The First Post

I'm at a point in my life where self-reflection must come to the forefront. Up until now the reflection of others on me, on my skills, and on my general composition, has been a legitimately significant factor; this is what schools are for. Sort of.
And it is certainly true that I crave the praise of others! My chosen field is almost exclusively populated with individuals who couldn't get enough of applause - that is, the time when everyone is expected to praise the performer while listening to others praise him (or her, though that is less likely). Every part of the acting profession, from the headshot to the audition to the removal of makeup is predicated on someone saying 'you were good; in fact, you were specifically better than these other jerks.' Well, not the removal of makeup. That's really more incidental. I was overextending my point and I apologize.
I am now engaged in an enterprise in which it is very easy to allow the criticism of others to be the be- and end-all of one's autoexamination. Yet, as I said, I am not in school any more. If I had wanted to work mostly with the responses of others, grad school was an option. What I am doing - in my life and in Chicago - must be greatly self-directed. And that's the 'why' of the blog. I hope it will give me opportunity to reflect on the course things are taking, and perhaps make the overarching direction more obvious. A normal person could do this in a journal; a woman could use a diary; I am an actor and even my special private thoughts must be public and positively received.

I want to be an actor. I came to Chicago for that purpose.
Quickly:
Q. Where before that?
A. I was raised in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and went to school in Providence RI.
Q. Oh yeah? Where in Providence?
A. Brown.
Q. Nice. Way to not make a big deal about that.
A. Yeah.
Q. Why Chicago?
A. In many ways I'm finding that Chicago can't be spoken about without reference to New York City, and that is somewhat the case here: NYC and LA are too expensive, I'm just making my start and don't anticipate needing to be near Broadway auditions until I have something on my resume, and improv. I love improv, and Chicago has the best. So they say.

The way this is gonna work is I'll update the blog regularly at first, then get tired of it and neglect it completely. Each update will include a little of what happened that day/since the last update, plus a little flashback over my time here thusfar, with the goal of catching you up and introducing to the wacky Land of Big Shoulders. For example:

I met a dude at an audition in Oak Park (you take the Blue Line to get to the Village Players of Oak Park) who is a bartender uptown. His boss wants to theatre up the place. Dude doesn't know about improv, but I do, so I tell him I could pull a group together asap and be there this weekend. Dude says sweet. We're set for Saturday, we need a group name, and I'm marveling how things just fall together sometimes. Plus I'm the gentleman caller in Glass Menagerie, so that's good too. And it reminds me of the goodness of my friend who let me crash at her place for two weeks when I got here, and also the lucky way in which I fell into a job building sets for Victory Gardens Theatre when I first got here.

Ok, the flashback felt a bit tacked on to the end, like a movie that if I were more clever I would reference. We'll learn as we go.

NEXT TIME: My zany roommates! and less misogyny.