A day of excellent auditions!

HELLO!

Well, today I took risks and pushed myself outside of my comfort zone. Although, my nerves are shot as a result of pushing myself I am extremely pleased- I don't want to remain in my safe, comfort zone. I want to push myself and keep auditioning and get some juicy roles. Anyway, not only did I attend auditions but I attended auditions that were both for silent films (no text)! Thus, my audition consisted of pure improvisation.

My callback at NYU went very well. The director, Felix is awesome. He is unlike any director I have ever seen. He is weird and I mean that in a very good way! I pride myself on being wierd/different. He has a way of making the actor feel so comfortable as if they are not even auditioning. He had me do an acting exercise with the actress who has already been cast and then an improvisation exercise with her as well. For the improv exercise I had to speak Spanish and she spoke only Greek. My objective was to tell her/express to her that I love her. Obviously that is not an easy objective when neither one of you is speaking the same language and do not understand the other person. The director let the exercise go on longer than expected because he said he was interested in what we were doing and didn't want to end it. I suppose that is a good thing. He said the exercise turned out completely different than he expected which pleased him. And the actress said that she felt the emotions were truthful. She was very good if I may say so myself- she studied at the Stratsburg Institute. I would love to work with her and this director- they are very down to earth, knowledgable, and talented. I sat on some impulses during the audition, but overall I am happy with how my audition turned out. The director said I should receive a response very soon- fingers crossed!

Then I had to shoot over from West fourth to East 23rd Street for an audition at the School of Visual Arts. This is the audition I was most nervous for. The director gave me no texts and said to act everything out in silence. Needless to say, I made fairly strong choices and executed them. The director said, "I am impressed." and then said that I did great work. She had me redo what I did, with slight tweaks, three times. She let me continue to act even when she saw what she had asked for because she liked what I was doing emotionally with the scene. She said it was great and that she was happy to have an actor that she didn't have to try and pull things out of. She said that I am very expressive as an actor and that that is a very good thing. She then asked if I will be available for the dates they are filming during. That is a great sign- fingers crossed!

Overall, today was an excellent learning experience. I learned how to open up to the director/person doing the casting. I worked on my improv skills, improved my audition skills overall, and hopefully opened up some doors for work on some student films.

Yesterday's acting class also went very well. I did my "Spoon River" interpretation. I worked on the deaf impediment with my voice and I signed part of the text. The teacher liked it and said that he admires how when I go for something I go all the way. That is a huge compliment from him! He said that I could work on making the deafness more comprehendable for an audience and that the deafness doesn't have to be completely realistic. He felt that emotionally I did well also. Then I did a table read of my scene from "Home Free!" by Lanford Wilson. I didn't feel prepared for the scene (I wasn't expected to do a table read yeasterday). To my dismay, the teacher felt that the read went well and that I wasn't off. In fact, he said it was good. : )

Okay, I am off to shower and then get some well deserved sleep!