Why Reading is Fundamental - Monologue Prep

Do you're research. Do you're research. Do you're research.

When you pull a monologue from a play, read the damn play. [Full Stop]

Been using that same piece for a hot minute and still haven't read it? Read the damn play. [Full Stop]

You're in rehearsals and you keep being surprised by new text. READ THE DAMN PLAY! Read! Read the damn script. Ain't no half-steppin! Do not pass go unless you've READ IT ALL.

Yes, I know you're brilliant. I know your imagination is full that you can create all the imagined circumstances you want. But there's absolutely no feeling like being anchored in a history -- a history that is freely given to you. It boggles the mind the number of times I used to fly solo in my early auditioning days before I got "it" --- that reading the whole damn thing is a good thing! It's like going on a road trip and having a map, the GPS, and unlimited roaming. It'll be damn near impossible to get lost. You have so much information to pull from. Ruminate on. Luxuriate in. (I love ending sentences with prepositions.)

It's hard, even for me, and I LOVE TO READ. You know what I do when I move to a knew city? Find a grocery store, get a transportation pass, and find the closest library. That is me in a nutshell. And with all that passion for reading, sometimes reading the full play still gets to me, which is crazy because reading is a pretty chill activity. Sit. Look. Repeat. (Eat or drink if you want to.)

It's funny that I find myself in my current predicament. I need to read some text, quite a few tragedies. But... I don't want to be depressed. I know, I know, of all the reasons for not reading (like.. you know... actually not being able to read, this one feels weak as hell.) But dagnabit, I'm already going through a lot. So, to willingly read a script that will depress me feeds the procrastination beast within me because I don't want to make  myself go somewhere (in my mind) that I don't want to be. I DON'T WANNA! So what must I tell myself?

It's just a story. It isn't real. Nothing in the story is currently happening. Fascinating isn't it? The power of storytelling? That something imagined can have such an impact! That very (continual) epiphany makes me want to be a storyteller more. So all I have to do is read it. Even though the text will take me on a wild ride of emotions.

But it's just a story. Have you ever woken up from a bad dream where someone betrayed you, hurt you, did you epically dirty? And you end up walking around that entire morning pissed about something that never happened? Pissed at someone who didn't actually do anything to you? Pissed at something happening in your subconscious? Angry at the world about your life... you know... that DREAM life that didn't happen? Or have you ever watched a TV show or movie and by the end, was so angered/hurt by a character's actions and so you stop being able to like the actor who played that character? An actor who in day-to-day life didn't actually do anything? BUT YOU'RE STILL MAD? 

It's just a story.

So yes, I need to get over myself because I have some reading to do. When you're sharing a part of a story (read:the monologue), it behooves you know know the entire story. Ain't no half-stepping. You want to elicit the reaction from the audience and move them. You want to have the story somehow resonate with our very real human experiences of love, loss, lust, longing and so on and so forth. You want to see life. Share that. The power is in the details.

Scandal Review 4.1: OMG WHAT IS JAKE DOING

I promised I'd make a video but.... I have a lot of other things I'm doing in life so this is hard. I have made a concerted effort to separate the actors from the characters as we all should! This ish is real.

• I want what she's having
• What is Jake doing to her in that chair
• Screw you Olivia. You are part of the 1%. Your dad sent you to LIVE on an island forever that's not on google maps. EVERYTHING IS ON GOOGLE MAPS!
• There is no such thing as coming back from vacation peacefully
• Scandal gives me too many feelings.
• I WILL work with Shonda one day.
• They have been sexy-fying Abby since season 2. That's some pageant hair!
• Huck... I will always want to take care of you
• Mellie is giving the realness
• Mellie... they told you it was apple juice and you were like.. NEXT
• "These panties came straight from the dryer." -- people... basic television is officially changed. OMG
• Omg... why is this streaming on my internet chopping it up. Switching to HuluPlus on Tv
• Fitz... sometimes I feel like I'm Olivia and we are together. Stop making us crazy. But... they're playing our music!
• If one more idiot says something stupid/racist about Shonda.... I just can't. She single-handedly transformed ABC. #SITDOWN
• I really want my friend Carl Clemons-Hopkins to be featured on this show. 
• I will be purchasing a Scandal coat from the Limited
• Mellie broke my heart when she visited her son's grave
• The world of Scandal is messed up. Oy Vey.
• When's the last time that someone saw Olivia eat on this show? Or is wine a food group now?
• Julia? as if! Let's be real... the only name a boss bitch like Olivia can have is #Nickclette #Marilyn
• I'm having too many feelings Scandal. You are like the first relationship.
• I just learned People magazine tweeted something racist about Viola. @whitepeople stop it. 
• I know, by heart, the music that they play when Fitz and Olivia are referenced together.
• Abby damn near cussed her man out. #checkabitch "You ended us
• But abby... B613 IS SCARY
• #arewegladiatorsorarewebitches
• Omg.... who in the writing room first thought of that? We need to be friends.
• The debate about sexual assault, this show isn't playing around. Good tv! Good commentary.
• "It's 1976 down there". WHAT!!!!! omg
• I repeat. Omg.... who in the writing room first thought of that? We need to be friends.
• Shonda, we need to work together. Lets be honest.
• I just remembered that Jake did something to kerry in that chair.
• Omg... Jake said she couldn't talk. #myturn #hardtogetitupaftersexualassaultconvos
• Scandal... I'm... I can't quit you. Why!?
• Omg I just remembered Jake ..... Why did Felicity dump you?
• Scott Foley has 3 kids? Wtf!
• Olivia's dad.... Olivia's mom.... the fact that Olivia hasn't killed anyone (as far as we know) is a godsend
• Planning your friend's funeral sucks... omg feelings.
• Scandal can never end
• Scandal has to end... I can't watch tv like this when i'm 109 (I will live forever. Amen)

Too good. Too bad. Soo many feelings

-- 

Filmmaker Future

I saw a film today called "The Tokens." A film birthed from the minds of Lamar Woods and Weldon Powers takes place during the holidays, when a "young Black man reunites with his all-White group of High School friends who have seemingly replaced with him with a new Black guy." The storytelling was evocative and powerful teetering between hilarity, discomfort, and realness that I don't see often. It inspired me to think about the stories I want to tell. And when it comes to talking about subjects that make us uncomfortable... THIS is how you can talk about race without talking about race.

So although I spent a huge part of the day, getting administrative duties done, watching the film got me started on an hour long hunt educating myself even more about film-making techniques I can work on and equipment I can utilize to my benefit.  Looking into camera's, and stabilizers, and trying to figure out why Androids aren't as good as I-phones for filming (why oh why God why... first world pr...). I appreciate the internet in this regard because the film doesn't belong to one person anymore. It belongs to the world. I'm certain that I will be producing and publishing several films this year and that's very exciting. 

Auditioning: The Shit That Don't Quit

Lessssbehonesssst, auditioning scary. The only times I enjoy auditioning are...

1. When I literally give no f****. 
2. When I KNOW that I am soooo wrong for the part (all male, or all white, or all tappers, or all whatever I am not and the likelihood of them casting me in say... Funny Girl is slim to none... and therefore I (literally and figuratively, all-up-and-in-that audition room give not a one).

I mean, I understand the necessity of auditioning. How else is the world supposed to see my work, especially in a new market. In all the ways I feel confident about what I can do, there are just as many ways that I can still learn. And with time, the logic goes that I'll ripen. That being said, it floors me that veteran actors have to audition. Correction: when I see a line of veteran, super-talented actors, standing in line to audition. A line... that I am also in. When did that happen?

The Rep has fantastic facilities and I get to use them for a year. (Thanks guys!) The Rep also allows local theater companies to hold their auditions in the building's rehearsal halls. On one particular evening, due to the schedule, my cohort and I were given time slots early in the day to audition for an upcoming theater festival in the area this summer. Afterwards, we all headed to a slew of rehearsals.  When we had our next ten-minute break, BOOM. Big ass line of actors...in the same line. When did that happen!?

This is NOT The Rep. I stole it from the Internet to be dramatic. Because that's what I do as an actor. I do things dramatically for an effect. I also do this in real life. And sometimes I make myself laugh. Right now I am laughing hysterically because I think I'm being clever. (The definition of Actor is not "be dramatic.") End. Scene.

I don't get excited about auditioning because I know that there are massive amounts of skill and talent that already exist in my industry. Add to that the reality that sometimes my youth, or skill, or look simply does not comply with what a director envisions. But to see that actors older and more esteemed than myself are officially in competition with me, or I with them, is odd. It's a part of the job.

And I believe that this is why I strive to create, and write, and produce, things. I am drawn to the idea that I can make something tangible for myself and for others. I don't have to clamor, I can have it. . There are so many stories that haven't been told,  I know my hasn't. So when it comes to auditioning, I like being reminded, that's it's time to create again.

Guest Blogger: @jesimieljenkins - Moving to LA - Part 1

Jesimiel and I met during the year I lived in Philadelphia working as an Education Fellow at the Wilma Theater, a Teaching Artist for Philadelphia Young Playwrights, and developing my craft as  a performer and writer. Jesimel recently moved to LA to pursue a career in TV hosting. When I remembered the fascinating discussions we had about being African American, intellectual, and creative, I thought he'd offer a fascinating perspective. Featured below is Part I of his journey to LA. He's brutally honest and I dig it. 

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I’m reading a remarkable book right now.  In fact, so remarkable that it seems to mirror my life at the moment.  It’s called The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson and could easily be hailed as the first major work of nonfiction concerning the Great Migration, the period between 1915 until 1970 when black families uprooted from the south to make new homes in urban areas of northern cities.  They were drawn by increased wages, a better quality of life, and mostly less discrimination.  Wilkerson chronicles the lives of three different families from the moment they left the south up until the book was completed.  The title is from a poem by Richard Wright:

I was leaving the South

To fling myself into the unknown…

I was taking a part of the South

To transplant in alien soil,

To see if it could grow differently,

If it could drink of new and cool rains,

Bend in strange winds,

Respond to the warmth of other suns

And, perhaps, to bloom.

I started reading this book before I decided to move to Los Angeles back in January.  I’d spent the last three years in Philadelphia working at an art museum and dispassionately auditioning for theatre roles here and there when something came along that I actually liked.  Much like the families in Wilkerson’s book, I was fed up. I felt that there was a glass ceiling for minority actors in such a small theatre market and my dreams were waiting for me somewhere up near Jupiter. I decided to move to Philadelphia with the hopes of padding my resume with good roles but after months of auditioning and being looked over for someone far worse than I and seeing lackluster and lifeless productions of wonderful pieces of theatre, I realized I was in bad soil.  So, after some soul-searching and after losing my dad in 2011, I decided to hitch a U-Haul to the back of my Nissan Rogue and traverse west for a new life, more opportunity, and more fertile soil. I needed the warmth of other suns.   

Side note: I totally had a nerd moment when I read that he'd been reading "Warmth of Other Suns" because the book was the basis for work I did in a class I took while in graduate school on self-generated work. Some of the best creative writing I've been able to do. 

To reach Jesimiel you can follow him on Twitter @jesimieljenkins or email him at jesimieljenkins@blallywood.com.