Getting Better At Stuff, Thoughts on Self Criticism

I've been thinking a lot about how to be better, as a person, a friend, a cast member and especially an artist. I think I deserve a pat on the back for everything I've accomplished this year. Did you notice the weight I've lost? Or the work I've put into this blog? Did you know I've been trying to better myself as a musician and find more focus for composing? Or that I've slowly started doing my own podcast? Probably you've read about all the acting I've been doing. Since Rosencratz and Guildenstern ended, I accomplished one of my goals which had been to book some more film work and I've had several roles of varying smallness in a music video, a promotional video for a friend's company, a student film and an independent feature, all of which was from being on the lookout on Craigslist and New England Film. I've been making it out to a ton of theatre. And I helped my improv troupe find our way to our first paying gigs since I've been in it with my contacts I made doing theatre, and generally have been trying to improve as an improvisor and troupe member.

So let me stop and do that pat on the back thing. *Pat pat pat*. OK now there's still more I could and should be doing. Like, I've lost about twenty pounds, alright! One of my big weight loss goals was strictly getting my BMI to a healthy place and now I've done that. How? As I said to a friend when asked that, "I don't know working out a lot and being twenty three". That is to say going to the gym regularly, in addition to the weight I've put on a noticeable but not grandiose amount of muscle, eating less and not as terribly (fewer starbucks pastries and burritos) combined with my increased metabolism did most of the work. But I'd like to lose more weight, like ten or fifteen pounds, hopefully. Since getting around 205 though, my weight has more or less flat lined. Which is partially to be expected, usually in weight loss the first twenty pounds or whatever are largely water weight and drop off pretty easily. After that it becomes more challenging. If I want to lose the rest of that weight, I've got to get serious about my exercise routine, like working out at home on days that I'm not able to make it to the gym while making a point to still get to the gym at least three times a week and really work out when I get there not just for twenty minutes and then call it a day.

And I need to be serious about what I eat. As an actor, sometimes you find yourself surrounded by food, oftentimes with nothing really to do. When I was on the set of that feature film, I was there for maybe an hour or two before they ordered like ten pizzas, more than the cast and crew was able to eat and for the rest of the day there was just a bunch of pizza in addition to the sugary sodas and everything else the people on craft services had laid out. My part of the shoot took less than an hour, but was physically incredibly exhausting and mentally draining (it was a torture scene, maybe I'll blog about it at some point later) and then I was there all day with all this food, so I just hung out and snacked on pizza and drank more regular Coke than I normally would in a week, etc.

Point being to accomplish that goal I need to become focused. To become a better blogger, I need to focus and try to write at least once a week. To be a better podcaster, I need to make sure I come prepared and always be looking for ways to be doing better work. With everything I do, I need to be prepared to do my best work and be looking for the ways I can improve it.

This can be frustrating though, because putting time and focus into improving things is difficult and it's hard to keep sight of the big picture. With this blog, am I creating any tangible, immediate benefit? No, but I'm creating a series of reference points for my future self. I'm improving as a writer. I'm developing a good habit. And I'm engaging with the local community, which is something I know people appreciate. I'm struggling with similar issues with my podcast, but I think in addition to my comedic aspirations I may be able to start finding ways towards a deeper way of contributing to Boston theatre... keep an eye out for that.

And I'll just keep trying to focus on bettering myself, and recognizing everything I accomplish, one by one, it's all about keeping that balance.

Road Blocks

I find not being actively engaged with a show frustrating, I've realized. I think is one of the longest, possibly the longest, breaks from theatre I've taken in about two years. The other substantial lapse of not rehearsing or performing anything must have been May of 2011, I think. I remember right after finishing The Mousetrap I was feeling kind of burnt out after having done something like five or six plays of varying sizes so far that year, mind you three of them were small productions with very limited engagements, but it still had wore me down by that point.

After a week or two of not reporting to rehearsals, I remember feeling more or less ready to go again, and from there I went to New York for the Samuel French Festival, booked Crooked Arrows, and it was generally good crazy from there on out, going at a pace of every time a show would be wrapping up I would be just getting started on a new one. This was a satisfying pace for me to be working at, and I'd pretty much maintained it through Rosencratz and Guildenstern Are Dead until now.

Since then, I've been intermittently successful in filling my theatre hole with other stuff. I've had four or five improv shows this past month, worked on music (including a new song) tried and mostly failed to blog (I have a whole bunch of incomplete blog posts in my blogger), auditioned for and booked some film stuff as well as had some fall into my lap, sort of started a podcast (for which I have one episode done, and a bunch of material recorded which I'm still figuring out what to do with) oh and have gone to see a lot of shows.

Despite all that, I can't get over a sense aimlessness. I've been finding it very hard to finish the things I start or start the things I'd like to finish. It's weird for example with the podcast, the strange alchemy we found with the first episode which at first appearance looked like a train wreck I was able to craft into something sort of remarkable, I think. Maybe one of the funniest things I've made just with my two hands. Which isn't necessarily saying too much, I haven't made too many things like that (some songs and poems, a few bits of stories, a few pages of a screen play much of which I was ripping off at the time, etc). But I haven't felt us recapturing that yet, which is understandable we're still figuring it out. But more importantly, I've made about half way through editing both recording sessions and still haven't finished either! And then when I sit down to work on them, I find myself lamenting that the sessions weren't more successful, but that's not really a productive way of working.

Something I took away from Making It, the podcast I tend to reference, and also from when I attended "If I Knew Then" back in February or whenever that was, is that as an actor you need something else fulfilling in your life. For me, I really want to find to find a creative outlet that does that and ties back in to my acting pursuits, like hopefully helps get more acting stuff. Music is good, but doesn't accomplish that as directly as I would prefer. Improv also is good, but is very dependent on the presence and participation of other people and also various gatekeepers between you and having shows, etc. Maybe it could be writing eventually, but I can't get my head to go that way right now. So I really wanted it to be podcasting. And I hope it still can be. And I still have this blog, as much as I've been neglecting it.

I guess it's OK to feel like I'm in a little bit of a slump, these things happen and I'll come out of it then back into another one, inevitably. Such is part of the life of an actor. Success and disappointment, agony and ecstasy, and part of growing as an artist is learning to deal with all that stuff. So I'm spinning this frustration into a learning experience. And I've got some film stuff coming up this week that will hopefully challenge and energize me in a meaningful way. And then Vanya, of course. And everything else I can't foresee. And I feel better having written about it. Maybe that's what I've been missing, writing, so I'll try and do more of that too. Talk to you soon, I hope.

Getting Back to Blogging

Dear Blog,

I'm sorry it's been so long since I updated you, especially compared to June and July when I'd been updating with such frequency. I guess it's beacause blogging for me is about processing, and when I have things to process I enjoy doing it in a public way, much of the time, while also flexing the old writing muscles which otherwise are neglected. Then again, since R&G closed I've had a lot to process. I've seen a bunch of theatre, gone on some auditions, did another reading of The Last Jews (which included my first visit to the Berkshires, my first King Lear, and getting to know my collaborators that much better) and performed a bunch of improv after over a month's hiatus. 

None of which though has really satisfied me like I'd hoped it might, and one thing I've tried to avoid processing is dissatisfaction because that's much less fun to read about then vicariously experiencing an artist who is satisfied by their art, and ultimately that is the product I'm trying to manufacture for your consumption, dear reader. 

Well goddamnit I'm going to update today (there are several unfinished drafts of things laying around) I'm over an hour early to a film shoot at CDIA plenty of time to tap on my iPhone. 

And I have a topic worth processing, my first significant audition in some time is this Wednesday for Stoneham Theatre's production of It's A Wonderful Life for it's ensemble. I've never seen the film version, I should probably watch it. Or at least skim the screenplay. So they want a monologue... What do I do? I have a few that might work, like my ancient standby Tom from Glass Menagerie. Or that piece from Crossing Delancey I've never quite gotten to work like I wanted.  I'm thinking of learning something new, before Wednesday, for a part in a show somewhat in my reach (I think) that would constitute kind of an important break, my first Equity show. So it's kind of stupid to learn something in three days and use this audition to test the waters. But you have to be working on stuff and trying it out and overall be taking risks. 

So that's what I'm processing. I brought some plays with me to Waltham, where I am killing time before a shoot, writing this blog, watching a father and daughter feed ducks. I realized writing this, I need to get back into blogging for the sake of process and the experience and joy of writing. Writing and creative output is like mining a river for gold I feel like sometimes. You need to keep going back to it and you'll get ounces of dirt for every gram of gold but so be it, that's how you get at the good stuff.

Blogcasting? Podblogging? (with a sidebar on dreams)

I've thinking about it and blogging about my desire to do it, and this past Sunday it happened; I recorded my first podcast. I should say we had our first recording session, we being my friend Jesse from Rebels Without Applause who I knew to be a generally funny guy, a good improvisor (especially with voice based characters which are the basis of what I want to do) and basically up for anything. So I met up a microphone in the middle of my living room, plugged into my laptop and we started going. Unfortunately, I did a poor job of setting up Garageband and some of our funniest stuff from the two or three hours of hanging out we did was lost but such is life. What remained was about two hours of material, which I've cut down to forty five minutes and which I'm continuing to massage, trimming pauses, false starts, umms those sorts of things and adding transitional music where appropriate.

One thing I've learned so far from this process is that making your own stuff, and doing it well, is a difficult and time consuming process. Especially when your working in a medium like say film or radio where you have to painstakingly comb over every piece for usable material, organize those pieces into piles and then compile them into a whole that makes sense and is effective at conveying your theme or message or whatever.

But anyway, the first episode is done, it's online here http://mikehandelman.podbean.com/, so I guess in addition to this blog I now have a "podblog" or whatever that's supposed to be. I have limited storage space, so I might need to upgrade to a paid account for like $2 a month which isn't bad... until we fucking EXPLODE AM I RIGHT?! No of course that won't happen. Do you know how easy it is to do something like this and how many people are out there doing it, many of whom are much more experienced and better at it than I am? Lots, that's how many.

This brings to mind a tension that sometimes becomes a problem in my relationships with fellow artists and actually hit a violent boiling point to where someone I've considered a friend for a while has declared he won't talk to me after I perhaps too harshly criticized his idea, which I found rather extreme and outlandish as an in to the entertainment industry and questioned his ability to actually do it, which he took as unsupportive and insulting in the extreme and I've been feeling bad about since. This habit of unerring rationalism of mine, and my sometimes poor filter, alienated a bunch of my friends in high school as well when they were really into writing hyper ambitious genre screen plays which they then planned to film using the school's TV equipment. I would point out how A) violent they tended to be, and B) called for a level of production values we simply didn't have access to, and they would get pissed and we'd argue and I wouldn't back down because I was a stupid 17 year old and after a while they stopped talking to me. Which is understandable because I was always being negative, even if I thought I was being constructive and I was probably pretty frustrating and irritating to deal with at the time. Losing those friendships, especially so close to the end of high school, made me pretty sad.

And I think there is a tendency towards a manic quality in creative people, and to an extent in myself which I try extremely hard to be self aware about but which other creatives may or may not, especially when their in the middle of on these manic phases. So they'll lay out their ambitious screen play idea (more often than not it's a screen play idea) and I'll poke various holes in how difficult it is to write a good screenplay or make something produceable on the level of a very small time film producer and they'll get frustrated. Or you know, that conversation with your (possibly intoxicated) actor friend about how their going to be a movie star, and I'll usually say "the likelihood of that happening is nigh impossible" and they'll ask me "well don't you have some big dream? Don't you want to shoot for the stars?"

And yeah, I do, sort of. I allow myself to indulge in grand fantasies of movie stardom every once in a while, but in my mind the path of seriously considering those possibilities leads primarily to disappointment and failure. Both of which are simply parts of life and especially part of being any kind of an artist where it's incredibly difficult to get anything to catch on commercially on any kind of large scale, much less to the point of being able to support yourself... and so I make that my big dream, that small goal to support myself as an artist. Occasionally I allow myself the slightly bigger dream of doing that while making work I'm truly satisfied by. Then we go into the realm of large scale commercial success or recognition or whatever. And that's not why I want to be an artist, it's just for the joy of art.

As is the case I'm sure for all or most of my peers, certainly for those I feel close to. But sometimes they allow themselves bigger dreams than I do. And when confronted with those dreams, my reaction is similar to when I see that in myself, I try to bring them to Earth. Sometimes too harshly, like in the case of my friend, who misunderstand that and took as a personal slight and offense or declaration that he wasn't good enough or as good as me or whatever. Which wasn't the case. I tried to explain that, he hasn't responded. And it could be that friendship is lost to me, or that he'll come around, I don't know. I don't know where he's at, after the provoking exchange I saw him several times before he left and we seemed cool before I got his message condemning me. So I wonder if something else is going on to put him in that headspace, I can only speculate. And feel a certain amount of sadness, which has been very distracting from the work I've been trying to do getting this modest podcasting project to resemble something I can happy with...

Anyway, it's a problem, how to be both supportive of friends and their endeavors and also truthful and honest and how to know when someone wants to hear honesty or just faith and support, which are not mutually exclusive. Even if I don't believe in an idea, I can still believe in a person. I don't know, I shouldn't say anymore in case they read this. I want to talk about my feelings of frustration and even anger at being unjustly condemned for expressing an honest thought, and so far after the fact. But it wouldn't make a difference.

I just have to keep my head in the game and keep moving forward. I feel like I've made a lot of progress this summer. I grew and discovered so much studying movement, and portraying Alfred. I began learning the principles of editing video and now podcasting, all of which is very exciting. Thinking of the future, I know it will hold more frustration like I'm feeling now. And struggle, oh God will it hold struggle. But also hope for friendship and art which are the truly essential things in life.

Being on Stage

I had the opportunity to get on stage and perform twice last weekend in two very different situations. One was the culmination of these past two weeks work as we presented The Apology my play about incest I was cast in at Roxbury Repertory Theatre's Six Playwrights in Search of a Stage one act play festival thing. The other was earlier this evening with my improv troupe, Rebels Without Applause as part of Improv Boston's Geek Week festival as we presented our (and particularly my own) virgin foray into performing long form improv. Both were the culmination of weeks of preparation and rehearsal, both presented challenges and both were unqualified successes. Well, except for one qualification, in my mind there were things which could have gone better about both of them, despite the fact that they were very well received and practically I performed to the best of my abilities... but not to my very absolute best. Which is OK. But that's the theme of this post, I'm coming back around to the theme of a previous post, satisfaction. Being satisfied with your work.

Because the thing is, as an actor, once you put something out in the world you don't get to do revisions on it like an author or even a painter or film maker gets to do. In the case of stage acting, you might get to try it again. But each individual performance stands alone as a piece, even if it's a piece of a greater organism, the show itself and the run of performances. In the case of these two events though, it's just one show. I'm sure I'll get to perform long form again in the future. And who knows, maybe this play will come back but I don't know that the playwright would contact us about reprising our roles if it did. So for the time being, I just have to be happy with the work I did.

Allow me to obsess a little bit. In both cases, I felt like in rehearsal we were able to achieve certain things that in performance we had the facsimile of but didn't exactly achieve. This is because live theatre is live theatre, it's different every time. In the case of our improv show, I sort of felt like it could have congealed a little better. But there was a major difference between our rehearsals and our performance... for the performance it was a packed full room of people. Laughing people. Quite a bit, actually. They really enjoyed our performance. And even if it was a little more chaotic then in some of our rehearsals, it was really really funny. And hey that's what it's all about.

The other, much more serious performance was also successful. It was strange performing in a straight play for the first time since March and Swimming in the Shallows that we only had one chance to perform it live, whereas with Swimming we had like sixteen. And of course, over that many performances the piece really evolves and even if you don't get something one night, you'll get another thing the next night and another thing after that but then not this, etc. But nope, The Apology had it's brief time on stage and now it's over. That was also successful. But I do wish we'd had a longer run, because I can't escape the feeling I could have done more with it. I mean man, what an intense piece and what an intense arc to go from just hangin' out with my Mom to "oh hey I spoke to my older sister, so my older brother raped her repeatedly when we were children? Why didn't you do something" etc and granted it was much more intense and much less flippant. It was a great acting challenge, and I had some great people taking it on with me. And then there were the other pieces, all of which were delightful and all the new folks I was able to meet and all the old ones I reconnected with. In short, a great experience.

Next up is that reading I've alluded to periodically, the culmination of months of work on the writer's part and us actors meeting several times over the past few months to break down the script and give him feedback, yes ladies and gentleman THE LAST JEWS are coming to Boston Playwright's Theater this Monday. And can I be honest? Being on stage with Bobbie Steinbach is a great opportunity, and despite the fact that she is anything but intimidating in person I can't help but be a little intimidated getting on stage with someone of her caliber. You know what I mean? In the meantime, let's just say my role has been expanded and I have some work to do. We had a rehearsal this past Monday, and another one on Friday primarily focusing on the scene where I do most of the talking between the playwright, my scene partner and myself. Oh and in the meantime, Three Sisters is about to enter full speed ahead mode as we go up in a month. So that's plenty going on!

Being Satisfied

So you might have noticed a recent Facebook post debating the merits of attending an audition when you've been wait listed. I might as well just tell you the audition was for Actor's Shakespeare Project. Before my focus was sort of reoriented towards film and television, my pipe dream had been to work with that particular company. I think as actors (or any kind of artist), it's important to have those pipe dreams, as well as tangible more easily realized immediate goals and to keep them in perspective with another. I would almost argue that they function best in sort of an inverse proportion to one another. That is to say, if your "pipe dream" is something way far out like be a movie star and it's a fantasy you actively engage with to the point of thinking "what would be the necessary steps" which is something I do with pipe dreams and practical goals a like, a good practical goal would be say getting cast in a community theatre production or getting a call back, I don't know. Everyone works differently. But for me, and I believe this is true generally, it's important to remain focused on the here and now, the immediate steps you can be taking to better yourself as an actor and advance your career... while also allowing some mental space to think "oh but what if". Anyway, for a while I was sort of fixated on being hired by Actor's Shakespeare Project. In pursuit of this goal, I actively sought out opportunities to work with and study under their company members. You might know I was in Paula Plum's workshop production of The Blue Room or when Jennie Israel came to Harvard to do an undergraduate production of Measure for Measure I auditioned (and by the grace of my prior collaborators at Harvard was cast as Elbow) and then went on to take their class they teach, Shakespeare Workout. I realized though, to be honest, I'm not good enough at Shakespeare to perform it at a professional level. Also, seeing some ASP shows, I could tell I just wasn't at that level as an actor and so allowed that pipe dream to go up in smoke. Speaking practically, I'm also just not really the type that they cast for right now as a comedic character actor. Shakespeare is full of those kinds of "clown" type roles, and as a company they have a lot of actors who are good at performing them. And in particular, my big niche right now especially in terms of professional theatre are generally adolescent or post adolescent type roles with nerdy or intellectual or outsidery character traits and those are less of a thing in Shakespeare (and more of a thing in film/television right now, so the switch in pipe dreaming).

Keeping all of that in mind, I was hesitant initially to request a slot for ASP's non equity auditions... but then I thought "what the hell". And then I heard back and I was wait listed. I went over the pros and cons, posted the issue to Facebook, etc and in the end no one ever got anything by not trying, am I right? It's also a piece of advice I give to actor friends who want to audition for something they couldn't get a time for, because of scheduling or if it's an AEA thing or whatever.  Just show up, ideally as early in the day as possible and say "hey I'd really like to audition, can you squeeze me in?" Because if you want something you have to go after it, and in the nest of baby bird's the loudest most obnoxious one gets fed first. Which isn't to say be obnoxious, be extremely polite and try to learn and remember people's names and stuff. But be persistent, and hopefully the people giving out worms will notice that and maybe you'll get one. Or not.

Anyway, I showed up right at 10 AM and held the door for Allyn Burrows as he entered the theatre which made me feel sort of like I was accomplishing something even if I wasn't. And after waiting about 45 minutes, someone cancelled for 3:36 and I was in. This was sort of an issue though, because my weekly guitar lesson is at 3:30... but it's in Porter Square and this was in Central and it lasts about an hour so if I get in at 3:36 I can probably be there by four... I thought to myself... and am I going to get another chance? OK I'll take this one. Went home. Went to the gym. Tried to nap a little. Headed back to the theatre around 2:45... and waited. They were running way behind, like twenty minutes more like thirty by the time I auditioned at 4:05 or so. This seemed to be because the three minute audition slots were turning into 5 or over audition slots as Allyn worked stuff with people in the room as is his right as the auditor. I got in, said hi to Allyn and Jennie, handed my stuff over and did my truncated Claudio from Stagesource. I had worked on the scene in SWO with Jennie and Allyn had been in the room for one of those sessions, so if nothing else I wanted to show them "hey, here I am still auditioning and here is where I'm at with my work and this piece" which took like forty five seconds, then Allyn made a comment "she's not buying it, is she" in his typical Allyn Burrows manner, they thanked me as I was on my way.

I ended up missing my guitar lesson. I didn't get any feed back or performance adjustments. It was kind of an all day thing. Leaving the theatre, it was not hard to think "well what was the point of that?" but now I think, and I believe "I did some good work in that room". I really think I did what I wanted to do with the piece, and showed them what I wanted to show them and that's pretty good. And it's probably better they just sent me off, because they were totally in the weeds, so I can count it as a mercy to my fellow auditioners who were able to go home sooner.

So I'm just going to be satisfied with what I did. Even if I don't get a call back, for the reasons listed above and since they must have auditioned like a bajillion people yesterday, I learned something from the experience about how to be content with what happens and letting go of preconceptions. Now it's just about putting the next foot in front of the other.

EDIT: Also, shout out to the guy I ran into who reads this blog! Hey man! Also anyone else reading this who I might have seen or who was at ASP auditions yesterday. What was your experience like? I'm all about starting a dialogue.