I really feel sorry for my spouse. For several months, she has not had the opportunity to cook and serve a big dinner for me on Thursday nights as I take an acting class. I’m feeling she might not feel loved or appreciated.
With other adult actors at Actors Casting and Talent in Oklahoma City, I go to class, and have for several months. Our instructor is Michelle De Long, a casting director in the city. She has cast many films and commercials with her latest movie “Bring Up Bobby” now in the process of being edited and finished.
She told us several weeks ago that she wanted to have a “showcase” inviting several people in the industry to watch her students perform. Industry people would be those in the industry who are local casting directors, agents, Oklahoma City University and Oklahoma City Community College film students and professors. The reasonable purpose behind inviting the university crowd to see her students perform is that students taking film studies at these universities need to film a movie as an assignment for graduation. In casting their films, they need to have a whole menu of actors from which to draw. For the actors performing, it is a chance for them to be seen and perhaps get invited to audition for a part in one of the student movies. The actor’s reel (a disk of scenes in which they have spoken dialogue) can include these student films. Agents and casting directors like to see the presence and talent of an actor before agreeing to audition that person for a part. I know I know - too much to take in at one time?
Michelle decided that she wanted this exposure for us. We all readily agreed to perform in the showcase. Each of us was paired with another student in a scene from a movie, television show, or play. I was assigned a role to play, “Ben”, a recently widowed older gentleman. Widowed I’m not familiar with, but older I am. Lorrie Chilcoat was assigned the role of “Elizabeth”, my daughter. The scene takes place in an upscale restaurant, and I was to tell her that I was going to get married. Big drama, as their relationship had been strained – and the daughter is deeply distressed.
The scene calls for her to speak loudly and for me to try to get her to soften her voice because we were in public, and this wasn’t nice behavior. Plus, I might know someone in the restaurant. At one point, the scene calls for her to be so upset that she starts crying. My acting talents kicked in and I become fatherly and tried to comfort her. She and I had practiced this any number of times and she even came by my office and we practiced there. ( -- As an aside, the walls in my office are not very thick and I am sure the gentleman on the other side wondered what was happening with all the yelling going on. The next time I saw him I explained what was going on and he just laughed and said he was curious. Do we suppose he believed me? --) During our practices, Lorrie had not cried during the scene at all, but the night of our dress rehearsal she did and with such conviction, we were all shocked. She had tears rolling down her cheeks. I was really impressed and then she did it again during the actual showcase. WOW, a real actress!
Next week we will all do this again and Michelle will record the scenes and send these to agents and casting directors in Dallas and other markets. I can’t say enough about how talented my fellow thespians are. There was a good crowd in attendance and all industry people, guests, and family members were duly impressed.
Those of us in the acting field need all the exposure we can get and this can be added to our reels. I will have several scenes to put on a disk for my reel once I get a copy of the OCU movie I filmed with director Bryan Cook. (See my blog November 5, 2010) plus a DHS training film I did last summer. You can see my fellow actors involved in the showcase in the attached picture and what scenes they performed in the program. What a hoot – and I look forward to having this experience again. I’m now primed for the casting director who sees my innate talent and casts me with my line in a movie or television show.
And that may happen with "The Hounds". The morning of the showcase I auditioned for a role in this tv pilot in front of several young talented film makers. Watch for my next blog and see if I got the part. Also, check out the trailer for the pilot at http://www.thehounds.tv/
Tony Gregory, Matt Rehkemper, Cary Hawkins, Rett Terrill, Robyn Cannedy, Yasmine Barve, Mila McCoy, Dawn Marie, Lauren Analla, Andrea Moser, me, Lorrie Chilcoat, David Hanson, Bill Brewer
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