Insecurity,
commonly regarded as a weakness in normal people, is the basic tool of the actor's trade.
-- Miranda Richardson
Had my audition for the play in the SF Fringe Festival today. There were no less than 2 people I knew from the "A Few Gay Men" cast on the production staff -- still very chummy after all this time -- so I hope I at least have a decent shot at it.
On the way to my car, I ran into a friend of a friend who works at a children's CD publishing house (I think). She'd said before that she was interested in hearing what I could do in voiceover work; well, dammit, I was right by the office, so I got my little draft demo CD -- not the finished product yet -- and put some cuts up for your perusal.
The CD is divided into three basic categories: commercial reads, character reads, and narration. This is just a nice way of saying that there will be tracks on the CD dealing with overpriced coffee, slightly disturbing character work for animation/CDROM, long narrative stretches for trade shows, instructional videos, or children's museum tours, and maybe a batshit loco track here and there. (That last bit is to show that I can read the legalese in radio commercials.)
It still needs some work, but I'm well on my way.
Can I actually make money being as hammy as I am? God knows. This is a hail mary pass if ever there was one, but I certainly think the work is easy enough to do and I get things done very quickly in the booth -- very few takes. I'd never respect myself if I didn't try.
There are always things that make me second-guess myself, though.
For instance, this last Sunday the AC crapped out on us in the Bus Barn Theatre. When you're standing there in 50 pounds of heavy canvas under some awful number of lights, you start picking up your cues pretty damn quick so you can go home. You stick to the floor. It seems like you're literally melting -- other cast members can tell how hot it is by how badly you're glistening. You drip on the floor. (Don't worry -- the system has since been repaired, or at least it's working again.)
There's also the rampant insincerity and drama queen attitude that's prevalent among actors, probably including yours truly sometimes.
The omnipresent rejection.
There's the fact that when I'm not doing this for free most of the time, I get a check that basically covers my gas money throughout rehearsals and the run, if that.
And yet, this crap is all I look forward to during the week. It's what I do, and it's also one of the few things on this earth I do really well.
At last Saturday's performance we had a photographer up in the stage manager's booth taking promotional pictures of us. She'll be taking posed pictures this coming Sunday after the show. A nice coincidence -- she's the same photographer that took our pictures for "Art" last year. She took some great ones, and someday I'll buy the server space myself and set up an honest-to-goodness actor website, but right now I'm way too lazy for that. Better just to vomit up a couple good ones for the blog. Hopefully she'll give us a CD full of shots from "Arms and the Man" -- I want a nice one of, say, eye twitching above the handlebar mustache.
"Art" has got its own visual humor, however. Since I've already abused space constraints enough with the mp3s, I've reduced these pictures down to .gifs. Let the mugging begin:
Fun fact: these are not pictures taken during a performance. These are posed shots, which means (particularly in the case of the rabid animal pose seen here) that we had to hold the same facial expressions for 10 minutes on end while the shots were posed and taken. Basic rule of promotional photography: the bigger and more outlandish the expression, the more it strains credulity and even good taste, the better picture it will make in the end. Hence my borrowing facial expressions from Ricardo Montalban in Star Trek II. Hence putting my face through actual physical pain to hold that expression for so long.