do what you love.

I've spent half of my day looking up talent agencies to submit my resume and headshot (that doesn't exist) into. I've considered over and over again submitting to Ford+ and Wilhelmina Curve but I'm not 5'8 and I figure if you're not going to meet the height requirement why even bother?

Can you still do print if you're not 5'8?

All of this sprung up because I was paroozing my Instagram and saw that a friend of mine was in the midst of filming. I don't know if it's a short film or not but I made something wake up in me. Something burn up and get me all kinds of fiery.

I've wanted to be an actress since I was five years old.  I can almost feel the eye roll you all made from this kind of cliche. 

I was cast in my first play at age four. My sister was doing a community theatre production of Alice and Wonderland and I liked picking her up and dropping her off at rehearsals with my mom and I think eventually I just begged my mom to let me stay. I had about six lines and was the youngest one in the cast, one of the Queen's cards. The director (and Queen of Hearts, Pamela DePasquale) had me introduce the show, and since I had no understand of what projecting was I just shouted 'WELCOME TO OUR PLAY! WE REALLY ENJOY IT. AND WE HOPE YOU. ENJOY IT. TOO.'

The home video might be my favorite thing to watch because I was just such a tool.

That's when I loved it. I liked being other things, I liked playing pretend,  I liked making people laugh, I loved the applause.

Through kindergarten to eighth grade I signed up for whatever acting/performance job was available at school, raised my hand to read characters in books, anything, ANYTHING to be somewhat acting. Every play we read in English class my hand shot up to read for the lead part, any dance that needed choreographing in the Christmas concert I stepped in, any loss of direction in a show I tried to come up with a solution. I just wanted to be on stage...I needed to be on stage.

At home, my sister and I did a plethora of fake commercials and dance recitals for our parents and just to put on camera. We went as far as to write scripts and build sets. I remembered really recently that we filmed a scene where I was on a train and we drew up train seats with people sitting on them and left a blank space for me. (We could go hard, or we could go home.) 

IN FACT, I auditioned for Zoom when I was around ten and made it to the second round of auditions in this big building. I think the reason I didn't get the part was because I sang this weird song that the older kids at school were singing that was about hating school and killing teachers. They put us on the spot to sing a song that you had to act out and I don't think mimicking a gun and saying, 'Murder her behind the door with a loaded .44, now she don't teach no more (no more).' was what PBS was looking for at the time. Not to mention, at ten years old, I don't even think I knew what I was saying. I'm 21 and still don't know what a .44 caliber gun looks like, to be honest, I don't even think I knew that a 'loaded .44' was a gun.

High school came and without question I joined drama club, scoring a supporting role in the Drama Festival production of A Simple Task. I was more at ease in Drama Club because most of the juniors and seniors knew my sister Courtney, a Drama Club alumni and popular among the wretched artsy souls of Somerville High. (Weirdly enough, I think if any of you met Courtney today you would not have guessed that she was ever in drama club.) These people were strange and emotional like I was and it was cool finally being at school and feeling like I fit in with people instead of only fitting in at Magic Circle Theatre, a repertoire theatre summer camp for kids ages 11-14/15. I'll make a whole different post about camp though, it holds a very special place in my heart and has really shaped me in different ways.

Through the years we put on shows like A Simple Task, then sophomore year (under a new director) we performed Thank You For Flushing (My Head In The Toilet) where I played smaller roles as different students and a mean popular girl. Junior Year, I held a lead/supporting role with my other half (Guchie, a six foot two half Brazilian half Japanese man with a taste for other men) as Narrator 1 in The Brother's Grimm Spectaculathon (probably one of the funniest shows I've taken part in). Finally, my senior year we put on Tracks, a darker play for Somerville High where people from different walks of life end up in a train station/purgatory where they have to wonder if the train will take them to heaven or hell.

All of these shows were taken to the Massachusetts High School Drama Guild Fesitival, where many schools throughout Mass compete in a big drama competition starting with prelims all the way to finals. Somerville High hasn't won in many years and we only got past prelims once in my four years of high school. However, I did get an award for my performance in Tracks where I played the Homeless Girl who is the 'all knowing' character as she's been in purgatory the longest. It was definitely one of the hardest roles of my career because I couldn't fall back on just being sassy like I had before, I had to really feel things and I worked so hard on trying to own that role. It was really amazing to have an auditorium full of my peers (8 schools worth) give me a standing O for that award and it's really something I'll never forget.

Also in high school I starred in a PSA against dating violence for my friend Mitch (and EXTREMELY TALENTED videographer, photographer, and director: here's his page). Unbeknownst to me they had entered it in a county wide contest against other schools and we ended up winning which got me and the crew an interview on Fox News (I wasn't aware of the political standing of the network at the time, I just thought it was cool that I was on the god damn news and was 17).

I mean, before I'm done going on and on I guess I should talk about my 'shining' moments in which the Pace BFA Acting class of '16 would call me a 'star' for:

Me as Rose Alvarez, Bye Bye Birdie. 

 You know, now I would probably feel really weird getting this role as I would be a white woman inherently whitewashing a character who is supposed to be of Spanish descent. In all honesty, I can't roll my 'R's by themselves, they have to be after a consonant, and I thought that was the deal breaker for this role.

I had never intended on ever auditioning for the musical because I didn't think I could sing. In fact I still don't think I'm all that great of a singer, especially in comparison to the people I'm in college with right now. Some of whom have already graced the Broadway stage. I had never seen Bye Bye Birdie or knew who Rose Alvarez was until I asked Guchie was the part was, his response: 'She's a slutty secretary, it's perfect for you, you should audition.'  So I did, with no thought that I would actually get the part. But hey, I did, and I really enjoyed my time in the show.

For the record, I only really wanted the part once I heard the opening horns for the reprise of One Boy. I'm a sucker for horns.

Belle, Beauty and the Beast. 

My senior year, I went out for blood. I wanted this part HARD and there were a few huge chances that I wouldn't get it. There were new people auditioning, talented freshman and sophomores whose talent I could range. I felt my most insecure when auditioning for this, down to SOBBING at my singing audition because I was flat during 'Oh, isn't this amazing/It's my favorite part because/You'll see...'  It was more stressful that a lot of the music was at or just higher than my range. (Hell if I even remember what my range is but I'm not a soprano, that's for sure.) Being Rosie was much easier because all of that music was in my range.

When the cast list was posted I was elated that I got the part and when I had the one on one with my directors, they explained to me that they didn't think I was going to be able to do it at first. 'We didn't think you'd be able to be so angenieux, we thought you were going to be too Rosie but when we saw you with Chris we were really surprised.' It doesn't shock me to this day that they thought I would be too bitchy to be Belle. My face still hurts from smiling so much.

A quick YT search and you'll probably be able to find me singing in each of these shows. I will be the first to tell you that it's not mind blowing and I still can't watch myself perform. Me hitting a high G? AHAHAHAHA, not in a trillion years.

Moving on...

Beauty and the Beast was the last show I performed in. I've worked on plenty of other shows in college but only behind the scenes because since then I haven't had the guts to audition for anything.

For anyone who hasn't yet moved to New York to pursue their acting career:

Manhattan is going to eat you alive if you let it. 

I let it consume me. In high school they warned me of 'little pond, big fish' syndrome and I told people over and over again that I was prepared to be a little fish in a big pond but boy was I wrong. I guess you're never really prepared until you get there.

Moving to New York and working backstage as a make-up artist has really humbled my high school Sharpay attitude (and trust me, I was a HUGE theatre bitch back then). It's helped remind me that I absolutely love acting and working together with so many creative and talented people to create a final project that can do and be so much for an audience.

Acting, performing, doing make-up has never been 'for me,' it's never been about the gratification of someone telling me I'm talented. For me, it's about making someone feel something, about making someone happy, entertained, sad, drawn to something, it's about encouraging a feeling or a thought or an idea. I do all of this for other people because doing those things make me so happy. I love putting myself in a second skin and the feeling of being something different, of channeling my energy into a different person, a different place or thing.

And I miss it.

I miss getting on stage or being behind a camera. I miss learning lines and I miss forgetting lines and I miss trying on costumes and meeting castmates and being excited. I miss watching the people I'm with make huge acting breakthroughs and getting notes and helping encourage cast unity and focus games and all of that other cheesy stuff.

I don't get annoyed when people in New York think I'm just a make-up artist, but sometimes it makes me lose myself and it makes me afraid that it's all I'll ever be because no one knows me as anything different. I've only auditioned for one thing since I've moved to the city and I shook through the whole thing. Scared. Embarrassed. Begging myself to feel at ease.

Tina Fey said, during her interview at ItAS that to be successful you have to be more than one thing these days. No one will take you seriously if you're JUST an actor. So I think it's good that I have the advantage of doing make-up, writing, and acting all at the same time.

I just need to have the strength in myself to know that as long as I love it, it can't hurt me.

I'm prepared for rejection. I just need to jump in. I need to know that I will do it. I will get parts. I will be in indie films. I will get to do what I want to do.

So if you're younger than me and you're scared to audition for a college Acting program because you don't think you're good enough, or if you got rejected from all of them, or if you're scared to do something because you have all this fear standing in the way: throw all that shit out the window. You are your biggest fear, so tell all those thoughts telling you that you can't over a 36th story balcony like a bong you're hiding from the cops.

Do what you love, fuck the rest.

Love Always, 
An inspired struggling artist in her early twenties: