On a Blessed Summer in Iowa

“For life is the best thing we have in this existence. And if we should desire to believe in something, it should be a beacon within. This beacon being the sun, sea, and sky, our children, our work, our companions and, most simply put, the embodiment of love.”
-Patti Smith

The joy of being unemployed every few months is that I have time to spend time with the people who made me and the people who made them. A day after the Riverside Theatre in the Park’s season closed, I land in Louisiana, the birthplace of my father. Within five minutes on the bayou, the gate attendant has called me “baby” in that sweet, albeit slightly condescending way that only Southern women of a certain age can. As in, “Get out of the way, baby.” Even in the airport, the air smells of caramelized sugar folded around fresh pecans. I’m craving a praline already; perhaps Yiya has some from Christmas in one of her three deep freezers. I’ve not been back to Opelousas in almost three years. We get out of the car on Hibiscus Street and the first thing my grandmother says to me is, “Well if it isn't Ethel Barrymore... You look so skinny!!" She quickly seeks to remedy my starving-artist-induced-weight-loss with an entire plate of ham, a sheet of heavenly hash, and caramel pecan topping with sweet potatoes under it. After all this food, I insist on doing my yoga in the garden… her response: “Well, that will be a treat for the neighbors!”

208 Hibiscus Street. Opelousas, Louisiana

Coming back to the home my father grew up in and the only place I’ve known my grandparents to live has helped me maintain my grounding during yet another transition from one job, one city, one relationship (or lack thereof) to different jobs, a new old city, and a new relationship. Endings and beginnings. Everyone’s lives are full of them; however, as an actor, my work revolves in two or three month cycles... so the endings and beginnings just keep on coming.

When I accepted the apprenticeship at Riverside this March, I focused everything toward that goal: On May 15, I move to Iowa City. I couldn’t have been more thrilled to quit my day job(s), sublet my Wicker Park  apartment and work only on my art for two months. I packed my Honda Civic, affectionately known as Elliot Smith, to the brim groceries from Trader Joe's, my sewing machine, bags of yarn and books on Shakespeare. (The car was bought for my pensive older brother when he turned sixteen. He named the silver car in homage to the ill-fated singer and the freedom a junkyard car provided for Good Will Hunting at the end of the film by the same name. Fortunately, the car continues to be in better shape than it’s namesake… and allows me to “go to see about an acting job.”) With the fierce tunnel vision which is simultaneously my greatest ally and fatal flaw, I was completely focused on getting to Iowa City and playing a fun, classic role at a theater I'd never been to. I arrived and began to play.

But it only took me a week here to realize that this job too would end. Eventually I would have to begin my second year out of school, which would look a lot like my first year. It’s amazing how the obvious can be so insanely surprising sometimes. WHAT?!? You mean I have to do all this over again? You mean I can't live in Riverside board member Natasha's basement forever? I have to move back to Chicago, work a day job, audition, mail out headshots, send email after email??? Chasing a dream sometimes feels like just that, a chase. I guess I’ve got to learn to love it because building a career is a marathon, not a sprint. And you don't really know if you are winning or what the prize is at the finish line. The prospect of another year in the theater is exciting and intimidating, isolating and hopeful.

I gotta say, things do get easier. Work begets work. Because of my job this summer, the Riverside artistic staff has cast me again in an upcoming new play. I shall return to Iowa City in the middle of December to be a part of The Exit Interview by William Missouri Downs. Riverside's production is a rolling world premiere produced through the National New Play Network. This production not only marks my first new play, but also my first professional show at an Equity house where I am not an apprentice. I feel I have graduated and for that I am truly grateful. But boy, do I appreciate being an apprentice with this fantastic group of human beings. These young artists are going places. 

Apprentice Class of 2012. Photo by Kelly Gibson

So it's back to Chicago for me for the fall. I'll be back at the yarn shop and standardized patient work and some other way to make money yet to be determined. I will say that if I'm going to do this vagabond actor thing, I must learn to pack lighter... I have too much stuff. Stuff is weight. Weight is burden. Burden is bondage. Bondage is slavery. Slavery is not freedom. I want freedom. To be fair, I did not think I’d be bringing back a person from Iowa as a souvenir. But I did and for that I am grateful. More on that later.

As I look back on my five years in college and my first year as an actor, I am amazed at how time and integrity change all things. Time changes us without our knowing or consent. Integrity ensures that we become the people we intend to be. I am grateful for this summertime and the splendid integrity of the artists I had the honor of playing with.

Residents of Arden during intermission on closing night. Photo by Kelly Gibson.

Audrey, Corin and Phebe's Big Adventure

As many of you probably know, I've been teaching myself simple video editing and production over the last few years. I was excited to get the chance to put my skills to work on a promotion video for As You Like It at the Riverside Theatre. I firmly believe that theaters must begin to fully embrace online media. The Great River Shakespeare Festival has been leading the way in this field, at least in the Midwest. Their promotional video for the 2012 season, The Real Housewives of Shakespeare, has 16,000+ views on youtube. Besides hopefully drawing up audiences, videos like these humanize Shakespeare's characters to modern audiences, create visual references for viewers who attend the play, and are just plain fun. I would argue making videos like this also support the storytelling of the play. Taking a character out of the play and into the world, like all character-based improvisation, strengthens the caliber of the actor's work onstage. We, as the actors, now have new memories, new muscle memories as our characters.

So if you have a good idea, speak up. Actors are often the most creative people in a room. Chances are someone will love your idea and let you run with it.

Enjoy the adventures of 3 country folk in the "big" city.

Watch Audrey, Corin and Phebe's Big Adventure

On booking a job so you can perform in the rain.

"The task of theatre is to find action that creates such vibrant resonance in our imaginations that it enables us to reach a mutual understanding." -Why is That So Funny? by John Wright

 

Last night, As You Like It opened to a very warm house. The audience deserves the true applause because it rained for the entirety of the second act. I told Riverside's production manager and founding member Ron Clark that I really liked the theater they built, but they seem to have forgot to build a roof. We were all drenched. Audrey looked like a wet goat. I've never done a play in the rain and I thought the show stayed strong, albeit slightly measured for safety's sake.

Many of my readers are theater practitioners, but most are soldiers of other infinite multitudes and probably have little to no understanding about how actors get jobs. I thought I would explain the journey of one way an actor books a job and gets to opening night. There are countless ways... but here's mine for this job.

Audition, Audition, Audition

My friend and fellow actress Katie Hartke says, "You audition for your career, not for a job." The fact that most often theater companies do not employ an actor after their first audition proves her point. Although most auditions last less than five minutes, the process of auditioning takes time because many auditions only come around once a year. It took me about 8 months to make my way into the audition rooms of all the major theatrical houses in Chicago... and that was just the first audition for each company. But the exciting thing is that I will only get more castable as I get older. There are many early twenties women pursuing acting, less late twenties, still less early thirties, etc. Which is why it is so important to work, work, work during these early years so that my skills are sharpened and ready if (but I shall say, when) a break comes my way.

Jody, the Artistic Director of Riverside Theater, has a relationship with my alma mater and every year auditions our students. I auditioned for her in Minnesota in early 2009 and a few times since then. Ron and Jody run a very generous audition room, laughing and always making sure to learn a little bit about you as a person. This year, I auditioned for the company in Chicago, where most Midwestern theaters come to conduct their season audition. My audition consisted of performing two monologues, Perdita from A Winter's Tale by Shakespeare and Jennie from Chapter Two by Neil Simon. Auditions generally call for contrasting monologues; these particular two contrast because Perdita is classical, in verse, serious, gentle, fearful and Jennie is contemporary, in prose, intense, humorous, loud, demanding. Monologues are innately silly, because you are talking to someone who is not, in fact, actually there. But we do our best to share a piece of ourselves with the auditor who generally knows within the first six seconds of you walking in the room whether they want to work with you or not. Sorta like speed dating, except you want them to pay you. So sorta like speed dating for prostitutes. However, unlike prostitution, you also need a headshot and resume. Mine currently looks like this...

Jody contacted me shortly after the audition to offering me an apprentice position in the company and the role of Audrey in As You Like It which I obviously accepted. When I received my contract, I found I was to understudy Rosalind, Shakespeare's most loquacious heroine, a thrilling and fun challenge.

After accepting the contract, I moved to Iowa, rehearsed for four weeks, memorized over 200 lines, opened the show and drank the rain like it was my job. Cause it is. I'm playing a goatherd named Audrey whose most famous line is, "I'm not a slut." It's a good life, who can really be upset when they are wearing ruffles like these? Don't tell Ken Washington, but I'm really just in it for the ruffles.

Audrey and Touchstone, photo by Bob Goodfellow

On growing a brave, thick skin.

I've come to the conclusion that my insecurities are boring. There is nothing more boring than continuously thinking of all the ways I will fail at this completely insane artistic career I have chosen to pursue. I will no longer give these insecurities, or bad movies, life because they stand in the way of what I want. Whether it be in personal relationships, your career, or at a sushi bar*, it is hard to know what you want... It is even harder to admit what you want once you know what it is, especially if you want whatever it is really bad. If we admit how much we want something, then we acknowledge how much we will lack if we fail to attain it. I want to be a professional actress. (It was even hard for me to write that simple sentence. I deleted it twice.)

Recently, after a long rehearsal and over a drink at the bar, a fellow actor offered me a critique about a role I had recently played. His critique was simple and I acknowledge the validity of his suggestion for a missing piece in my characterization. It was a great note, actually, which I wished my director had given me. However, my response to his criticism took me on the following journey of emotions in my mind. I was... taken aback, defensive, angry at myself for being defensive. Next, I overcompensated by being overly receptive, beat myself up, felt sorry for myself, and then finally got over it.

I've thought a lot about this interaction and the idea of criticism in general over the last few days. Why was my initial reaction to be threatened by this criticism? Because I have insecurities about my own abilities, talents and work. Because my pride and vanity were hurt. This criticism seeps in through the holes created by my insecurities and hits at my core. But criticism is essential for growth. I want to be the type of artist who can take critiques and use them to make my work strong. I will not learn or grow by compliments and accolades. When I think about it that way, critiques are more important than accolades, especially during an artist's formative years. Rather than using criticism to cripple us into self-pity, we must use it to fuel the depth of our work in the future.

That said, we as artists must be discerning with our criticism for others. I have a few simple suggestions to offer:

1. The bar is probably not the best place to give criticism. Flirt with the bartender or whisper to your whiskey instead. People will be more receptive if the sun is out anyway.
2. If you are going to offer criticism, it doesn't hurt to offer a compliment too. 
3. When critiquing a role that an actor (or anything that anyone) is over and done with and has no chance to alter, may I suggest wording along these lines: "Next time you play a role like that, I'd love to see you delve deeper into your..." as opposed to "What I think you were missing was..." 
4. Let's also acknowledge that we don't always need to share what we think.
5. Lastly, we don't always have to care what others think. Choose whose opinion matters to you. It's similar to what I've said before, "Strangers will shout things at you, especially in a big city. You have the choice to ignore these things. You don't have to "Go F*** Yourself" if you don't want to."

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; because there is not effort without error and shortcomings; but who does actually strive to do the deed; who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly. So that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.”

-Theodore Roosevelt

In the rehearsal room, a director's criticism is the lifeblood of a production. As actors we cannot step back and look at our work like a visual artist can. A painter can step back from her canvas and say, "That doesn't look anything like a goat." But I cannot step outside myself and watch me perform a scene as Audrey, the saucy goatherd. Our director, Ted Swetz announced on the first day to remember that everything that happens in the rehearsal room is professional, not personal. Theater is our profession, yet our work is innately personal. Ted constantly says to us, "More self... you need more self." He pushes us to speak through our characters from honest places within ourselves. The "more self" an actor allows onstage, the more present he or she can be with her partner. Another actor in As You Like It, J, sings an English folksong in the production. During tech, he jokingly busted out the chorus with an R&B, soulful riff. Ted shouted from the back of the theater, "You can do it like that!" J responded, "You're opening a whole big can of worms" to which Ted replied, "I've been trying to open that can for two weeks. SELF!" The new flavor J. had added to his character held his own intrinsic truth, which is more interesting, more electric than a body onstage trying to be a 1562 minstrel. When someone in any profession brings so much of themselves to their work, it's hard not to take criticisms of that work as personal failings.

John Carroll Lynch once told my acting class that there are three stages to taking a note:

1. F*** you.
2. I suck.
3. Wait, what was the note?

I hope that bringing my "self", giving and taking constructive criticism, not taking things personally, and abandoning insecurities becomes easier with age. One of my favorite actresses, Helena Bonham Carter recently said, "Everybody has an inferiority complex when they step into a room. But then, when you have children and you get older, it doesn't really matter. When I was young I had so many inferiority complexes... Then it gets tiring. And you do get bored of it."

In the mean time, I'm dressing up like a pirate wench and picking goat fur lint out of my belly button in front of hundreds of people in Iowa. Because I'm a professional actress.

The beautiful festival stage in Lower City Park, Iowa City, IA.

*If you are at Takanami in Iowa City, get the Dragon roll. Shrimp tempura, avacodo and eel. It will cure whatever ails you.

On boys, music, and boys who love music.

Look at the two people dancing on either side of you. 

If you don't see a girl, you are dancing incorrectly.

-The Keyboardist for LCD Soundsystem

Greetings from Iowa City where I'm currently in rehearsal for As You Like It at the Riverside Theater for the summer. This Shakespearean play begins with a usurped Dukedom watching a wrestling match and ends with a quadruple wedding of the play's lovers. When talking about these lovers (of which I play one, more of that anon) our director, Ted Swetz says, "Being with your beloved is the best thing; talking about your beloved is the next best thing." It got me thinking, what is my best thing? For me, music and boys are the best things, so talking about music with boys is the very best. I'm not sure what it is, and I know I'm not alone here, but the mention of Paul Simon or Fleet Foxes or John Darnielle makes my little heart skip a beat. I can trace my first boy/music cataclysmic shudder back to my high school crush making me a mix CD entitled, "Probably the Sweetest Mix Ever" which included the Mountain Goats, the Avett Brothers, Stars, Ryan Adams, Iron and Wine, and Old Crow Medicine Show to name a few. I still have the CD, which is too scratched to play anymore  and I've not talked to the boy in years, but the mix is still probably the sweetest ever.


Friday night, I decided that what I needed was real people, live music and a beer. The universe proved accommodating; Deer Tick was playing at the Blue Moose. I could get my fix for music and men who play music and men who love to watch other men play music. Indeed, the concert hall was filled with all sorts: the tattooed lead singer of Deer Tick in leather pants, the nerdy guys with glasses up front who knew every word to every song and jumped with one hand in the air after hearing the first few chords of each song, the boyfriends who have brought their girlfriends to "see this band that is so awesome and you're gonna love them," the bearded head nodders, the wrinkled townies... the one type there wasn't much of was girls alone in overall jorts. I actually think there was only one. Her name starts with M and rhymes with Shlementine.


I was the only person in the back room of the Blue Moose when the opening band, Teenage Mysticism, began except for the girl who sold me a PBR Tall Boy . I particularly enjoyed the band for the lead singer's unique lisping quality and upbeat vibe. As the room filled, I sat smiling on the upper bench to the left of the stage, singing along when I could pick up the chorus. At the end of their set, an older woman next to me leaned over and asked, "Okay, which of those boys is your boyfriend?" Why else would one be here alone? A guy later in the evening asked me if that woman was my mom.


Between sets, I noticed a square young man near me wearing a backwards cap enthusiastically taking photos of his two cans of PBR on his phone. He then noticed me noticing him and began to attempt to take off my boot. I can only assume this was him flirting with me, a sort of reverse Cinderella story... My love, I have found you, let me take off your $300 shoe in this bar. Any other woman who owns a pair of Frye boots will agree with me here... no man takes my boot from me! So I curled my toes and denied his solicitation. To be fair, he did offer to buy me a "whiskey drink," which I kindly declined. The rule to follow with drunk men trying to flirt with you is the same with Greenpeace canvassers on Milwaukee Ave and coyotes in the wild... Don't make eye contact. It only encourages them to touch you, ask you for money or eat you, respectively. Fortunately, his friends shortly came and collected him. I told them I was new in town and they apologized on behalf of the State of Iowa. I chatted with one of Prince Charming's friends. He was nice and asked for my number. I gave it to him... but then he left two songs into Deer Tick's set list. Another rule, you don't want to be with the guy who leaves when the good music just got started. Where does he have to go? Deal breaker, ladies.

Deer Tick, Blue Moose, May 18, 2012

The second band, Turbo Fruits, has the stupidest name ever... they weren't quite my style, but their drummer was very handsome. He wore his arm in a navy sling which he only removed to play drums or cowbell. What charm, an injured drummer! Yet he continues to play, a noble self-sacrifice to the gods of Rock. However, this broken winged gent brings up two more hard and fast rules for me: When you find yourself attracted to someone, you must ask yourself, "(your name here), does s/he look exactly like your ex?" In my case, seven times out of ten, he does. Now this doesn't mean one should abandon all hope for said doppelganger, but it is a good observation to make. Are you looking for someone new or are you looking for something that you lost? Second rule, if you don't like his band, don't bother. You will have to tell him his band is good and they probably aren't. No one wants to live a lie. I didn't talk to him.


I don't think I'll ever solve the mystery of why indie rock music and the boys that love it melt my heart. If you want to read more on the gender relations through music subject, I suggest Rob Sheffield's Talking to Girls about Duran Duran. He says simply, "I could claim that Duran Duran taught me everything I know about women, but that's not exactly accurate: I learned it from listening to girls talk about Duran Duran."


Now, I ain't looking for a musician, everyone knows musicians are bad news... but if anyone wants to talk about Patti Smith or road trip to see the Hold Steady or throw around ideas for a Mountain Goats tattoo, you know where to find me...


Iowa.

Sing a song of your passion.

I saw this on the wall at the Old Town School of Folk Music. It is an anthem.

On Virtually Telling the Truth... Almost

“It’s a lonely business, wandering the labrinyths of our friends’ and pseudo-friends’ projected identities, trying to figure out what part of ourselves we ought to project, who will listen and what they will hear.” -Stephen Marche

In a recent article in The Atlantic, Stephen Marche posed the question, “Is Facebook Making Us Lonely?” It got me thinking about my own online identity via Facebook, Twitter and this, my blog. In the digital world, I am able to create an image of myself specially designed to project the person I want my cyber neighbors to see. My facebook makes me seem artistic, fashionable, young, alive, free, namaste, blah blah blah… and while this image is certainly close to how I am and damn near exactly who I want to be, there are things about me omitted from my online collage.

Do this exercise. Forget you know yourself and look at your Facebook wall. What does this person usually feel? What is going on in their life right now? What do they care about? What do they think about the other people in their life? My guess is that most of you seem confident, successful, attractive and popular… and that is how we all want to be… but are you really all those things? Every day? Really?

Your sixteen-year-old cousin in the Slipknot hoodie excluded, most reasonable people don’t post their fears, hurt feelings, disasters, nagging issues and insecurities online. Even Facebook has a social etiquette and the people who complain on Facebook are annoying. You know you’ve hidden that old friend from high school who posts about how the rain makes her want to die because she's alone and that really conservative cousin who posts about how America's problems would be solved if women returned to the home. There are things you just don't (or shouldn't) say (online).

If I wasn’t a reasonable person, here are some things I would post that I have felt or experienced recently:

“I made blueberry pancakes this morning alone and that made me miss the man that I left a year ago. Regret is a b, and not b for blueberry.”

“@Jenifer Clement, I never want you to die.”

“Last night’s whiskey gave me some serious digestion issues this morning. #youdontwannagointhereafterme”

“Yeast infection. Great, thanks, ladyparts.”

“Some days I’m afraid that I’m a bad actress.”

Terrible, right? Overshare, yeah? So I am not calling for all out honesty here; I don’t want to know that you cried yourself to sleep because you think you're tubby. (And I've told you a hundred times that you aren't!) But this selective posting and conscious omission leads to our digital selves being a picture of only our best selves, which isn’t real or honest.

For example, let’s say I have a terrible night, which happens, right? Because I am a mildly decent, mature human being, I am never going to post online: “@Beth Jones, you were a real b tonight. I didn’t have any fun. I wish I’d stayed at home and watched my roommate workout on the rowing machine all night because at least that is more interesting than your latest narcissistic rant. Lay off the mojitos.”

But the next week, when Beth and I run into each other in Wicker Park and she suggests we stop into Myopic books where we bump into Aziz Ansari who takes us out for pizza where I pitch my sitcom called Aayush and Me* which he loves and he calls Greg Daniels to arrange a meeting in LA and we get on the next flight out of O’Hare, you can bet your britches I’m updating my status to read: “AHHHHH! Thanks to the fabulous @Beth Jones, I met Aziz Ansari and am on my way to LA to meet with NBC about creating a sitcom for next fall’s lineup! My life is so crazy awesome!!”

So the result is that in the virtual reality version of my life, the world sees only that I think Beth is fabulous and that we do fabulous things together. [But we all know that in real reality, she is a narcisstic b with a drinking problem.] You need only look at your own newsfeed to see that most people’s facebook walls are full only of the fabulous things they do with their fabulous friends in fabulous places. Which of course quickly leads to… JEALOUSY. My whole point is that what you’re being jealous of is not real. You are busy being jealous of someone’s new job, baby, wedding, boyfriend, house, vacation, while they are secretly struggling with a drug problem, a sick relative, an STD, loneliness, fear… Here's a clue, everyone is a mess, just like you.

So remember: 
If you compare yourself with others,
you may become vain or bitter,
for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.

There is nothing inherently wrong with posting happy, celebratory, fun or fabulous things on Facebook. I do want to know you got that amazing job in Antartica, and gosh, your baby dressed up as Yoda is really effin cute, and I can't believe you just got married, your husband is so attractive I'm going to steal him when you die... But these cyberspace blips are not the 360 degree reality of a person. As my mother just said to me, "We must stop comparing our insides to other's outsides." It's a losing game and the loser is always you and you aren't a loser, you're fabulous, remember?

And make sure to write on my Facebook wall how much you loved this post, because as you know, I am a fabulous writer and you are one of my fabulous friends. Let's go some place fabulous together, I just hope my yeast infection doesn't come back while we're there.

* A quirky, yet heartfelt comedy about two struggling actors who fall in love despite their ideological and cultural differences.