Work, Work, Work

Work isn't really all I've done this week, but I often have trouble coming up with titles for these things so I figured that had a nice ring to it.

And WOW!! I just wrote almost this whole blog and forgot to save it again after the first paragraph. Usually it stays up but i just left it for a minute and for some reason when I came back everything had deleted except for the first paragraph. So I will be giving a very brief summary of the last couple days of what I had originally written about very thoroughly and had even added a few humorous anecdotes. Sorry about that, folks.

OKAY so the main reason for the title is that I did work more than usual this week--I worked Sunday night and then had my third and final day of training at Barking Dog on Wednesday night--yikes! After shadowing one of the waitresses of the waitresses, my boss made us switch so that I was doing the waiting and the other waitress followed me around for guidance. I'm nervous because, well, let's just say I made a few mistakes, and my first day of serving on my own is tomorrow night! Gahh! Wish me luck--I'll need it!

On Monday I met up with my friend Carly from California again as well as our friend Madhura from Jersey, whose parents also went to college with our parents. We ate lunch at Brasserie Athenee, one of my favorite restaurants located on 46th & 8th. I recommend the Croque Madame. We walked around Times Square for a while and then we met Madhura's mom for dinner. It was great catching up with them! After dinner, I had an audition for an NYU student film. It went fine but I didn't get a callback. Oh well, it's just good to go on as many auditions as possible for the experience.

OKAY so here's where I left off before my blog deleted. On Tuesday I had my two acting classes. In my morning class we learned about externalism, which is the process of embodying certain animals or objects in order to access different points of view. For instance, my teacher gave the example of when he had to play an abusive man who views women merely as meat, which is the complete opposite of him in real life. In order to start seeing the world in that way, he chose to work for the point of view of a cheetah, who views everything as meat. To externalize an animal, you must start out on all fours as the animal and then slowly humanize it so that you end up walking like a human but with similar characteristics to the animal. You try to think like the animal. It might sound silly, but it really helped me. We also learned about embodying other humans that had similar characteristics to what the character you are playing might have. Our teacher made us go outside and find someone to
embody that we thought could be similar to our characters in our monologues. I started following this one girl who seemed perfect, only to see her walk into the stage door of Spiderman The Musical. That was a neat experience--figures I would end up following a broadway actress!
Since my night class is in the same area as my morning class, I usually stay in midtown for the four hours in between my two classes. However, this week I was too exhausted and just wanted to curl up and watch a movie, so I decided to go back to my apt on the Upper East Side for a couple hours in between my two classes. On the subway ride I saw a woman reading a novel called "MORE Drama in Church." The word 'More' was bolded as if it were a sequel to the book "Drama in Church." The woman reading it seemed very enthralled. I found that sight quite funny.

On Thursday I worked a bit with my other job, which I don't think I've told you guys about. I sell tickets to broadway and off-broadway shows in Times Square--yep, it's exactly what you're thinking. However, my company is much classier than the companies selling comedy tickets. We work for the producer of the current production Godspell on Broadway, selling discounted tickets to Godspell as well as a few off-broadway shows. This job is how i got free tickets to see Avenue Q last week. All the people who I've met who work for this company are fairly normal and attractive and not sketchy at all. However, because people who sell things in Times Square often get a bad rep, this job is not exactly the easiest thing I've ever done. I usually dread going out to do it until I sell some tickets, after which I start to think, "hey, this ain't so bad!" I've only gone out three times and the most I had sold before yesterday was three tickets in 2.5 hours, which isn't too bad. However, yesterday after about 40 minutes I sold SIX tickets, and all to the show that is hardest to sell tickets for! That means I made $48 bucks in an hour. You can call this job anything you want, but how many college students are able to say they can make $48 in an hour? Not too many! Even though this job can be stressful (thats an understatement) sometimes, I'm really learning a lot about sales--and I think this is one of the hardest sales jobs out there.
Side note--on the subway ride to work on Thursday we had some momentary subway troubles, which means we heard at least one play of the pre-recorded voice saying something along the lines of: "Ladies and Gentlemen, we are being held momentarily due to the train's dispatcher." After the recording stopped, the little boy next to me exclaimed, "That sounds like the same guy that said it the last time." His mom laughed and explained to him that it is a pre-recorded voice--There isn't a guy sitting there 24/7 waiting for his moment to explain each and every subway's dispatcher. Kids say the darnedest things, right?
On Thursday night I went to see Godspell (fo free!) with one of my roommates. It was GREAT and It was in the round, which was an interesting new experience. Every actor was very impressive in their acting as well as in their singing skills, and I can be pretty critical of broadway actors. Corbin Bleu played Jesus, and he was actually really good! The show is closing on Sunday, so I strongly recommend any New Yorkers reading this to go see it before it closes. There is this webseries I watch called "Submissions Only" about the funny experiences of NY actors, and during intermission we walked out to the lobby and I happened to one of the actors from the series!! I approached her and we started talking and she was very nice. I told her that I had been wanting to get involved with the series as a production assistant but that no one had responded to my email. She told me to friend her on facebook and that she would pass on my info! Wahoo! That was pretty darn exciting.

Right now I just got back from my friend from school's house in Park Slope and I am about to relax a bit before I have to go to work at Barking Dog at 6:00--eek! Wish me luck!!

It's been a while...

Alright, it's been over a week since I've written a blog BUT that is not because my week has been uninteresting! Actually, each day this week has been very eventful--so eventful that I didn't have tome to write a blog. I figured I'd just give a brief summary of each day without all the details I normally give.

Last Saturday I took a visit up to Westchester to see Dr. Flower, my high school Chemistry and Physics teacher who moved up here after my junior year. It was such a nice break from the city, which I really needed. First we went to Spooky Hollow Cemetery, the cemetery on which Washington Irving based The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. It was HUGE and beautiful--I felt like I was in Ireland or something. After that we walked around town where we went to a knitting store and bought some yarn and then ate delicious burgers at a restaurant called Little B's. We then walked around a little street fair where I bought a neat bracelet with a dream catcher on it--I always feel like you need some sort of string bracelet during the summer. After that we went home and Dr. Flower taught me how to knit! I've been working on my scarf ever since then--it's coming along quite slowly but surely!

On Sunday my four roomies and I had a roomie lunch at The Barking Dog a block away from from our apartment. The Tony Awards were that night and we still don't have cable, so we went to the Times Square viewing party to watch the Tonys with a bunch of other theater dorks. It was a lot of fun!

On Tuesday I went to my morning class at Bova Actors Workshop. This week I worked on sub-personality, which is a way of getting in touch with the different sides of your personality in order to be able to connect to different character types. After class I got a call from Melanie saying that our friend from high school Katie was in town, so I went down to Brooklyn and met them for lunch before coming back to town for my evening class. After my evening class I came back and went to an interview at The Barking Dog, the restaurant that we ate at a couple days before. It went well and the manager scheduled me to start training to be a waitress on Friday!!!! Finally, the job search is over.

On Wednesday, The three of us went to lunch at Markt in Chelsea, which was great. Then Melanie brought us to a puppy store nearby and we played with a Peagle, which is a mix between a beagle and...something else. He was adorable and very playful!

On Thursday the three of us went to Central Park and lounged about for a couple hours, which was wonderful. After that, Katie left to catch a train up to Westchester to meet her family that she was staying with and I went into Midtown to meet Carly, a very close family friend of mine from California who is visiting the East Coast for a bit. She is like a sister to me and I haven't seen her in a year, so it was really great to see her. We ate at a place called Eatery, which was thoroughly delicious. We then went to see Avenue Q, which I get free tickets to from one of my jobs. It was hilarious!

On Friday, Melanie and I went to Central Park again. We were only able to stay for about 45 mins because I had to come back to The Barking Dog for training! It went really well--I shadowed a waitress that had worked there for a while. I enjoyed it but I'm a little worried for when I actually start working--there is a a lot to learn!

New York Adventures

Well, I haven't written a blog in a while! A lot has happened since my last one. On Tuesday I had two acting classes--one in the morning at Bova Actors Workshop that I had started back in May when I was in school. I love this class and the teacher is really great. On Tuesday night I started a new class centered on the Alexander Technique--movement and voice for actors--at Primary Stages (an off-broadway theater) with their acting school ESPA. I really enjoyed it and I think it will help me a lot. The teacher is a sweetie and one of the girls in my class is my age and she goes to Muhlenberg College studying acting&dance and she knows a bunch of the people from my high school who went to Muhlenberg for acting and dance! That was exciting and a nice familiar connection.

On Wednesday I really had a bum day. I woke up at 11:15 am and watched Boy Meets World all day. We've been watching a lot of DVDs because we don't have cable yet :P At 6:00 pm I had to go into midtown for an interview for a television production job. It was for a new show called Comedy Joy Ride, a "diverse version of SNL." The interview went really well and I got a call the next day saying that they wanted to hire me!! And not only for production work, but to be in the sketches too!! Wahoo!! I'm pretty darn excited because this is my first production job that I have officially been hired for. When I got home later that night, my last roommate Melanie Kimmel--a friend from high school--had arrived. It was a perfect end to a perfect day :)

On Thursday I met up with Chris, a friend from school. We decided to do touristy things and had lots of New York adventures. We went all the way down to the tip of the island to Battery Park where we could see the Statue of Liberty, which was actually my first time seeing it since I've been living in New York even for school. We then walked over to South Street Seaport, which I LOVED. It's one of my new favorite places in New York. It's beautiful and right on the water. There's a boardwalk and lots of cute shops and we visited The South Street Seaport Museum--only $6 with a student ID--which had lots of info on the history of NYC, which was really neat. The area sort of reminded me of Annapolis or the Baltimore harbor, which could be why I enjoyed it do much. We then walked over to see the new World Trade Center, which is just beautiful. As you can see from the picture, it is significantly taller than any of the buildings around it and and even any of the other buildings in the skyline. After that we took the subway over to Highline Park, which is an abandoned elevated subway track turned into a beautiful park with lots and lots of green! It has a beautiful view of the water. At the end of the day we calculated how much we had walked that day and we had walked 5 miles!! I don't even need to exercise in NY, really. I can just walk places. It's crazy.

He's a 22nd Century Mannn, or Interviews, Auditions, and Plays--oh my!!

The picture and title will be explained soon...I didn't just put it there because I was bored.
Anyway, I have had a very busy last two days! On sunday I had a job interview for a film crew position, and it went really well! The people making the film had just graduated from a top arts school and they decided to start a film
production company--this will be their first film. They were very nice and there main guy told me something along the lines of, "Well, I definitely want to bring you on and we will definitely be contacting you!" I think that means I got the job? I'm not positive though--I haven't gotten an email yet but I know they were doing interviews for some other positions this week so they may just be preoccupied with that. After my interview I walked uptown to see an off-broadway at Second Stage Uptown with my good friend from school, Courtney. The play was called "The Bad Guys" and it was basically about 5 guys sitting in a back yard talking about their pasts and presents. Of course some conflict comes up--there are girlfriends, war, politics, and, of course, murder to be talked about. It was pretty good--enjoyable but not the best I've ever seen. The acting got better as the play went along and became more intense, but at times it seemed like the actors had trouble getting past the surface, which is disappointing for a broadway show. Let me set a scene for you real quick: Courtney and I are sitting in the front row when one actor comes on stage, followed a minute or so later by another actor. Once I get a good look at him, I realize something. I lean over to Courtney and whisper, "Is that Phil of the Future?" and she looks at him, looks down at the program and then turns to me with an excited smirk on her face. "Yup," she says. And sure enough, it was! The lovable Disney Channel star happened to be in this small off-broadway show that we got to see for FREE because of an acting class that I am taking. How weird / AWESOME is that?! He played the lovable, gay comedic relief character and he's still got it. Not to mention he's still adorable. After the play I went to Redeemer church, located at Hunter
College at 69th St. It was nice, but I'm going to continue searching for the "perfect" church. That doesn't mean I won't end up back at Redeemer though.
Yesterday I had an audition that I got called in for--wahoo, my first NY audition!--for a Children's Theater production at 13th St. Repertory Theater. Yikes...that didn't go so well. I only found out about the audition about a week ahead of time and I didn't have a monologue in my repertoire that was appropriate for Children's Theater, so I ended up picking one from You're A Good Man Charlie Brown that I had done for some workshop about 10 years ago at the last minute. It was really short, so I didn't have too much trouble memorizing it. I guess it was only in my short-term memory, though, because once I got there I just started saying whichever sentence came to mind. The order didn't really matter for this particular monologue, though, and I actually don't think they would have noticed if I hadn't started one of the sentences and then forgotten how to finish it. They had originally given me sides to read, but then after my monologue they said, "We've actually seen all we need to see, thanks!" Ouch! Oh well...there will be more auditions, right?
Later that day I had a job interview for a hostess position at a Greek restaurant on the Upper East Side. I ended up having to wait an hour for the interview because the manager was preoccupied for various reasons. However, once he got out he was very friendly and nice. I guess he had been busy for a little bit TOO long before I came, because we had to have our interview outside during his cigarette break! I thought that was pretty comical, but again, he was otherwise very professional and friendly so I didn't care too much. He said that the job didn't take too much; he just wants someone friendly and personable. He said that I seem like a very friendly and personable person but he is interviewing two more people and he wants me to email him on Wednesday and he will respond accordingly. Hopefully one of my next blogs will have some good news about that!

Back in the New York Groove

So yesterday I moved up to my apartment on the Upper Easy Side! My room is slightly larger than a closet, but hey, it's New York. Last night my parents and one of my roommates (Olivia Kimmel!) and I ate at a Turkish restaurant right across the street from my apartment. Thats one of the things I love about New York---there are so many different types of food! I tried calamari for the first time and LOVED it. Yum!

Today I spent the day with some of my extended family on Long Island. It was quite nice to see them and we ate lunch outside at an adorable little restaurant in an adorable little town, which is always fun.

We got back and ate dinner at a restaurant in my neighborhood called Fetch. No, unfortunately it's not Mean Girls themed--it's dog themed! It was all about comfort food--I'm talkin' macaroni & cheese on the adult menu comfort food. And of course that is exactly what I got. It was delicious and provided for a nice leftover lunch tomorrow :) Oh and one of my other favorite things about New York is the interesting and often hilarious things I hear people say on the streets. We were sitting outside eating and as a woman and her husband walked into the restaurant, we hear the woman say, "I wouldn't mind sitting inside...I don't really like the outdoors." Ha! Good thing she's living in the city, right?

My parents just left about a half an hour ago. I'll see them in a month when I go home, but I'll still miss em'. I have been away from them for this long before for school, but this is different. I'm not in a dorm with all my friends, you know? I am much more alone. I have a lot planned for tomorrow, though, so hopefully that will get me back into the swing of things and I won't actively miss them as much. One of the things I have planned for tomorrow is a job interview--yikes! Wish me luck!