since the last time he got acting work, according to IMDB, was in 1996. ZING!

Anyway. Pay companies. Vox Humana is one, but I made a deal with the lady who is kind of in charge - I agreed to help her write grants if I could be a member for free. But I've decided it's not really worth it even if it is free. It's not just actually having to pay money, it's the attitude of a company where most people pay to be there, just like they pay for ceramics class and yoga. It's a hobby and that's it. Kind of sad. So after this show, I totes quit. Whatev. I'd love to find the perfect class, or be part of the perfect ensemble, but so many classes seem to be taught by people who are clearly unqualified to be teaching but are doing so out of some kind of scary (to me) misplaced notion that they really, really do know their stuff and so many ensembles look to be straight-up scams. So much bullshit, everywhere. It's hard not to feel constantly duped. The whole thing feels like paying to go to camp, but then it's actually just a scary shack in the woods with a scarecrow and tape playing on a loop: "Have fun kids!" and I can't imagine that people can ever really take doing a show with a pay company as seriously as they would if it were a real gig, or even if they were doing it for free.

But then, hey, what the hell do I know? Here's hoping I book something from the Theatricum Botanicum audition on Saturday. Fingers crossed, hopes low, ambition high! MARCH!