Back to One

It has been five months since my last post on July 23. Then, I was in the midst of a heart-breaking move and separation from my partner of nearly 17 years. Now, I am in a much more positive, peaceful state of mind, and I felt I owed it to my readers to tell you what happened next, and where I go from here.

As I have said since I started this blog, this was intended to be just "my year in LA" to see how I did pursuing acting full-time. I am happy to report that after a great first six months, work has continued to come in steadily. It is a rare week when I don't have any acting work, and all of it is paid these days as I no longer accept non-paying jobs. Since July, I appeared in one musical, was invited to join a prestigious theatre company, and am currently working on two children's holiday plays with the two premiere children's theatre companies in LA. I have been cast in two feature films that shoot in December and are likely to get national distribution. I did several webisodes, including one with Patrick Warburton ("Seinfeld," "The Tick," "Rules of Engagement"), a music video, several re-enactment shows, and a student film for Loyola Marymount University that involved learning a made-up language and speaking it in an Eastern European accent. And on November 1, after one full year in AFTRA and ten days on "Held Up" as a principal, I am finally eligible to join the exclusivie Screen Actors' Guild. It has been exciting, challenging, and fun.

But, back to the heartbreak. In July, after Pasha (my pug) and I moved into my new apartment on the border of Hollywood in Los Feliz, I was so sad that it was difficult for me to go out in public without crying. I took a break from my acting studies at The Actors Collective (although I started back with a Manager's Workshop there this past month), and from doing much acting work of any kind while I focused on the formidable tasks of unpacking and grieving for my marriage. It was very difficult for me to go from a 2000 square foot home to an 800 foot one bedroom apartment, and find a place for me to put all my antiques, my heirlooms, and most of all, my clothes (I'm sort of a wardrobe collector and have tons of period and character costumes)! I still don't have all my books, photographs, and scrapbooks from my home in Foster City; that's going to require one final move, and I'll have to get a storage unit for them. But I found that as I unpacked and gradually created a home that looked like nobody else but me, it was healing and liberating. I enjoyed putting my childhood treasures on display with inherited items from my grandmother and my parents. I could see the blending of the generations in my home, and reminders of them are all around me now. Plus, I found places for my favorite items that I have collected on my world travels, and they give the apartment a little bit of an exotic air. It's small, but it is cozy, and now it is home.

The real salvation for me this summer, though, came when I was cast as "Grandma Georgina" in the musical "Willy Wonka," put on by the Stepping Stone Players in Glendale. I hadn't done a musical since 2004, because singing and dancing had gotten two strenuous and painful for me, but in this role, I spend the entire show in a bed with the other three grandparents! No dancing, a little singing (plus helping out the kids in the big numbers from the wings), and a lot of comic lines - a great role for me. I even have a top quality DVD of the performance, so I can use it on my next reel. And I met some wonderful people who were so kind to me and helped me through the worst days, when I would go on, do my lines, come off, and cry. The rehearsal period was seven exhausting weeks (every night, Monday through Friday), and then a three-weekend run which earned crowds of 200-300 every show and rave reviews in the press. It was a real blessing for me; it's hard to be depressed when you are singing "The Candy Man" every night! Plus, the show has such a good message: "If you want to view paradise, simply look around and view it. Anything you want to, do it; want to change the world, there's nothing to it. There is no place I know like the world of pure imagination; living there, you'll be free, if you truly wish to be." Maybe acting is the world of pure imagination, and I am finally free and living my dream of being a full-time actress.

When that run ended in September, I took a much-needed vacation to visit friends in the New York City area, and then developed a killer sinus infection on the way home that lasted for almost a month. Even so, I worked, doing the webisode with Patrick, a lead in "Murder by the Books," a supporting role in "1000 Ways to Die," and the afore-mentioned music video and student film. Also, in an effort to eliminate as much negativity as possible from my life, I fired my agency (Affinity Artists), as my agent was a nasty man who never returned calls or e-mails and lied about sending me out for auditions; and I dropped my membership in the Underground Theatre Company, also run by a brutish man who locks the doors when workshops start and won't allow you to even audition for productions if you have any conflicts. I don't need that in my life. I'm still seeking an agent, and have had some interest from four agencies, but they are not the ones I want to be represented by, and I'd just as soon wait until I can get a really good one. I'm also looking for a manager, who I hope will have the contacts to get me working in network TV, which is the next step for my career.

In December, I was cast in a lead role of the Dancing Squirrel Company's production of "The Adventures of Holly and Snowflake," a holiday play that we take to underprivileged and at-risk children for ten shows before Christmas. The people that run it are wonderful and kind,and I love doing this kind of "giving back" work for children. I have also been cast in two roles in The Black Box Theatre Company's production of "The Velveteen Rabbit," one of my all-time favorite books, which will run mid-December to mid-January. It's a great way for me to get involved with children, since I don't have any of my own, and all my family lives at least 2000 miles away. I'm really excited about being in both of them.

I've also been cast in two feature films: "Justice on the Border," as the sheriff in a small New Mexico town helping the feds battle the Mexican cartels (yes, I know, me as the sheriff is a stretch, but remember Frances McDormand in "Fargo?" She won the Oscar that year.); and "The Hit Team," a comedy in which I play a target of the Mafia and get to give a comic performance as a dead body. Also, a movie I shot last summer, "Mommy and Me," is now ready for distribution and got a lot of interest at the recent Film Industry Market, so it may be coming to theatres nationwide! And just this week, I did an overnight shoot on a new web series, "After Hours," set in a bar, and got my first SAG voucher (ironic, since I no longer need them to join SAG - you need three to become eligible). I was also asked to join the prestigious Sky Pilot Theatre Company, whose works are regularly reviewed by the LA Times; I start a one-act festival with them in January.

So I think my year in LA, acting-wise, has been a success. Is it profitable? No, not yet. I would have to be doing SAG work regularly to turn a profit. And this, of course, was the big sticking-point with my husband: I was spending too much money on my career without showing a profit. Well, every start-up takes time to get going, and this was in many ways my start-up year. I'm only sorry he was not able to see our commitment through to the end of the year. But truthfully, I would not have wanted to quit now and go back to the Bay Area. I have discovered that LA is where I really belong. All my life I have felt like a gypsy; restless, never fitting in wherever I lived. But here, almost everybody I meet has felt that way. Most of them are in the creative field now, and no one cares what your day job is, or even how much money you make. It's "what are you working on" that is important. LA is a place that values the creative process in all its forms, and I am finding my place in it, particularly by bringing theatre to our children who no longer have arts programs in California's bankrupt public school system. I'm proud of that, and proud to be a part of the tradition of acting that stretches back thousands of years. Art lasts. It may be the only thing that really does. And to create art, you need artists, like me. I'll never feel ashamed again that I am "just an actor," no matter how hard my husband tried to make me feel that way.

So I guess I am starting over. From now on, my blog won't reflect just "my year in LA," but my life as an over-40 (WAAAY over) actress in LA. I'm not making any promises about how often I'll write, but I do promise that I will post when I have something that I think is important to say, and that it will be honest, and I hope, interesting.

In Hollywood, when the director yells "cut" and we go back to start over, it's called "back to one." And that's where I am - back to one, starting again, with another chance to do better now that I am (sadder) older and wiser. In the movies, you can always get a do-over, and if you get it wrong, you can "fix it in post" as we always say; that is, make it look perfect in the finished product. I'm trying to stay real in a world of artifice, and in doing so, I think I have found my home at last. Back to one.