Help Me Help Myself

Well, beyond that little bit of busy-ness last month (When I had three commercial auditions and a callback in the span of two weeks), things have been slow, slow, slow, on the acting front.

It can be hard, when it's slow like this, to "keep your spirits up", and not give over to fearful, negative thinking (Especially if you're really good at fearful, negative thinking, like I am). But if you're "in the biz" for the long haul, slow times are going to happen, and you just have to "keep the faith" that they won't last forever.

(According to the latest SAG emails I've been getting, SAG is continuing to "unofficially" negotiate with the AMPTP - through various sub-committees and back-channels - so hopefully, that'll mean more auditions, and more gigs, for Yours Truly, before too much longer.)

I was at Jen and Molly's house last night - two actor friends I met through the Actors Co-op Group (Molly runs the group now, and Jen sometimes helps her with auditioning potential new members) - and it's been slow for them as well (And Jen, in particular, had a two year period where she was having a great amount of success, more than Yours Truly).

We talked for awhile about theater, and how much we miss it (Like me, they both have a lot of musical theater experience, so we all had that in common), about acting classes, about marketing, and about how, while we all want to get auditions and book jobs, we also long to have acting be "fun" again.

That's been a big "issue" for me - It's been discouraging that, after over seven years, the most fun I have acting out here (The most "acting" I do period) happens at casting workshops where I'm paying people to watch me.

It's not quite what I had in mind when I first came out here.

But again, you have to "keep the faith". I know I have talent, I know I'm funny, I know I have a distinctive "look", and I'm not going to quit.

Which brings me to "marketing".

One thing you're supposed to do, one thing you have to do, as a professional actor, is market yourself. And it's something I've never really done, for various and sundry reasons - from the fact that it's expensive, and I usually haven't had the money, to the fact that it's tedious (And I don't like tedium), to the fact that I don't really believe most of the marketing actors do (At least of the "sending out postcards" variety) really does any good.

(I could easily do an entire entry - maybe even a series of entries - on my resistance to marketing myself.)

But it seems clear that since my "team" isn't getting me out there - I have a manager, a theatrical agent, and a commercial agent - and I'm not getting any younger, I need to figure out how to take matters more into my own hands.

Which has me thinking about theater again.

I think I'd be more enthused about "marketing" myself if there was something I was proud of marketing (My appearance in a genuinely funny or dramatic play or performance piece, for example). Not to mention meeting more people - "networking" is also a critical piece of the puzzle that I've largely been missing - who might be important to me down the line, or who might lead me to the people who are.

So the life I'm hoping to set up for myself out here, in a post-ArcLight theater/post-crappy-jobs-in-general world, and the life I want to be having in the very near future, is one where I'm doing the Weight Watchers thing (I've been in Weight Watchers since October, losing almost 60 lbs to date. And as of my most recent weigh-in on Sunday, I'm four pounds away from being able to work there), getting commercials and tv co-star things (And down the road, guest-star things and feature roles), and doing theater/live performing at night.

I think my main resistance to marketing, in terms of sending out postcards and such, is that I don't think my headshot really "sells" me. I don't think my resume really "sells" me.

I think I really sell me.

But I can't just think that, and expect people to somehow be magically drawn to me - I have to start actually making things happen.

And this is part of the process.

So again, if you've been reading along so far, and clicking on the ad (So I can make a little money for my efforts), I sincerely thank you.

Thanks for, in a nutshell, helping me help myself.