When Vanessa called me to tell me she got the job, my face hurt from smiling so hard, I was so happy for her. As an acting coach I am always getting these phone calls, texts, and emails from my clients who have booked the job and are sharing their joy with me. I always feel high with happiness when someone's hard work pays off in the way that they want it to. But then the emails get deleted, the Texas are covered over with new mundane texts the phone calls and the feeling that I get evaporates and I go back to my everyday life. This time I wanted it to be different.
How ROZ COLEMAN helped me book Intimate Apparel- Pasadena Playhouse fall 2012
I went to Roz because she's my dear friend, an amazing director coach and awesome actress!
I
was particularly interested in her insight on Esther because I had seen
her do a kick butt job in the role at a theater in Philadelphia.
I came to her with all my actor angst and a litany of questions.What does this scene mean,
what's
the secret to Esther, what emotional place I should be in for the
particular audition scene I had been given? I figured Roz would know all
the answers she'd played the role (magnificently I might add) she knows
exactly what's going on. She got to discover on her feet what was going
on in the play!
Roz took a breath calmly said "Vanessa have an authentic experience of material."
"Oh!"
I said to myself "Oh ok...I know how to do that. This is beautifully
written material I understand it, I know what's going on, I'm having an
emotional response to the material already."
Roz continued "...have
an authentic experience and don't focus on the result!" In other words
trust yourself, trust your instrument Vanessa ...you can't get it wrong.
I
was relieved and went on to have a fantastic audition armed with this
sage advice and another gem of wisdom Roz had already given me in a
prior coaching session which was "This is your job until otherwise
notified!"
These words I carry all the time to every audition I have.
These words completely and totally take me off the hook and allow me to
relax into the present moment and the present joy of doing the work
that I so love to do. And isn't that the truth of the matter anyway?
Don't we as actors spend so much of our lives more than anything else we
do trying to "get"the job?
So why not go ahead and enjoy this
process, fully embody it and enjoy HAVING the job for as long as we can
or ....until otherwise notified!
I spent more time going over the
scenes, rehearsing, discovering, but now without all the worry. I was
doing the part I was "in rehearsal."At the call back I was calm
rehearsing with the director with the other actors who were also "in
rehearsal."
I saw the other actresses who were also up for Esther,
beautiful, fine looking actresses whose work I'm sure was fabulous, all
the while I had a calm sense of whatever happens it's all good I'm
already doing it, already doing the work.
I left feeling exhilarated inspired accomplished and detached from the outcome... I couldn't lose.
My agent called me three days later...I booked it! Thank you Roz!
Sent from Vanessa's iPad