winking kat books

Saturday, May 19, 2012 # 10:07 AM

Where there's a will, there's a way

The Great Wall of China

Where there's a will,

There's a way.

When I was a kid, my parents didn't have a lot of money - especially for your basic white, middle-class, Americans. We weren't living out of our car, but there were many days when I had oatmeal for breakfast as well as dinner and had one pair of school shoes and one pair of sneakers to my name that were supposed to last for two years. Luckily, I liked oatmeal and I pretty much reached my full height and shoe size at age 13 so the shoes were able to last the two years.

It was kind of frustrating for me, however, because I was a kid with big dreams. It didn't help that most of my friends came from wealthy families. They had pools in their back yards and went to Switzerland on vacation while I used the rafters of our unfinished basement as monkey bars and floated on inner tubes down the muddy creek behind our home. My father used to tell me, 'where there's a will, there's a way. If you really want something, you will find a way to get it.' He wasn't talking about anything illegal, of course. He was talking about thinking outside the box to find a creative way to achieve your dreams. In school, we studied amazing feats of achievement like 'The Great Wall of China" and the pyramids of Egypt and I learned that seemingly impossible things can happen with planning, patience, and sheer will.

If human beings could do amazing things like that maybe I could accomplish some of my dreams. After all, I didn't exactly want to build a 500-foot-tall monument to myself. I wanted simple things. For example, we had an amusement park down the road from my house. I could never afford to go there except when they had 'Report Card Day' where they gave away tickets for good grades. So when I turned 13, I applied to work there. I got a job attaching strings to people's wrists for special events and later, at age 17, I was able to operate some of the rides. The hours were long, but I was surrounded by the sounds and sites of the park and on rainy days when things were slow, I got free rides on the merry-go-round.

I'd always wanted to work in show business. Although I was ridiculously obnoxious as a young child, I became very shy as a teenager. Way to shy to try out for school plays or choir. The force was strong within me, however (yes, I went there) and it pushed me to search for other ways to get involved. I looked for ways to work backstage and continued to do so after I graduated from college. Every chance I could, I worked for free to learn more about every aspect of television and theatre. I interned at a television station for minimum wage to help pay for college. I stage managed community theatre productions - one after the other. After a while, I realized the people on stage were just as nervous and anxious as I was about performing and I tried it. Soon I was singing and dancing all over the place. Another check off my proverbial bucket list.

I'd always wanted to travel, so with a little money saved up, I applied for some post-graduate work at a school 3000 miles from my home, packed my VW Baja Superbeetle and left for the West Coast. I wound up not attending the school but found a cool job working with a design firm and building a life here in Washington State. Check. Started my own successful business with money I borrowed on my credit card. Check. Sold that, then started two more. Check. And check. All the while I was able to continue to do some work in theatre and films and writing stories, ( http://theponymanmovie.com/cast.html )and (http://winkingkatbooks.com/). Double check.

I didn't mean for this blog entry to wind up so autobiographical, but I wanted to illustrate that the advice my father wound up to be true. I've checked off so many things on my 'to do' list of life by just finding some way, any way, to make them happen without money or connections. Though it often meant entering through the back door, I still got into the house. Now that I'm older and hopefully wiser, I know that I may never realize the grandiose dreams of my youth (unless I live another fifty years) but in small, satisfying ways I've seen most of them granted. Thanks for the advice, Dad.

Labels: achievng goals, acting, books self publishing fiction writing travelers' society, bucket list, children's theatre, novels, positive advice, time travel, writing

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Authenticity or NOT?

or Am I being too anal about this?

I've had many jobs in my life and could say a couple careers. I still divide my time between art and theatre and have been lucky to earn money at both. As an actor, I can tell you (and most other actors will agree) one of the most annoying and frightening parts of the job is the audition process.

Auditions are kind of a mixed blessing. You are 'Oh, so glad' you have them, but at the same time, wish you were going to a session of waterboarding instead. The big problem is that you are usually unsure of what the expectations of the producers and directors of a show will be. How do you plan for the unknown? Sometimes, you're lucky and on the mark, everything goes well, there are smiles all around, and you have a good shot at the role. Other times you get the feeling when you pull out your tap shoes and everyone else in the green room has ballet slippers and ballerina buns that you have totally misinterpreted the concept the production is looking for. That's when the directors watch your audition with that look of bewilderment and a fixed smile and you know the minute you walk into the room that you're screwed.

I have an audition this weekend for a period piece. The story takes place in medieval times. The script is not badly written and in the right hands it could be a very cool project. (This is actor speak for "I genuinely hope I get the part"). There is one problem. I'm not sure at the present time whether they will be looking for someone who can do the role with an appropriate dialect or if they are planning to do this in pseudo historic times where everyone talks like they came out of the local Wendy's with a couple of 'thy's and 'm'lord's thrown in. I could ask them ahead of time via email, but I've already asked a different question and I don't want to appear to be a pain before they even meet me. Actors hate to be labeled a 'problem actor' before they even show up at an audition.

So I will have to wait and ask them right before my audition and be prepared for both. I hope they do want some type of dialect. One, I know if they do I can nail it. Two, I really hate to watch films and television where the story takes place in another time or in 'generic fantasy land' and all the characters sound like they came from LA Central Casting. It really takes away some of the magic. Maybe I'm being to anal or picky, and I don't expect actors to be too authentic. In the case of the Renaissance or the Middle Ages, if you were too authentic, everyone would need subtitles to understand what the actors are talking about.

One example that drives me crazy is the new TV series, "Once Upon A Time". I basically like the cleverness of the plot and the acting isn't bad, but other than a more dramatic hairstyles and costumes, the characters in fairytale land look and sound like they just stepped out of the Valley Galleria. It may be intentional, but it really takes away from the story for me. I know there are other examples in film and TV as well.

So, I'll be ready with my generic, middle-ages, European dialects -French, Irish, or British (if they ask for German or something else, I'd be astonished and impressed), but will ask first. Otherwise, I'll see that bewildered, fixed smile on the director's face and I'll know I totally screwed the audition.

Labels: ;once upon a timet;, acting, auditions, humor, middle-ages, television, theatre

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