web series in the works, identity in the works

May 11, 2012 //
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I’m in between shooting weekends for the web series I was cast in – it’s such a trip to finally (finally!) be in something “real”, and as a lead no less.

I’ve learned not to judge a project when it’s only half-baked, so I can’t say whether or not the series will be good enough to go further than just the three episodes we’re filming now, but I hope so.

My character is a deeply closeted but obviously butch personal trainer, and I’m working on keeping her honest and true while still playing out the goofy hijinks of the script. It’s a little bit in the style of The Office meets Superbad.

I’m also trying to quash my own insecurities – whenever I actually book something, my brain goes into overdrive and tells me that I’m actually a horrible actor and I should be prepared to disappoint myself. So I keep saying that I’m not horrible, film is just new to me, over and over again. And hoping for the best.  Although I did admit to my lady last night that if I end up being horrible, at least then I could give up acting and move on with my life. (Clearly I’m working through some never-ending self-esteem issues.)

The upside is that if I were truly horrible, I wouldn’t get cast in anything. So it’s really just my job to represent. Here goes nothing.

 

Categories acting

i’ve been thinking a lot about art and violence

May 9, 2012 //
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When I was up at my physical theater alma mater a few weeks ago, I was deeply moved by the work I saw happening there. Not that all of it was good – in fact, some was totally yack-worthy – but I was enthralled to remember that there are places where art and emotions can flow and be challenged and felt without resistance or cynicism.  It was a nice change from the shiny sarcasm of Hollywood.

It got me thinking about a quote I heard somewhere, if anyone knows it please correct me, that the measure of a society’s happiness throughout history can be directly linked to their appreciation and supports of the arts and artists.

Here I am in a super-power country (on the brink of collapse, in my opinion), where there is both a creative renaissance and a massacre of the arts happening in synchronicity, in a world where violent atrocities are often the currency of the day.  (Or, at least, in a world where we have the ability and technology to KNOW about the atrocities that are being committed in real-time…)

I can’t help but feel that, in the US at least, if art and artistic expression weren’t relegated to the edges of “acceptable” means of living, we’d have a lot more emotionally mature people running the world.

Art exists to evoke. To provoke. To bring up all the stuff and feelings and let you sort through them. Particularly the live experience of art – at a show, in a gallery, creating yourself.

I once saw a grown man cry in front of a painting in the Met in NYC. It was astonishing, and deeply touching. What if that were the norm? Would there be any need to express oneself through violence, through extremism, through sarcasm and meanness if we were allowed to truly feel, and to feel in public? I can’t help but think the balance between reason and passion would be better served.

This is obviously an enormously complicated topic – it’s still subject to my half-formed ramblings – but if anyone has thoughts, I’d love to start the conversation.

 

 

 

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Categories acting, thoughts

i helped with a trans playreading, and the world is a better place

May 4, 2012 //
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I realized I never wrote about directing my  friend’s transgender-vagina-monologues-style play- “The Naked I: Monologues from Beyond the Binary” at a local college this past weekend.

I had said before that I wished I weren’t involved – and let me tell you I griped about it right up until I walked into the room with the actors on Friday. It was only a two-day commitment – one rehearsal, and then the reading itself. The cast consisted of three 18 and 19 year old cis-female actors and a 29-yr old actor friend of mine who was free and interested. We rehearsed for about one hour, tops. We didn’t even read the entire cut of the piece through.

But it was incredible. The hall was filled with interested, engaged college kids – male, female, queer, possibly trans – which alone was awesome since this campus is a fairly conservative private school. The audience was incredibly enthusiastic, and loving, even when there were glitches and missed lines. Afterwards folks said they wished this play was performed every year there. It might be, and all the better.

I was reminded of the importance of telling these stories. That there IS an audience for what we queer and trans and butch and other folks have to say, and that only by speaking up to we even hear each other. I was reminded of how I, at 19, was too scared to perform in the original cast of this piece and how now, at 30, I would do it anytime – yes, even in light of all my griping. If I can stop focusing on myself for one moment I might actually get out of my own way. :)

And it was amazing to see Toby again. He has become a good, lovely man – he brings all the best qualities of a man to the table, and his talkback was a highlight of the event.  We looked at each other with interest after our ten-year absence, and noted that we’re still living some alternate dimension of each other’s lives. He has his lovely old New England house and partner and dog and job at the Prestigious Women’s College, his church and his soon-to-be graduate degree, and his queer and trans activism changing the world for the better. I have my rented room, my partner, my odd jobs and artistic crises, my constant struggle with putting myself and my queerness out there, my commitment to performing in lieu of security, which has so strongly affected my own queer and butch identity. But we shared our support for each other in these transformations, the weird paths that lives take. It was like an extended hug.

I really needed that.

 

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Categories acting, queer

a web series in which i hopefully will not be playing dumb

May 3, 2012 //
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I booked a web series!

Finally – a speaking role. Who knew that one of the drawbacks of becoming a physically trained performer would be never getting to play roles that talk? I mean, seriously, I’ve done more silent film than most living actors. Finally I can move into the talkies.

I’m playing a closeted-but-butch personal trainer, and, as far as I can tell from the first three episodes, this woman is not stupid or slow – something I find most butch characters are written as. Although since this is a comedy all the characters are written to be parodies of themselves, so it’s not like I’ll be playing a groundbreaking character who just happens to be butch. But I can deal with that… it’s a transformation that won’t happen overnight.

The first table read is tonight and we start shooting this weekend. I’m excited that I booked this – I think I was one of the only actors there without representation (an agent), since I left my agent last fall. So it’s doubly awesome. AND even though I’ve lost a ton of weight since I moved to LA, I don’t exactly have a gym-body, so triply awesome that they’re casting someone not rail thin.

I also consider this a big “fuck you” to the man who told me to closet myself at the networking event I went to a few weeks ago. This shit is happening, dude. More details as they unfold.

 

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Categories acting

in search of us.

April 23, 2012 //
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Hi there folks -

I went away this past week to teach a bit a the physical theater school I went to about four years ago. It’s the only place I’ve ever felt like I had friends, so I’ve worked hard to maintain a connection there, no matter how strenuous it is to keep up with such a fickle long-distance relationship.  The school is a twelve hour drive north of LA in the thick of the redwood forest on the Northern California coast. It is narcissistic, insulated, secular, flagrantly liberal, and producing some of the most exhilirating, and – on off nights, the most puke-worthy – live physical performance in the world. It is also a place which routinely embraces pretty girls stripping down and jumping naked into the river at midnight, which is not to be underestimated on my list of reasons to visit. :)

Now I’m back in la-la-land, and trying to cope with a rush of feelings that hitched a twelve hour ride in my car on the way home.

I’ve lived here a little over two years, and I keep wondering where the community is. Sure, I have friends here – friends I’ve made from shows I’ve done, friends who moved here because I did – but really what I need these days are some queer friends. Some butch friends.

Not that I’ve ever had more than two butch friends, neither of whom have lived near me for over six years, but still. A person can wish.

I just want to go out and drink beer after beer. And talk about girls. And sex. And ties. Fuck, I even want to go talk about gender theory and the straight hegemony, or some crap like that. Something that cute girls talk about in San Francisco, or Portland, or Chicago, or Northampton. Places where there are communities of girls like me. Girls who are not necessarily entirely girls.

I’ve been having all kinds of weird emotions lately, and not the least because aunt flo is here for the first time in a while (I don’t bleed so much these days). I would love to talk to someone who knows the frustration of bleeding on your boxer briefs because you stayed at the bar too long trying to chat up that one pretty straight girl who thought you were really funny.  Because those are the kind of things I do when I’m up in the Woods, and coming back to my real life is always a bit of a letdown.

Also, I’m working this week on the genderqueer/trans monologue play, and honestly – I wish I weren’t. I feel totally exhausted, and like I want to crawl into a hole and feel and feel until I can feel myself into a better place.

At least I have a good haircut right now. Grasping at the silver lining.

 

 

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Categories queer

directing project this month

April 11, 2012 //
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I signed on to direct a workshop of a wonderful play by my friend Tobias K. Davis: The Naked I: Monologues from Beyond the Binary.  It was a really hard decision because I’m a) already directing the queer musical that is making me tear my hair out and b) not really interested in directing much anymore. It’s hard for me to muster the enthusiasm. Ever since I went to ensemble theater school (read: clown school), working live performance in a traditional way is a bit boring to me. But this play needs exposure, and I need  desperately to connect with queer community, so I agreed.

Also, when the play was first written, Toby asked me to play one of the seminal characters, and because I was scared of my life and my gender identity and my butchness being all exposed on stage (not to mention actually nude), I turned it down.

Here’s a little promo from a colleague’s Minneapolis production a few years ago:
In February 2009, 20% Theatre Company took the Twin Cities by storm with its production of The Naked I: Monologues From Beyond the Binary by award-winning, transgender playwright, Tobias K. Davis. Often compared to the Vagina Monologues, The Naked I was made up of monologues and short scenes in which transgender, transsexual, intersex, and a variety of other gender-variant individuals explored their bodies and dissected society’s assumptions. This play was based on interviews conducted in New England by the playwright. Our production sold-out all five performances at Bedlam Theater, and involved over 25 members of the local queer community.

LA really needs this. The college where we’re mounting it really needs this. I’m glad to finally be a part of it.

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Categories acting, queer
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