10/22/02: Seminars, college classes, book buying binges and narcolepsy has been
keeping me away from updating my pages. Actually, the activity consuming most of my time seems to be sleep. I don't know what's up, but after an easy eight hour day at work, every early afternoon on the high speed eighteen mile drive home, I find my chin just about bouncing off the steering wheel of my suburban assault vehicle. I was pondering if it's because I'm so damn fat, but I have to believe it's the fact that my life is such an unfulfilling and wasted bore. Anyway, on to more upbeat topics. I keep getting this audition notice about a motorcycle racing movie to be filmed in Los Angeles (maybe it's because I raced motorcycles from 1977 to 1991) but, I'm about 32 years past the oldest character. Visit www.theindianmaiden.com for LA audition information.
Speaking of auditions, I went to one at Scottsdale Community College, didn't get it, but the director was so impressed with my filmed impromptu acting ability (or maybe it was that fifty I slipped her) that it looks like I'll get a shot to appear in another SCC student film. Sunday October 20th, I auditioned for the ASU student produced series, "Absolute Zero". It was so inspiring to witness firsthand a group of focused young people excited about what they were doing. It's like I say, "You've got to do what you love and love what you do and the money won't matter." Start young, start young. (Yes, that was a 'build.')
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In September, I mentioned the SAG/AFTRA sponsored classes and specifically the one taught by casting director and really nice person, Gay Gilbert. Well, I was lucky to get into the class, because although it was advertised as being limited to twenty students, I think we crammed twenty four into the room.  While I've got to believe that some of the attendees (Ramona Richards, Elizabeth Stein) may have been trolling for students rather looking for instruction, the experience was just wonderful. Everyone, everyone did a scene. Which surprised me, because I thought I would get out of it (I do filmed scenes all the time in my PVCC college class) because there was no way Ms. Gilbert was going to have the time. She simply extended the class by two hours! Five hours with Gay Gilbert, Ms. Stein, Ms. Richards and a room full of mostly SAG actors, what an opportunity! I took seven pages of notes and got acquainted with couple of beautiful young ladies whose names I've already forgotten. I think if I had to write one brief thing about the class was how struck I was when Ms. Gilbert said, "Actors are fragile and sensitive. That's how you can do what you do." Need inexpensive headshots? Call Lee McDaniel at 602-947-4417, Gay said he would do twelve snaps for only 45 bucks.
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A tip of the hat to Kyle Lawson/Ken LaFave over at the Arizona Republic for letting me know, way back in the summer, that the multi-talented artist Ben Tyler has resigned as Managing Director for Peoria's Theater Works. Apparently a major part of the position was raising money and Mr. Tyler couldn't do it. Being the son of a multi-million dollar fund raiser (Boswell & Del E. Webb hospitals, Peter J. Strupp, God rest his soul) I witnessed the steely determination, brashness and devil-may-care attitude it takes to raise the big bucks and cannot blame Mr. Tyler one bit for vacating the post. Ben will still be working with the theater as a director, writer and "other things."
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09/12/02: Acting class is a blast. If you don't have the time to enroll in a Film/TV
acting class you can still buy the trade paperback that we use as the textbook. It's got a lot of really good stuff in it, especially if you are primarily a stage actor. The title of the textbook is, "Secrets of Screen Acting" by Patrick Tucker, ISBN 0-87830-041-4, published by Routledge.  You know how you see photos of yourself all the time and then think, "That's the way I look." But what we fail to realize is that most of those photos are posed, resulting in an array of "this is how I look when I pose" 'candid' photos. I went through all that to prepare you for the shock I experienced when I saw how awful I looked on video. What I thought was a neutral face, ie., my 'normal' face, the face people see day in and day out, was actually a tight lipped grimace. Geeze, no wonder I don't get many film call backs. Not to mention the fact that during replay it was clear my body was so stiff that I'm sure I've got a shot at being a corpse on next seasons "Six Feet Under." Damn! Well, I've got a lot to learn about film acting.
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Speaking of learning, I notice we have three AFTRA/SAG workshops coming up: Saturday, October 5th, with Gay Gilbert (accomplished actress, producer, director and casting director), Naomi Stevens (accomplished actress and SAG member since 1939) on Saturday, October 26th, and Valley favorite, Roman Richards on Saturday, November 23rd. The three workshops are all limited to 20 attendees each and run $15 for AFTRA/SAG/EQUITY members and $20 for non-members. Which is a real bargain as I've seen workshops like these, with questionable instructors, run $125 and up. They will be held at the AFTRA/SAG office on the northeast corner of 16th Street and Indian School Road in Phoenix. For the complete information click here.
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09/07/02: The Third Annual Get Out Performing Arts Expo
is at theScottsdale Center for the Arts from 10AM to 3PM today. (Thanks to the KBAQ web page for this information.) Don't sleep in and expect the Master Thespian to fill you in on the Expo, because I've got to work from 6AM to 2PM this Saturday. (It's my $135 day.) Anybody who has anything to do with performing arts in the Valley will have a booth. I understand that there are over 100 groups manning hutches at the Expo with virtually all the drama troops in town included. You may wonder why you haven't heard much about the "Expo" and that's because it's put on by the only competitor to The Arizona Republic newspaper, the East Valley Tribune. For info call, 480 970-2335.
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09/05/02: It's 4:44AM and just a quick note to announce that I'm off to acting
class once again.  That's why I'm up so early. So I can get to work one half hour early, so I can leave one half hour early, so I can maybe make it to class at Paradise Valley Community College, which is about fourteen miles away with no freeways, on time. Wow! What a bunch of nice people over at registration at the college. Tuesday, it was "I want this class," "Your transcripts (4.0 transcripts, ahem) are in the computer. You are signed up." I even walked over to the black box theater at Building M and almost sauntered into some kind of orientation class. (Thursday I found out that the "orientation class" I almost interrupted was actually the first session of 'Acting for TV/Film.' Stupid me, how was I supposed to know that "TR" in the college catalog designated "Tuesdays and Thursdays" not just Thursdays? T = Tuesday, R = Thursday ... oh-my-gawd!) Geeze, I can't believe how excited I am. And I couldn't help contrasting my positive emotions versus the dulled emotions displayed by my fellow students. If you love what you do, and if you start early enough in your life, you can actually make a decent living doing what you love. And when you're doing what you love, it ain't work is it? Ta ta.
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