Unscripted - A Blog for Actors - Backstage

My Picture Blog #18

I got Spanxed!!! They put a pair of spanx in my wardrobe! I've never worn spanx before. Seriously.

I didn't even know what they were at first, or which side was the front and which was the back.

I'm not sure if this is because the pants I'm wearing are really expensive and they want a clean line, or if...?

Did you know that there's a hole sewn in, covered by a flap, so you can use the bathroom without having to take off your spanx?

Holy Spanx!!!

(photo courtesy of my torso in Spanx)

Yours Truly -- Ann Hu

There and Back Again

Last week I had the fortune to travel back to the Baltimore/DC area for several acting-related activities and to see friends. This was my first visit back east since moving to LA in June and I was really looking forward to it. 

The trip came at the end of a really rough month in LA. The move here has required a huge adjustment on several levels and I was excited about returning to something more familiar to regroup and re-energize. 

Baltimore and DC both seemed different, somehow better. Maybe it was the freshness of not having been to either city in two months after living there for 8 years. Walking the familiar streets with the slightest hint of fall in the air was transfixing.

Quotations: Volume 23

"Nothing in the world will take away persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than an unsuccessful man with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent."
- Calvin Coolidge

"Act well your part; There all the honor lies."
- Alexander Pope

"Success isn't what you achieve in life, success is what you do every day."
- Colin Powell

Second Takes, Self Management and a Whole Lot of Positive Junk and Stuff

"So, what if I feel the need to start over?"

The irony of this question struck me immediately as I posed it to a casting director last Thursday.  After all the yapping, planning, and pondering, I finally got back on the horse and attended my first big, bad, scary auditions since returning to acting.  

Ultimately it wasn't as frightening as I probably would have allowed myself to believe if I'd let myself think long and hard about it, which I didn't.  Funny how that works.

On my first day back in the game I actually ended up with not one, but two auditions.  Lucky girl?  Sorta, kinda.  But it was more like I willed it to be so.  

That's A Wrap!

  I'm back in Beijing now. I finished the movie that had started filming when I wrote my last blog. After filming, I returned to Xi'an to pay a brief visit with my girlfriend's folks, before flying back to Beijing and going on auditions again. I count six this week, if you don't include callbacks. Things are really heating up. Unfortunately most are shooting around the same time, so I if I am picked for any, there's the possibility I may have to chose between more than one. If I had it my way, I'd clone myself and do them all!

It's a Good Thing I Didn't Listen

When I was in high school I had a private voice teacher at a nearby university who, on the eve of choosing which performing arts university's admission I would accept, encouraged me to select the 'smaller', less competitive school with the provincial locale.

He did not want me to attend NYU; Tisch, which had even offered me some scholarship money.

I was getting phone calls from the local community theater, while still in my hometown, requesting me to audition for their current productions.

He said this to me, "Ann, nowhere I know, does a theater company call a young unknown actress and request her to audition. Certainly not in New York!"

I understood he was afraid the big city would chew me up, however, I knew myself and gracefully ignored his advice.

Shout It From the Rooftops

While at a party in Seattle recently I met a very nice young couple, Annie and Andy*. We had a lot in common- kids, hobbies, high school dance team (the gal, not the guy). The conversation inevitably turned to the topic of our jobs. It went something like this:

Me: "So what do you do?"

Andy: "We both are waiters at (insert name of a family friendly restaurant here). What about you?" 

Me: "I am an actress." 

Andy: "WHAT?!! We are actors too!"

A Much Needed Vacation

As you read this post I am most likely lounging lakeside with my Kindle, or taking in the view from a mountain-top hike. Maybe I'm even on a boat savoring a sumptuous picnic lunch. Frankly, I can't say what I'm doing because I am writing this post in advance.

I leave for a week-long vacation tomorrow!

I have learned so much about New York City since I moved here over 4 years ago, but perhaps the most important fact I’ve picked up is this: it is extra important that you leave it from time to time. 

We have family on Long Island. On occasion, we go out for weekend visits. The moment I get off the LIRR and breathe that fresh air, look around at all the space, and listen to the quiet I feel at ease. 

Advice About the Business of Acting

When my class had our showcase in NYC in April, I was fortunate. Several agents requested for me to contact them. So I went back to NYC in May to make contact.

While I was there, I met with agents, directors, and friends. And I received various pieces of advice (some of which were in direct conflict with advice I'd already received). I know to take it all with a grain of salt, of course. I thought I'd share it all with you, so that you can do the same.

Comedy, at 9:30 AM

I was called in to audition for Comedy Central twice in the last week and a half. I was feeling pretty unsure of it all, when at 11:30 pm the day before the audition, I receive an email asking me if I'm available the next day at noon.

"And how exactly did you get my information?" I asked?

The casting director had pulled my information from the comedy and improv club I perform at every week.

Awesome.

Well, not so awesome.

I Found Him! (Ibsen, I mean)

Here he is!

Ibsen lived in a beautiful apartment in Oslo the last several years of his life.  It is said that he would write for two hours every morning from 9:30 - 11:30 and then walk down the street to this place...

Big Apple TV

It used to be that New York had three TV shows. Any actor here could rattle them off easily: Law and Order, Law and Order: Special Victims Unit, and Law and Order: Criminal intent. One of those shows is shutting down. But thanks to Mayor Bloomberg and the talent pool of the city, that’s changing. The NY Daily news reports that instead of three, there are now twenty-three TV shows being shot in NYC.

What does this mean for us actors in New York? Time to get to work!

I Got Plenty O' Admiration for Porgy and Bess

Saturday night I had the opportunity to see something really special with my family and we had an incredibly memorable night all together.  We went to see the revival of Porgy and Bess at the American Repertory (Culver Pictures; Chad Batka for New York Times) Theater in Cambridge, starring Audra McDonald and Norm Lewis.

This production is directed by Diane Paulus and will be going to Broadway in October, and has been particularly controversial.  The production became almost notorious before it even opened, due to its rewritten ending, added dialogue and removal of some recitative, and, most notably, the fact that Porgy uses a cane for his cripple, instead of the famous goat-drawn cart.   

One of the biggest opponents of this revival is none other than Stephen Sondheim.  I find it quite ironic that of all people, a composer known for turning musical theatre on its head is suddenly so adamant about Gershwin purity.  To get some background on his response to the New York Times article you can find it here.

A Little Short, a Long Way...

It's August in Los Angeles and I am not on the beach. I have been however, spending a lot of time in a dark room full of strangers. 

I've been watching movies, all day, almost everyday; that is of course, while I wasn't working, writing, doing stand-up, auditioning and attempting to get some sleep. Yippeeee!

Last Thursday night (8/11) the opening celebration of the Seventh Annual HollyShorts Film Festival took place at the Arclight Dome in Hollywood.

And though I am still in the midst of fundraising for my own short, I was there in place of my director friend, Michael Walker and his film Aya; and to check out the world of shorts firsthand.

It turns out, some actor friends also had work featured; Feodor Chin's "Spice It Up", starring himself and actress, Jennifer Chang. Woot!

HollyShorts featured over 300 short films, commercials and webseries, all less than 30 minutes long, from around the world.

I went as often as I could to the Lammle on Sunset engrossing myself in a wide variety of work. I didn't see everything, but I certainly saw a lot...

Back to Business

For the last 11 weeks, I've been on vacation. At some points physically, and at other points just as a state of being.

After graduating, I went off on an adventure to London, England. I would still love to move there, but the road hasn't been rising up to meet me on that particular path. I stayed there for five weeks. I saw some shows. I met with an acting agent. I discussed the possibility of an internship that would require (among other things) me to attempt to teach various American accents to Brits. (As the person I was meeting with put it, I'd teach a "David Mamet" Chicago, an "Arthur Miller" New York, a "Tennessee Williams" southern...) But in the end, I came back home.

Roosevelt Island

My boyfriend is an avid biker.  He uses his bike to go into Manhattan from Queens more often than he uses the train.  I am not an avid biker.  In fact, when I played the Wicked Witch in the Wizard of Oz, my understudy had to ride the bike in the tornado scene because the figure 8's were just too much for me with wooden cows flying around.  Hey, let's face it:  once the Wicked Witch crashes her bike she's just not scary anymore!

The idea of biking in Manhattan terrifies me, but on our quest to get healthy my man has convinced me to ride a bike around Queens and into Brooklyn.  I am, of course, always a beakon of safety with a helment and flashing things and bells all over me.  For the past few weeks, he was on a quest to get me to ride to Roosevelt Island with him.

The Singularity: Transcending Man

One day you will be able to download you mind into a computer.

Hollywood has addressed this concept directly and indirectly in several movies - Surrogates, Tron, I Robot, the Matrix trilogy, etc. Futurist Ray Kurzweil thinks this will happen within the next 40 years.

In his latest book and in a recent documentary, Kurzweil predicts that the exponential growth of technology will result in computers being more intelligent than humans within the next several decades. Kurzweil's and other futurists' name for this event is the "Singularity."

Kurzweil already approximates the human body to a computer. The human body is made up of trillions of cells. At the center of each of those cells are genes which are nothing more than coded information that tells each cell what to do.

Because of this genetic make up, Kurzweil believes biology is programmable.

Kurzweil had Type 2 diabetes when he was 35. He tried insulin, but that only made his condition worse. He then decided to create his own regimen of mineral, chemical, and vitamin supplements (eventually taking up to 200 pills a day) to "reprogram" his body. He no longer suffers the symptoms of diabetes. Now, he is tailoring this regimen to reprogram his whole body chemistry to try to extend his life.

48 Hours of Magic (if not sleep)

Every actor has their "dream roles". Those parts or characters they would kill to play. One of mine included some sort of superhero...preferably with  the power to fly. Still waiting for that particular opportunity to appear.

But, I did get to play Lara Croft last year and that was pretty darn cool. Even sported the guns strapped to my thighs.

Every girl's dream.

Wait. Every GUY'S dream. Never mind.

This opportunity to play such an iconic character came courtesy of Lyon Films and the Portland, Oregon  48 Hour Film Project.

I can't imagine that there are a lot of readers of this ACTING blog that don't know what the 48 Hour Film Project is but just in case...

"The 48 Hour Film Project is a wild and sleepless weekend in which you and a team make a movie—write, shoot, edit and score it—in just 48 hours. On Friday night, you get a character, a prop, a line of dialogue and a genre, all to include in your movie. 48 hours later, the movie must be complete. Then it will show at a local theater, usually in the next week." 

Why I Love the Equity News

One of the things I love most about being an actor in New York is reading my Equity Newsletter on the Subway.

When I first moved to this city, more than anything else, I wanted my Equity card. I know that being part of the stage actor’s union is not the most important thing for all actors. Perhaps there is even more work out there if you are not a part of the union. But the fact of the matter is that my goal is to be a Broadway actor. Broadway stages are Equity stages and therefore, I need to be Equity.

I did attend a few non-eq auditions when I got here, but for the most part it was Equity all the way. I was one of those fools who arrived at 5:30 in the morning to put my name on the unofficial sign-up list*. I would bring my lunch and a good book and sit around all day. 

I knew that, usually, if I waited long enough the other non-eqs would give up and most of those on the Equity alternate list would not come back. And because I was willing, on occasion, to wait around for up to 10 hours (yes, this actually happened) I got seen. There I was, newly a New Yorker, auditioning for The Great White Way. It was not glamorous, but to me it was amazing.

I was really lucky in that I didn’t have to endure those crazy hours for too long. I started actively going to Equity auditions in October and had my card by January. Flash forward 4 years to me riding the subway enthralled by my Equity Newsletter.

Part of my love for the newsletter is that I know what went into ensuring it arrives in my mailbox every month, but it goes deeper than that really. A specific community of people receive this paper, and the common thread of being a stage actor ties us all together. As I peruse the theater-related headlines and read about things like which theatrical veteran is being honored where, there are 49,000 members doing the same thing. 

Objects in the Rear View

You see this picture, here to your right?  ----->

Yeah, that's not me.

Or rather, it is me, but I don't look like that.  

This picture is one of those cases of "on my best day, with the best make-up, in the best lighting, and then also with the best Photoshop I could possibly, maybe look like this again".  

My husband and very sweet friends cry, "But I've seen you look like this once before, I think!" Which is nice, but again, I don't/can't look like this every day.

And yet, in my previous acting life, in Los Angeles, I used to submit this headshot and my slightly embellished resume for work on a regular basis. Why did I do this, especially when I knew better, and knew that this practice has much more potential to harm rather than help?