Workshop
Last night, I did an Agent/Manager Workshop. If you’re an actor, you know how awful these things are. If you’re not, let me paint you a picture. You park in the parking lot of an auto repair shop in North Hollywood. You enter into an unmarked door, and once inside, find a room furnished only with cheap office chairs on the cement floor. Inside of these chairs, are young girls, about 20 of them, all ranging from 17 to 23. You are 29, and you feel stupid for being here. No one is talking to anyone, and the man who is running the show tries to break the tension by first saying, “You guys can talk, you know” and then by telling a series of jokes. Here are a couple of his gems: “Did you hear about the guy who under-dosed on Viagra? He got a stiff neck.” And “What’s clear and smells like worms? A duck fart.” I’m NOT lying about this.
During the Q and A portion of the evening, 1 of the 4 agents there tells us blatantly that she’s not seeking new talent, and the other 3 tell us that since it’s Pilot Season, they’re all exhausted and overworked. Then they gripe about how things have changed, and the money has gone out of the business, which leaves little question about why they’re sitting in a dank room in North Hollywood during Pilot Season. They go onto say other somewhat discouraging things, about how you now need to have THREE reels - A dramatic, a comedic, and a commercial; and how the later you start out as an actor, the stiffer the competition is; and how when stars like Dustin Hoffman are starring in pilots, that leaves the unknown actors who used to fill these roles largely out in the cold. One kid from Texas repeatedly interrupts them to tell them about his SAG card, and his two acting coaches (he’s looking for a third), and his background work, and how he hobnobbed with the likes of ”Leo”(nardo DiCaprio) while doing said background work. Again, I’m not lying.
Then, because this place only has one room, we are all ushered outside to wait for our turn to enter the room. I don’t know the exact temperature, but I do know that there was a lunar halo, which typically is a harbinger of cold or bad weather, and that my teeth were literally chattering.
I had prepared a monologue from Leslye Headland’s brilliant play, “Cinephelia,” one which starts on a pretty angry note, and requires the range to go from enraged to choked up and back again, a feat that I’d been able to accomplish in my room alone, and in front of my acting class; but I have a horrific fear of audition-type spaces, so that meant little in terms of how I would perform in front of these agents.
Since the scene takes place at a lover’s house, not too long after sex, I had the phenomenal idea to take off my shoes and sweater, both so I could use these as business, and so I could give some setting to the audience. How it went down, in reality, though, was that I was so nervous that I just started rushing through the monologue, and then realized I looked ridiculous with no shoes on, so I started yanking on a boot. With one boot on and one boot in hand, I realized that I had come to the emotional high point of the scene, the moment at which I need to turn to my emotional object and express how much he means to me. So I turned, one foot in sock, one foot in boot, and mumbled the words without much feeling, just wanting to get out of the room, at this point.
When I ended it, there was silence until I looked at them, boot still in hand, and said, “That’s it.” And then they applauded, and found something nice to say, “That’s a well-written piece. What’s that from?” It is, of course, but as far as I’m concerned, they could have said, “Nice haircut” with the same amount of good feeling for my acting.
After this, I thanked them, and then I put my sweater and shoe back on, and hobbled back outside into the cold.
Notes
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chadhartigan said:
poison boot
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taraeverhart posted this
