My first theatre audition since finishing classes! Super excited, but also incredibly nervous. The audition is tomorrow for Steel Pier, for the Kristen Chenoweth role. So I am spending the rest of today trying not to over think things, while also singing as high as I possibly can. Its a fun combination let me tell you.
The audition breakdown for the role: On the surface seems innocent.
Wide-eyed. Fresh. She is, however, driven, steely. Determined to get her
shot so that she never has to return home. Soprano with a lovely high C
and an E above that, if possible.
Crossing my fingers.
Monday, September 24, 2012
Thursday, September 20, 2012
New Projects
As I start back into the professional world after taking a year away I am faced with several hurdles to get over. Most of them are the usual ones- trying to break in to the cliquey world of theatre, trying to compete with the millions of other actors out there just like me, trying to keep at the top of my game while I am not working etc. But there is one hurdle that is unique to my situation this year. That hurdle is the visa. I would very much like to stay in the UK, but at the moment I am here on my student visa which runs out in December.
I have found a possible solution though! It is going to take a lot of work, but I think it may all turn out OK. A new type of post study visa has been introduced this year (after they took away the wonderful post study options that used to be in place, grumblegrumble) and that is the graduate entrepreneur visa. Each school is allotted sponsorship slots, Central has 10, to give to students trying to set up businesses in the UK. The visas are good for a year, with the possibility of extending them further depending on the years progress.
Now there are several reasons why I am excited by this possibility. First of all there are a limited number of people vying for these 10 slots. The only people who can apply are non-EU, Central students, graduating this year. There aren't too many of those to begin with, and not all of them are planning on staying in the UK or trying to set up a business. Secondly I have now come up with a great idea that I think I can make work. It is still in the works at the moment though, I have a lot of work to do before the proposals are due in October.
I will tell you guys more once I have nailed things down a bit, but in the meantime I need your help. I need to brainstorm a list of musicals. Here are the criteria, the show must be: New (within the last 10 years), small scale (nothing with a huge chorus or with a big name like Disney behind it), and American. I am looking for fun quirky things, like [title of show] and Spelling Bee. Things like that.
Alright? ........Go
I have found a possible solution though! It is going to take a lot of work, but I think it may all turn out OK. A new type of post study visa has been introduced this year (after they took away the wonderful post study options that used to be in place, grumblegrumble) and that is the graduate entrepreneur visa. Each school is allotted sponsorship slots, Central has 10, to give to students trying to set up businesses in the UK. The visas are good for a year, with the possibility of extending them further depending on the years progress.
Now there are several reasons why I am excited by this possibility. First of all there are a limited number of people vying for these 10 slots. The only people who can apply are non-EU, Central students, graduating this year. There aren't too many of those to begin with, and not all of them are planning on staying in the UK or trying to set up a business. Secondly I have now come up with a great idea that I think I can make work. It is still in the works at the moment though, I have a lot of work to do before the proposals are due in October.
I will tell you guys more once I have nailed things down a bit, but in the meantime I need your help. I need to brainstorm a list of musicals. Here are the criteria, the show must be: New (within the last 10 years), small scale (nothing with a huge chorus or with a big name like Disney behind it), and American. I am looking for fun quirky things, like [title of show] and Spelling Bee. Things like that.
Alright? ........Go
Monday, September 10, 2012
Back to Work Again
Well, it is done. I am officially no longer a student, again. The thesis has been completed, bound and handed in. On time. I am pretty proud of it to be honest. I have never written a paper of that magnitude. And I think it turned out, to use my dad's phrase, 'absolutely not bad'. I am certainly glad to be done with it. Its a little bit weird to be done with the course. I mean, it has completely consumed my life for over a year now, and now its done. My student card has expired, I cant even get in to the building any more. I am very sad to have lost my student discount, let me tell you. London is expensive! And of course now I have to head back out into the real world.
The end of courses is only the first of the big changes that have happened in the last couple of weeks. Right after turning in the dissertation I moved out of my beautiful apartment, and into a house with my friends. Ultimately the move is a good thing, the house is gorgeous and I love the people that I am living with, but it happened at a not so convenient time. After spending the summer slaving over my dissertation the last thing that I really wanted to do was move. I would have much rather collapsed into a puddle and slept for the next month. However I did not have that luxury. In the end though we got everything done. Cleaned the old apartment from top to bottom, hauled my stuff all the way across town, and got myself situated in the new house. The new place has been great, there are five of us living in this beautiful and huge house in South London. It is quite a trek to get into central London, but not insurmountable. And that wont really be an issue until I land my big west end roles and have to be at rehearsal every day, and in that case I think I can manage.
Things on the job front are going slowly. Meeting with my agent on Friday to see what is going on. In the mean time I have found a part time job waiting tables (which I think means that I am officially an actor now). I am also starting to look into voice over agents. Hopefully that will lead to some work in the mean time.
The other big project on the horizon (as if trying to support myself as an actor starting out in London wasn't enough) is figuring out my visa situation. At the moment I am here on a student visa, which will run out at the end of December. I have a few options that I am looking in to, different types of visas that I can apply for. My agent has some sponsorship slots so hopefully he can keep me here. But the other option is a new option that has been introduced this year. In previous years students could extend their stay through a post study visa for up to two extra years after their degree. Unfortunately they have just gotten rid of that (just my luck). They have replaced it with the post study entrepreneur visa. Basically I have to submit a business plan to the school. They will then pick 10 students from all of the plans submitted to endorse for the visa. So at the moment I am trying to figure out how to write a business plan to present myself as a freelance artist. The upside of this is that I am only competing with other non-EU students graduating from Central this year, which is most likely a smaller pool of applicants than the other visas. So hopefully my odds are good. We shall see.
Now it is back to the grindstone. Off to write this business plan. What I could really use though is a few days of vacation.... Maybe at Christmas!
The end of courses is only the first of the big changes that have happened in the last couple of weeks. Right after turning in the dissertation I moved out of my beautiful apartment, and into a house with my friends. Ultimately the move is a good thing, the house is gorgeous and I love the people that I am living with, but it happened at a not so convenient time. After spending the summer slaving over my dissertation the last thing that I really wanted to do was move. I would have much rather collapsed into a puddle and slept for the next month. However I did not have that luxury. In the end though we got everything done. Cleaned the old apartment from top to bottom, hauled my stuff all the way across town, and got myself situated in the new house. The new place has been great, there are five of us living in this beautiful and huge house in South London. It is quite a trek to get into central London, but not insurmountable. And that wont really be an issue until I land my big west end roles and have to be at rehearsal every day, and in that case I think I can manage.
Things on the job front are going slowly. Meeting with my agent on Friday to see what is going on. In the mean time I have found a part time job waiting tables (which I think means that I am officially an actor now). I am also starting to look into voice over agents. Hopefully that will lead to some work in the mean time.
The other big project on the horizon (as if trying to support myself as an actor starting out in London wasn't enough) is figuring out my visa situation. At the moment I am here on a student visa, which will run out at the end of December. I have a few options that I am looking in to, different types of visas that I can apply for. My agent has some sponsorship slots so hopefully he can keep me here. But the other option is a new option that has been introduced this year. In previous years students could extend their stay through a post study visa for up to two extra years after their degree. Unfortunately they have just gotten rid of that (just my luck). They have replaced it with the post study entrepreneur visa. Basically I have to submit a business plan to the school. They will then pick 10 students from all of the plans submitted to endorse for the visa. So at the moment I am trying to figure out how to write a business plan to present myself as a freelance artist. The upside of this is that I am only competing with other non-EU students graduating from Central this year, which is most likely a smaller pool of applicants than the other visas. So hopefully my odds are good. We shall see.
Now it is back to the grindstone. Off to write this business plan. What I could really use though is a few days of vacation.... Maybe at Christmas!
Sunday, August 5, 2012
Theatre week
After a bit of a theatrical dry spell I decided to take matters in hand and buy some tickets for this week. I had also forgotten that this was the week that the MA acting students (both classical and contemporary) had their final shows. So I have ended up seeing quite a bit of theatre this week, something every night except for Tuesday, with one more performance this evening.
Monday- Posh by Laura Wade. "In an oak-panelled room in Oxford, ten young bloods with cut-glass vowels and deep pockets are meeting, intent on restoring their right to rule. Members of an elite student dining society, the boys are bunkering down for a wild night of debauchery, decadence and bloody good wine. But this isn’t just a jolly: they’re planning a revolution." I absolutely loved this play, it was pretty fantastic. The show had a lot to say, and I think the playwright was rather skillful in the way that she put things forward. And the turn in the second act was just chilling! The direction was great, and the scene shifts were absolutely fantastic (the boys all broke in to song!). Not to mention that it was a night of 10 good looking guys in tux's who all sounded fabulous. A fantastic start to my week!
Wednesday - London Road, Book and lyrics by Alecky Blythe, Music and lyrics by Adam Cork.
"London Road documents the events of 2006, when the quiet rural town of Ipswich was shattered by the discovery of the bodies of five women. The residents of London Road had struggled for years with frequent soliciting and kerb-crawling on their street. When Steve Wright, the occupant of No. 79, was arrested, charged and then convicted of the murders, the community grappled with what it meant to be at the epicentre of this tragedy." The entire show is taken verbatim from interviews with the residents of London road. And the music really builds on this. A lot of the vocal line mimics the speech patterns of these residents, and although the show is mostly sung it feels spoken. It is hard to describe without making it sound like they just autotuned the interviews, which is incredibly far from the truth. The craftsmanship that went into this show was absolutely mindblowing. The music was fascinating and really compelling, and the performances and direction were wonderful. A cast of about 10 I think played something like 50 different characters, each with a clear voice. It was really amazing to watch,
Thursday and Saturday were spent at the MA acting final shows. The contemporary strand did a piece called Purgatorio, a devised piece about three souls who escape from Dante's Purgatory and are trying to figure out life in the modern world. The contemporary strand combined Checkov's Three Sisters and Swan Song into one evening. Both shows were interesting to watch, especially to see the progress that the students had made throughout the year. There were some really lovely performances in both shows. While they did a really good job of making sure that the performances showcased every student, the shows were really long. They each ran at just about 3 hours. Granted I did go see the shows by myself, so I might have felt better about the length if I had had a companion. It was interesting to look at what the other courses had spent their time and energy on during the year, and compare them to our course. For example the classical students had worked with a vocal coach all year, and while we had singing lessons we only had help with our spoken work during the first term. It was just interesting to notice these things.
Friday night I helped my roommate out with one of his shows. His course is all about creating theatre, and the group that he is in creates all of these experiential theatre pieces. You get guided through a story, moving from room to room meeting different people along the way. I went and saw their big show several weeks ago and absolutely loved it. It was quite unlike any theatre that I had experienced before. So friday they had been invited to build a piece to be performed at a party. They needed a few more people to act as guides throughout the evening so I volunteered to help out. However this turned out to be quite an interesting experience. The party was in this ramshackle old house on the outskirts of London (right past the Olympic stadium which made transport to the show nice and crowded). I believe that the hosts of the party were squatters in this building. The place was absolutely trashed and just filthy. They had given us a few rooms to set the show up in, however since people were living in the place they kept walking through our space, with no regard to the fact that there was a show going on. They would sit in the next room, separated from us by only a curtain, and shout at each other. I am pretty sure at some point they were doing coke and who knows what else. There were certainly a lot of comments about it. No one seemed hugely interested in experiencing the show, and those who did were so high that they didnt get very far into it before either getting distracted or freaking out. At some point the cops shows up so they had us stop the show until they left. The whole night was pretty much a disaster, I dont think anyone involved was happy with how things went. I got out of there as soon as I could after they shut the show down. But hey, now it makes for an incredible story.
Tonight I am headed to see a friend of mine perform some of the music she has composed, which will be a lot of fun. I think a lot of my classmates will be there as well, so it will be a nice reunion. Things have been pretty stressful of late so it will be nice to have an evening with everyone. More updates soon, now back to the all consuming paper!
Monday- Posh by Laura Wade. "In an oak-panelled room in Oxford, ten young bloods with cut-glass vowels and deep pockets are meeting, intent on restoring their right to rule. Members of an elite student dining society, the boys are bunkering down for a wild night of debauchery, decadence and bloody good wine. But this isn’t just a jolly: they’re planning a revolution." I absolutely loved this play, it was pretty fantastic. The show had a lot to say, and I think the playwright was rather skillful in the way that she put things forward. And the turn in the second act was just chilling! The direction was great, and the scene shifts were absolutely fantastic (the boys all broke in to song!). Not to mention that it was a night of 10 good looking guys in tux's who all sounded fabulous. A fantastic start to my week!
Wednesday - London Road, Book and lyrics by Alecky Blythe, Music and lyrics by Adam Cork.
"London Road documents the events of 2006, when the quiet rural town of Ipswich was shattered by the discovery of the bodies of five women. The residents of London Road had struggled for years with frequent soliciting and kerb-crawling on their street. When Steve Wright, the occupant of No. 79, was arrested, charged and then convicted of the murders, the community grappled with what it meant to be at the epicentre of this tragedy." The entire show is taken verbatim from interviews with the residents of London road. And the music really builds on this. A lot of the vocal line mimics the speech patterns of these residents, and although the show is mostly sung it feels spoken. It is hard to describe without making it sound like they just autotuned the interviews, which is incredibly far from the truth. The craftsmanship that went into this show was absolutely mindblowing. The music was fascinating and really compelling, and the performances and direction were wonderful. A cast of about 10 I think played something like 50 different characters, each with a clear voice. It was really amazing to watch,
Thursday and Saturday were spent at the MA acting final shows. The contemporary strand did a piece called Purgatorio, a devised piece about three souls who escape from Dante's Purgatory and are trying to figure out life in the modern world. The contemporary strand combined Checkov's Three Sisters and Swan Song into one evening. Both shows were interesting to watch, especially to see the progress that the students had made throughout the year. There were some really lovely performances in both shows. While they did a really good job of making sure that the performances showcased every student, the shows were really long. They each ran at just about 3 hours. Granted I did go see the shows by myself, so I might have felt better about the length if I had had a companion. It was interesting to look at what the other courses had spent their time and energy on during the year, and compare them to our course. For example the classical students had worked with a vocal coach all year, and while we had singing lessons we only had help with our spoken work during the first term. It was just interesting to notice these things.
Friday night I helped my roommate out with one of his shows. His course is all about creating theatre, and the group that he is in creates all of these experiential theatre pieces. You get guided through a story, moving from room to room meeting different people along the way. I went and saw their big show several weeks ago and absolutely loved it. It was quite unlike any theatre that I had experienced before. So friday they had been invited to build a piece to be performed at a party. They needed a few more people to act as guides throughout the evening so I volunteered to help out. However this turned out to be quite an interesting experience. The party was in this ramshackle old house on the outskirts of London (right past the Olympic stadium which made transport to the show nice and crowded). I believe that the hosts of the party were squatters in this building. The place was absolutely trashed and just filthy. They had given us a few rooms to set the show up in, however since people were living in the place they kept walking through our space, with no regard to the fact that there was a show going on. They would sit in the next room, separated from us by only a curtain, and shout at each other. I am pretty sure at some point they were doing coke and who knows what else. There were certainly a lot of comments about it. No one seemed hugely interested in experiencing the show, and those who did were so high that they didnt get very far into it before either getting distracted or freaking out. At some point the cops shows up so they had us stop the show until they left. The whole night was pretty much a disaster, I dont think anyone involved was happy with how things went. I got out of there as soon as I could after they shut the show down. But hey, now it makes for an incredible story.
Tonight I am headed to see a friend of mine perform some of the music she has composed, which will be a lot of fun. I think a lot of my classmates will be there as well, so it will be a nice reunion. Things have been pretty stressful of late so it will be nice to have an evening with everyone. More updates soon, now back to the all consuming paper!
Sunday, July 15, 2012
Adventures in Voice Recording
I recorded a voice over demo this week. This is something that I have been meaning to do since I moved to London. I put it off while I was in school, but now that I am trying to make my way in the professional world it seemed like the right time. This is something I have been encouraged to do by man different people. Apparently I have a good sound for voice overs!
I was both excited and a little nervous about the recording session on Tuesday. I mean, I have never actually done any voice recording in the past. I was sent a few scripts ahead of time to look over, and when I got there the guys running the session walked me through the process. It was pretty straightforward. They put me in this special sound room and sat me down in front of a fancy microphone. And then basically from there I just read the scripts. We went through each script a few times to get different takes. Between each take they would give me some feedback: suggest different inflections for certain lines, or tell me to speed up and slow down at specific points. Generally though I seem to have a knack for this. There were at least two occasions where they had me read through the scripts first before giving me any input, and then said 'Well, that was just about perfect!' and didn't have me change anything.
The guy who ran the session works for a voice over agency, and I was hoping that they might be willing to take me on after hearing my work on Tuesday. Unfortunately they apparently already have someone very similar to me on their books. However the guy said that he would both keep me in his personal file in case something comes up in the future, and give me other people to contact who might be looking for my type. He was very complementary of my work, saying that not only did I have a good sound, I was great to work with and took direction well. He seemed confident that I would be able to find representation and work pretty quickly.
This was very nice to hear! I am excited to follow up with all of this. I want to start working. I am getting a bit antsy waiting for things to come to me. My agent is rather elusive at the moment and has only sent me out on one audition. Although I am learning that this seems to be the norm for theatre agents. So it will be nice to have a project that I can fuel on my own. I much prefer chasing up all of my own leads, just so I know exactly what is going on.
In the meanwhile though I need to keep focused. I have let things slide a bit this past week, and need to get back to work. The thesis deadline gets ever closer and I still have a lot of work to do. Add to the pile the fact that my lease on my apartment is almost up. My roommates and I need to start house hunting soon. That will be a fun task. We haven't quite figured out which area of town we want to live in next, and there is some difference of opinion on that front. Also one of my roommates has just applied for a job in Brighton. So if he gets it I am not sure what will happen to our house. I don't especially want to find a new roommate. And I am not completely sure Lucile and I could find a two bedroom place we could afford. Ah well, I have a few other options that might turn out, so I will try not to worry about it. At the moment it is all outside of my control so I just have to hope that it all turns out for the best.
I was both excited and a little nervous about the recording session on Tuesday. I mean, I have never actually done any voice recording in the past. I was sent a few scripts ahead of time to look over, and when I got there the guys running the session walked me through the process. It was pretty straightforward. They put me in this special sound room and sat me down in front of a fancy microphone. And then basically from there I just read the scripts. We went through each script a few times to get different takes. Between each take they would give me some feedback: suggest different inflections for certain lines, or tell me to speed up and slow down at specific points. Generally though I seem to have a knack for this. There were at least two occasions where they had me read through the scripts first before giving me any input, and then said 'Well, that was just about perfect!' and didn't have me change anything.
The guy who ran the session works for a voice over agency, and I was hoping that they might be willing to take me on after hearing my work on Tuesday. Unfortunately they apparently already have someone very similar to me on their books. However the guy said that he would both keep me in his personal file in case something comes up in the future, and give me other people to contact who might be looking for my type. He was very complementary of my work, saying that not only did I have a good sound, I was great to work with and took direction well. He seemed confident that I would be able to find representation and work pretty quickly.
This was very nice to hear! I am excited to follow up with all of this. I want to start working. I am getting a bit antsy waiting for things to come to me. My agent is rather elusive at the moment and has only sent me out on one audition. Although I am learning that this seems to be the norm for theatre agents. So it will be nice to have a project that I can fuel on my own. I much prefer chasing up all of my own leads, just so I know exactly what is going on.
In the meanwhile though I need to keep focused. I have let things slide a bit this past week, and need to get back to work. The thesis deadline gets ever closer and I still have a lot of work to do. Add to the pile the fact that my lease on my apartment is almost up. My roommates and I need to start house hunting soon. That will be a fun task. We haven't quite figured out which area of town we want to live in next, and there is some difference of opinion on that front. Also one of my roommates has just applied for a job in Brighton. So if he gets it I am not sure what will happen to our house. I don't especially want to find a new roommate. And I am not completely sure Lucile and I could find a two bedroom place we could afford. Ah well, I have a few other options that might turn out, so I will try not to worry about it. At the moment it is all outside of my control so I just have to hope that it all turns out for the best.
Sunday, June 24, 2012
Its official
I've gone over to the dark side.
I now have a twitter account. I have held out for so long! However as I keep researching for my dissertation more and more things keep pointing to twitter. So I figured I should bite the bullet and join, to see what all of the fuss is about.
If you care to follow you can find me @KatieBeudert.
Sigh
I now have a twitter account. I have held out for so long! However as I keep researching for my dissertation more and more things keep pointing to twitter. So I figured I should bite the bullet and join, to see what all of the fuss is about.
If you care to follow you can find me @KatieBeudert.
Sigh
Orange Juice
Well, I survived my first commercial casting. It was certainly an experience. As I am sure you must have guessed by now I dont think I got the job. Well, I am pretty sure. The commercial shoots in Tel Aviv this coming week, so I assume I would have heard if I got it. 24 hours is not a lot of prep time to fly to foreign lands. Lets just say I'm not holding my breath.
The audition itself was rather surreal. Fortunately since the auditions were spread over the whole day, and everyone had appointments, I didnt get the overcrowding of some auditions. There were about an average of 10 other people there the whole time I was, with numbers shifting as people came and went. We were called up in groups of four and sent to sit outside of the room until they were ready for us, where we could clearly hear the group before us. They had given us a three page script, most of which was written in Arabic, the rest of which was badly translated English, and highlighted one line for us to read. The line went something like this:
'Girls, girls. Come on, Girls. Is this your idea for fun? Its what's inside that counts. You need to nourish your interior. Read a book.."
Right. So then they called us in. After having us each pull our hair up they called us one by one in front of the camera. The rest of us fed the previous lines to whoever was up. All things along the lines of 'I'm getting a spray tan' 'I feel pretty!'. The girl in front of the camera had to roll her eyes, and tell us we were being shallow. It was a very surreal experience.
My note when I got up was 'Don't shout'. Guess I am stuck in the theatre mentality of making sure everyone in the back row can hear you. I'll have to work on that for film. But now I have done it once. I have things I can think about before the next time. And mostly I survived. My agent was lovely ahead of time. I called him because I really had no idea what to expect. Basically he told me that commercial castings are the least fun thing ever, but if you can get through them you can get through anything.
Now that that is done its time to crack down on the dissertation. Serious work will happen this week. My rough outline is done. I think I have got a grasp on what my point will be. I just need to find a way into the writing and I am good to go. Wish me luck!
The audition itself was rather surreal. Fortunately since the auditions were spread over the whole day, and everyone had appointments, I didnt get the overcrowding of some auditions. There were about an average of 10 other people there the whole time I was, with numbers shifting as people came and went. We were called up in groups of four and sent to sit outside of the room until they were ready for us, where we could clearly hear the group before us. They had given us a three page script, most of which was written in Arabic, the rest of which was badly translated English, and highlighted one line for us to read. The line went something like this:
'Girls, girls. Come on, Girls. Is this your idea for fun? Its what's inside that counts. You need to nourish your interior. Read a book.."
Right. So then they called us in. After having us each pull our hair up they called us one by one in front of the camera. The rest of us fed the previous lines to whoever was up. All things along the lines of 'I'm getting a spray tan' 'I feel pretty!'. The girl in front of the camera had to roll her eyes, and tell us we were being shallow. It was a very surreal experience.
My note when I got up was 'Don't shout'. Guess I am stuck in the theatre mentality of making sure everyone in the back row can hear you. I'll have to work on that for film. But now I have done it once. I have things I can think about before the next time. And mostly I survived. My agent was lovely ahead of time. I called him because I really had no idea what to expect. Basically he told me that commercial castings are the least fun thing ever, but if you can get through them you can get through anything.
Now that that is done its time to crack down on the dissertation. Serious work will happen this week. My rough outline is done. I think I have got a grasp on what my point will be. I just need to find a way into the writing and I am good to go. Wish me luck!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)