"Where Do You Wait?"

While reading for the Casting Directors on Monday night, I realized I've worked with just about every generation of person possible in one casting session: old men, middle-aged women, teenagers, tweenagers, old women, and my-aged guys and dolls. Another great reading experience, in which I learned so much. They have me on stand-by to read Friday morning, and with nothing else to do, I told them I'd be glad to do it.

I showed-up on time for my shoot Tuesday morning; my coaching Wednesday morning, less so.

The shoot was a lot of fun, and it was great to re-unite with the ol' VFS crew. It was just nice to be acting in something again. I played a "rocker", complete with some lovely black eye shadow that is seemingly permanent. I scrub my eyes out, and it still seems to be there. I don't mind it so much. Makes my eyes all purdy-lookin'. If it wasn't so freaky to apply, I'd wear it everyday. For real.

I was called Monday for a pre-screen (WHY can't they just call it an audition ... why?) on Wednesday at the Broadway Casting Office. It was for a Sci-Fi Channel Mini-Series called DRAGONSTEEL. Now, it is not mandatory to capitalize "DRAGONSTEEL", but I feel that a combination of those two words demands the caps lock button to be utilized. I was thinking of bolding it ... we'll wait and see if I book or not.

DRAGONSTEEL is right up my geek alley, with dragons, swords, elves, warriors, goblins, and the titular DRAGONSTEEL, which is an object that (and I swear I'm not making this up) does everything. It just does everything. Don't ask how. Luckily with this one they sent the full script. All 182 pages of it. I'll admit, I wasn't so high on the project after reading the synopsis and the character's sides, but I really dug the script. Admittedly, it's not treading terribly original ground, but it hits all the right marks for the genre. A fine piece of escapism. The character I was pre-screening for is the main warrior, an unlikely anti-hero with a tortured past. Awesome.

Onto the coaching this morning, I don't know why I haven't fully learned to double-check my cell phone alarm for "am"s and "pm"s, or learned to just trust my biological clock. I arrived a half-hour late, but the coaching went well. After the coaching I headed for the gym where I received a surprising phone call.

A chap who received my phone number from a Casting Director wanted me to record a voice-over for a short film he made over the Christmas break. Tomorrow at noon I record my blurb. Always nice to be asked.

After the gym, I had my aud-- I mean, pre-screen. In my coaching, we had the idea for the first scene to polish one of my shoes: this gives the body something to do, the actor something to concentrate on besides giving lines. An effective technique, I almost think of it as cheating, but this isn't bowling; this is acting, there are no rules. Since I had to work right after the pre-screen, I figured to just act in my work dress code. Black shirt, black pants works well enough for a tortured warrior. Plus, my chain-mail pants don't fit like they used to.

Now, I thought my costume choice was flawless, but there's something about Vancouver, with it's 20,000 restaurants that makes a server/expediter dress code easy to identify. If polishing one shoe in front of the Casting Director didn't feel weird enough, he just had to make a comment on my clothes.

"Where do you wait?"
"Nowhere, if I book this role," is what I didn't say, but may have been a clever response. He was just concerned that I only had one shined shoe to wear to work, and so was I.

Speaking of, the last of the dry-runs took place Wednesday. It's been a sweet week of free food, and no customers. The place opens this Friday, and that's where it gets nuts. I'm working six days the first full week we're open, with only Tuesday off for my Scene Study Class. I just hope the hourly rate is nice, although working six days'll pay nicely, just so long as I don't go out for work every night like I did Sunday night.

Well, there was a reason I wanted to do this while I'm young.