Good News and Bad News

I'll start with the bad news. So you know the visa that I applied to through Central? They did not accept my application. I found out last week. I should get some feedback on my business plan in a week or so, but my guess is that it comes down to profit. I wanted to set up a theatre company to do small productions of new American musicals, but for practicalities sake it would have ended up being a profit share company. However the Graduate Entrepreneur visa stipulates that as my main goal would be setting up the company I could only work 20 hours a week to support myself outside of that. Not really enough to live off of.

So that's a major bummer. I am also a little bit miffed at the way the school has handled the process. Not only did they give us no guidelines or instructions on the application process they took an extra week beyond the proposed date to get back to us. AND when I finally did hear it was a completely impersonal email. I understand that with time constraints etc a form email was necessary, however with all of the effort that I put in I would have appreciated it if they had taken the time to put my name into the email. As someone who has had to send many 'we're sorry but no thanks' emails I know that it doesn't take that much extra time to switch out the name at the front of the email. And really its amazing how much that one slight change makes. This is pretty on par with the way the international students have been treated all year, so really I shouldn't have been surprised.

Now on to the good news. If you remember over the summer I recorded a voice over demo reel. It has taken the better part of a couple of months but I finally started making phone calls to agents. And last week I had a bite! I met with them this afternoon. And... drumroll please.. they want me to join their books. With my visa situation as tenuous as it is at the moment they have offered me a six month contract. But they seemed really excited about having me on their books. Explained that they had been specifically looking for a young American woman because that's what people seem to be asking for right now.

So that is very exciting. I also met with some colleagues of my agent this week to chat about social media. I am hoping that this may turn into a possible job. So I still have some options when it comes to the visa. Crossing my fingers. This may work out yet!!!

Reality Check

Well, its been back to reality ever since I turned in my dissertation. Since then its turned into a daily struggle to pay rent and plan for the next year. Everything is still up in the air, and frankly the waiting is getting to me just a little bit.

It hasn't been all struggle though. I had a performing gig a few weeks ago which was great. Central hosted an event in celebration of the work of Cicily Berry. A friend of mine wrote a vocal quartet for the event and asked me to sing in it. The piece was a lot of fun, a madrigal style quartet setting from Henry VIII. The event itself was great, a veritable who's who of the world of vocal work. Not only was Cicily Berry in attendance, but Patsy Rodenburg and Trevor Nunn also spoke along with several other Notables. And I did spot Derek Jacobi in the audience as well. It was really amazing to be part of that whole evening!

Apart from that its been a constant search for work in some form or another. I now have a 'pay the rent job' to keep the wolf from the door for a little while, waiting tables. As someone said to me when I mentioned this - Now I'm a real actor. Ah well, its a fun crew, and it puts money in my bank account. I have also started cold calling voice over agents, which is a daunting task. I sent my reel off to a few places last week, no responses yet but I am working on follow up.

I did have an exciting meeting yesterday though. The last time I spoke to my agent I had mentioned that my dissertation focused on the use of social media in Musical Theatre. He seemed very interested in the possibilities this could open up for me and got to work spreading my name around to the many people he knows. On Friday two of his colleagues contacted me about coming to meet with me about this. Nothing definite has been offered yet, but the meeting yesterday went really well. They seemed very interested in at least using me as a consultant for the social media campaigns for two shows that they general manage. So who knows where this may take me, but its definitely something that I would like to pursue. Social media is something that I can work on from any location and on a flexible schedule so it can easily be done along side other projects. Which may prove ideal. I am trying not to get my hopes too high, but at the very least I have made some good contacts.

Still waiting to hear back from Central about my business proposal. Originally they hoped to have a short list of candidates by last Friday, however now they expect it some time this week. So realistically I probably wont hear anything until next week, judging from past experience. I am getting a little antsy about this. I would really like to know just where I stand in this whole visa process, whether this will turn out or I need to find another option. Being at a point where I cant really do anything about it is much harder than working towards a deadline in my opinion. I did mention my business proposal at my meeting last night and they seemed interested in it as well, so I may have found some mentors in the process.

Hopefully I'll have some more concrete news soon.