You know how something is easier said than done? Whether it be getting to bed at an earlier time, eating healthier, keeping stress to a minimum, finding a new job or saving up a nice nest egg instead of squandering your pay, making the change in your life is the hard part. They say it takes 21 days to make something a habit but what if you can't even make it past day 3?
As an actor, it's very important to be healthy and well rested, ready to work and use up incredible amounts of energy. The impossibly long dance numbers, the mental anguish that you can inflict upon yourself, both as the character and as yourself if you feel you're not good enough or where you should be. It's a very draining profession. I've met other actors before, sometimes in the same cast who go out drinking every night and not getting enough sleep and I just think, "How in the world is that even possible?"
Get enough rest by going to bed before midnight (or even eleven).
On stage, it's hard to stay in the moment when you're yawning every few seconds. It also takes everyone else out of the moment and might even cause an epidemic. Pretty soon you have a bunch of tired actors on stage, the pace falls flat and everyone is mad at the one who started it. The energy that is required of an actor can be a bit on the extreme side depending on the physical and emotional/mental demands of the character they are playing. This isn't to say that if you're character doesn't move much and isn't as physically demanding as some of the others, you can eat a box of Oreos for breakfast and create a pyramid out of Mountain Dew cans. Just going through the motions of a theatre person can be stressful and exhausting, for example, the dreaded tech week. The week before the opening of a show can be ridiculously grueling depending on factors like the director, the show type, technical aspects and how far along the cast has come but once you make it through those experiences, you feel as though you could withstand anything. However, tech week is anything but easy peasy.
Attempt to diminish the stress in your life.
Personally, I have a tendency to sleep walk (while conscious, which is evidently not very well known...) due to the stress that the shows puts on me but also the stress I put on myself. An example of my odd behavior would be something like this:
I'm in my room, I know it's my room. Yet, I'm behaving like I'm in the theatre (either the greenroom, the wings, the dressing room or some such place but never the stage or the house). I have cast members in my room, running through lines, walking around my bed (yes, it's still there as is the other furniture) and I usually will feel like I can't go to sleep. I would never allow myself to go to sleep while rehearsing - that's work/play time. So, I'll either be sitting up in bed or walking around, ready to go on with a scene but really just wanting to go to bed. Finally, I either snap out of it myself or say "Screw it, it's 3:34AM! I'm going to bed, guys." This last bit is usually set with a whine rather than anger.
I also have been in bed only to hear my cue and, freaking out since I'm not dressed and I have no contacts in, will proceed to put jeans and a shirt on and have even put my contacts in before realizing what I was doing. What's really infuriating is, I can hear them, my cast members, repeating my cue and improv-ing poorly or sometimes just a dead silence and I can't find the stage! So I'm trying to find it, I've gone through the closet before, out into the hallway and attempted to go through a wall once but all to no avail.
I spoke to a man once about my condition and he termed it "Dream Walking," a meshing of both worlds, almost. The real world (in which my bedroom lives) and the other world (or main world in my book where the theatre is) decide to fight each other for my attention. Since, I don't know much on the subject, I'm thinking about seeing a sleep specialist or group in a college for more information.
Eating healthier naturally makes you feel happier and gives you more energy but it also has other perks. I'm doing Reefer Madness: The Musical right now and this show will involve skimpy costumes and heavy petting amongst cast members. I'm exercising and toning up for this but it's in a couple weeks and I'm hoping some results start showing as soon as possible.
Me in The Rocky Horror Show (2009)
Though I'm having some issues with Reefer Madness. See, we have less than two weeks until we go up but rehearsals keep getting canceled. We have only choreographed one dance number and it's mostly improv. Our music director had to drop out because he had a family crisis (a legit excuse, of course) but I have this bad feeling that a lot of other people involved in the show don't seem to care. People show up late to rehearsals, the time will get knocked back from 4PM to 5PM and then it's 6PM and we still haven't started. I don't mean to sound a stick in the mud but I want to make sure the show is good, or at least decent...And the director seemed so excited about the show and all of the sponsors. I don't know, I knew this was just going to be a "fun" show without a lot of deeper character development or anything but I wasn't counting on worrying about the show. This is just adding to the stress.
I did, however, just get cast in a St. Louis based webseries, BlackBookBerry.
And the director of the series and I have been having interesting conversations about my character. I'm really looking forward to stepping into her shoes.
Also, I have another webseries (just one episode) coming up this week. It's a live-action Pokemon series which I admit, made me a little skeptical about participating in it but that was before I read the episode script. I think it will be a fun experience and another way to try and get my face out there.
I have a few other auditions coming up. "Annie" and "Chess" so they're both musicals which means that I won't get my hopes up too high. See, when it comes to singing, I can get by, especially if it's a funny song. But I have long since realized that it, along with dancing, is not my forte. My strengths are acting and comedy so I try to use those to my advantage whenever possible. However, I still enjoy doing musicals and would be happy to be cast in one of them.
Other than that, I'm just looking for more opportunities. I just want my life to be happy. Of course, I understand that every life has it's ups and downs but I want to be able to enjoy what little time (in the scheme of things) that I have here on this planet, in this reality.
If reincarnation exists and I'm made to come back, I hope it's as a kangaroo, a giraffe, a bat, an owl or a sloth but I want to make this life memorable. I want to do what I love and be happy for the most part and with my entertainment aspiration, I would make other people happy as well, but mainly I need to succeed because
when it comes right down to it, I don't want to settle for anything else.
when it comes right down to it, I don't want to settle for anything else.
"Millions of people happy..."
So, that's what is going on in life. Lots of projects (and stress) but it's fun and hopefully it's just the start to something even bigger.
"Life's like a movie, write your own ending.
Keep believing, keep pretending.
We've done just what we set out to do.
Thanks to the lovers, the dreamers, and you."
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