Friday, April 16, 2010

May 2010 Goals

As I continue this journey, I find inspiration everyday in many different ways. I thrive off people around me, especially my peers and friends growing in their talents and careers. I love hearing news from back home that others are succeeding. That makes me only want to work harder, to make sure we reach the top together. Every month I will set goals for myself and I will definitely blog to tell you whether I achieved them or not.

These are my May goals that I want to accomplish:

May 2010 Goals

1) Find a job and begin working before May is over

2) Improve vocally and add at least 3 more songs to my book

3) Have 4 "go-to" monologues and continue to perfect them

4) Compile a short list of commercial agents to submit myself to

5) Improve eating habits and drink plenty of water daily

6) Work on clearing up skin



That is more than enough to keep me busy for the next month and a half. I plan on sticking to focusing more on training my voice and dance classes than auditioning (Unless I'm really interested in the project) and not just showing up at EVERY audition.I am also happy to say that I finally got a dance workstudy with Alvin Ailey! It happened sooner than I thought it would and now I can take class for free! That takes a load of of my mind as far as finances go, because the amount of classes I mean to take would have been A LOT of money. God truly answered my prayer on that one.

My 1st month in NY Update


So I have been in New York for a month and a half now. So far my progress is acceptable. I can be hard on myself when it comes to pushing myself to succeed simply because I know how lazy I can get and how much I love to procrastinate. However, since being in NY, I haven't really found myself doing the things I used to do in Houston. I  have been auditioning and improving my networking skills. I make sure that by the end of each week, I have filled my calendar with classes and auditions. I don't spend all day shopping with money that could be put to better use somewhere else, i.e classes, voice lessons, RENT, lol.  I guess it's because I've been talking about focusing on my career and getting somewhere for so long, it's now time to "put up or shut up". I have no excuse now. The sky is the limit!

Thursday, April 8, 2010

"Unchain My Heart" Audition

So there is a new musical coming to Broadway about Ray Charles. I went to the Equity dancer call and it was PACKED. I signed in on the non-equity list and ran into this girl I met at another audition named Jennifer. She was auditioning as well. We chilled together while waiting to see if we would be seen or not. I met a couple of other black girls, some of which I had sen around before as well. Some were equity some were not, like me. Finally we get word that they were going to take all non-eq headshots and type the list down from about 120 to 16! Needless to say, I wasn't called in. Jennifer knew the guy in the holding room and asked for some tips as to why she wasn't called in. He said that the casting team were probably only skimming each resume', looking for Broadway or touring credits and he also noticed that here voice wasn't listed at the top. You would think that was a minor point, but it made sense. He said that the casting directors would think they were just looking at a dancer who couldn't sing and toss the headshot aside and type you out.

I ended up talking with a couple of ladies who had been in the game a minute and one of them so graciously helped me plan how to improve the look of my resume' and make it more readable and make the most of the credits I did have. I will forever be thankful to her. Most of the young women I met were so nice and we exchanged, cards, numbers, email etc. with the promise to hang out together sometime soon.

With the day pretty much gone I prepared to head home. As I walked out with Jennifer, one of her friends told us that Harvard was having a showcase at Theatre Row that her friend was in and asked if we wanted to tag along. Since it was free and I wasn't ready to end the day I decided to take her up on the idea. Plus it would be nice to get know both of them a little better. We ended up having a good time and seeing the showcase really motivated me to work even harder at achieving my goals.

I learned a lot that day, and I believe I'm going to have to rethink my stand on not working towards getting an agent soon and trying to become apart of the union. It's no fun waiting in line all day, just to be told that there's no time to see you. 

In the meantime, I'm still taking class and attending my voice lessons. This weekend I'm going to ATL to be a hair model in "The World Natural Hair Show" I'm so excited! I've never been to Atlanta before. Here is a picture of the flyer that my face is on. I love it!


This is a picture of me and my new friend Jennifer at the audition:


Here I am at Theatre Row. I really liked the colors and design of this sign. Oh, and I found these fresh flowers in the trash and I clipped one off and put it in my hair. Had the girls rolling! I was cute though! lol

Here is Jennifer. Cute pic!

Sunday, April 4, 2010

Happy Easter! and a mini Update...

So I am sitting at my apartment, getting over a day of homesickness. I didn't think to find a church to go to for Easter because I planned on attending my church back home via the internet. Well, the program decided not to work at all, even after I tried for 3 hours. I was frustrated and mad that I missed church today. I started missing my family and friends, especially after I called and spoke to my son, Cameron. And that's not all. I've been here for one month and I can't help but start to feel a little exasperated. I  haven't been as productive as I would like to and need to be. I haven't been going to as many dance classes as I need to, and when was the last time I looked for new material and monologues or worked on the monologues that I do have? I'm worried about my financial situation since I do not have nor am I looking for a job right away. I wanted to focus on taking class and auditioning first. I am going to rig something up to keep track of the auditions and classes I take, besides the posts I write. This way I can evaulate my productivity regularly. Be on the lookout for that.
As the day went on, I pulled myself together, cooked some comfort food and a home favorite, seafood gumbo and watched a little TV. I'm going to wash my hair and get ready for TWO auditions tomorrow. Needless to say I will be going to bed earlier than usual tonight. But before my head hits the pillow, I will do a little scripture reading. I know that will ease my mind to read the word of God and draw strength from his words. This week will be a great week for me! I am claiming it!