year end round up -- acting

Normally I wait until the bitter bitter end of the year to write these posts, but with everything I need to get done between now and my flight on the 30th, it seemed best to just get started.

I had a relatively meagre goal this year -- to get an agent or get into one of the unions, and I achieved neither. But I still don't count it as a complete failure, but we'll cover that at the end of this post. First, the scorecard:

2 readings/workshops (Red Noses, Trouble in Amhearst)
2 plays (The Vagina Monologues Counsellor-at-Law)
1 TV program (American Candidate)
6 background gigs (Manchurian Candidate, CSI:NY, Game Six, Johnny Zero, Tanner on Tanner, What's Not to Love)
1 background gig I had to turn down because of other acting work
1 play I got fired from
2 student Films
1 Industrial
1 Stage management gig

Buried in all of that are a lot interesting milestones.

- losing acting gig
- A paycheck containing the name of a feature film, which was stupidly fun to deposit with a bank teller even if I'm ashamed to tell you how little money it was for.
- being part of a phenomena (and I feel bad adding more things to this list that are all Counselor related because talk about not what I ever want ot be the night of my greatest triumph, but a show I was in was raved about in the media including The New York Times, I shared a stage with a Tony-winning actor, I helped a child star practice ASL for an audition, people scalped tickets to a show I was in, Sondheim came to a show I was in! And while none of that had anything to do with me and my fourteen lines, the idea that we all have to start somewhere never felt like such solid ground. And then the show went on to bigger and better without me which is how I didn't join Equity this year).
- turning down acting work because I had other acting work
- making more money acting than I spent on resources to help me get acting work
- auditioning for a casting director
- Being sent on auditions by agents
- Getting calls for work becase one CD-type passed my name along to another.
- Finally giving a competent monologue audition. I've still miles to go on that front, but it felt good.
- Doubting my skills until I was useless
- Rediscovering them

and of course, the great NIDA adventure.

I had two near misses with a SAG waiver, and while you need three, missing that first step because of things as stupid as weather drove me crazy. Which is how I didn't join SAG this year, or make any damn progress in that regard, despite my best efforts (why do you think I keep doing the background stuff).

I am now an AFTRA must-join though. And while anyone can join AFTRA at any time, it's sort of nice being a must-join, even if that's $1300+ I can't imagine having any time soon (although I'm hoping to be able to do it in the second half of 2005).

So I didn't get what I want, but I made crazy progress, got myself some cred that I can ride on for a while, worked my ass off in a way that makes me seem really legitimate about all this to me even if no one else, and got in all sorts of baby steps I didn't even know were there to get in.

So yeah, this year's acting goal was a failure, and as such becomes next year's goal (although one wonders if I should up the ante considering the upcoming irrational start 2005). But on a scale of 1 to 10, this year's 5 feels pretty good.

And because it belongs in this as well as a few other categories, I learned to ride a horse.