Okay, but seriously now: To Stay, or To Go?

Okay, let us speak plainly. I've come to a crossroads, and I'm not sure what road to take.

In one direction: Democracy, friends, Central Park, 24-hr. mass transit, Comedy Central programing on a timely basis, and *REAL* bagels. Also in this direction are the personal demons, the baggage, the shitty winters, and fucking hipsters (FUCK. YOU. HIPSTERS.<--My hatred has only grown since my time away.). Not to mention the fare hikes that will cost the monthly Metrocard user $103 every thirty days to re-up. It makes you wish there really were MTA Service Specialists. My friend Jenna said it best, I think: "But seriously, for $103 a month I want someone to give me pretzels."

Now, in the other direction lies buildings low enough to see stars at night, culturecultureculture, easy access to Europe, fried fish (I am a sucker for fried food), the best coffee I've ever had (Jason: I love you), and a government that funds its art scene. But this direction has its downfalls, too: A subway system that closes down at midnight, sidewalks that are too narrow with ne'er a trash bin to be found, KFCs that don't have mashed potatoes or biscuits, OR extra-crispy chicken (What is the *point* then?), and fewer friends--still lovely, but small in numbers.

And then there's the whole visa thing.

As I've noted before, I can't work in this country as an actress under my student visa.

Wait. Back up. Let's re-phrase that:

I can't work for MONEY in this country as an actress under my student visa. I know what you'll say:

YOU:
Well, then get another visa!

To which I will respond:

ME:
It's not that easy.

You see, to claim another visa as a "post-study worker," I would need a total of 75 points on my application to be eligible for consideration, not to mention that teensy processing fee of 800GBP. Oh but yes. If you consider that sum at the highest and lowest I've seen the exchange rate since starting out on this little venture, that's anywhere between $1,680 and $1,096 (currently, it would come to $1,146.11). Here's what the UK Border Agency has to say about eligibility:

To apply under our points-based system and be accepted into the post-study worker category, you must pass a points-based assessment.

You must score:

• 75 points for your attributes, which are a United Kingdom qualification, study at a United Kingdom institution, your immigration status during United Kingdom study and/or research, and the date of award of the qualification; and
• 10 points for English language; and
• 10 points for available maintenance (funds)

The whole thing is daunting, and reeks of impossibility. But more than that: it smells like adulthood. What? Actually working for something over long term suffering and sacrifice? Seriously? Don't you know I'm an only child? I'm not into that.

But aside this being a hard process, and therefore unappealing, even after spending the money, getting a job that will help me gather the funds to prove that I can support myself to the border officials, there is still a chance that I will be rejected. And it looks like I can't actually apply until I have my MA documentation--which will not exist until December. So post Germany, I'll have at least four months of doing other things besides trying to pursue acting as my sole career, and if anything does come up I won't be able to take it if there's pay involved, because legally I can't receive any. And quite frankly, I've already done this.

The big reason to get the MA--the HUGE one--was to feel like a legitimate actor. Much of this has to do with what I always saw being the difference between myself and the actors I caught in major regional theatre productions: they had MAs or MFAs, and I did not. I once asked a former colleague of mine to see if she could get me an audition for such a gig, and she told me flat out that I had no chance of getting seen because they were only going to call in people with masters degrees. So from the time I was young (about the 11th grade), I always knew that getting an MA or an MFA was a must, because those were the kind of houses I wanted to play in, and that was the kind of money I wanted to make. Let us forget for a moment that much more of a theatre practitioner's life, particularly an actor's, is left to chance, more so than most any other occupation. So let us not waste time debating the finer points of this argument by citing (as we all can) our *one* friend who made it big on nothing more than a BA or a couple classes at the Neighborhood Playhouse. Let us simply acknowledge this as an established convention of casting, and move on. So you see, to me a huge part of what I wanted for my career involved working in specific houses across the country, with specific reputations. And these places also meant a specific perk: a paycheck.

Now, don't get me wrong: unpaid acting is still acting if you're putting the work in. I've done a lot of it, seen a lot of unpaid performances, and have a lot of friends who do it, and I know this to be true. But it's not what I want, not for my career, and not for my life, and gaining an MA was a step to leaving that part of the industry, only to return when between paying gigs or to fulfill an artistic desire. The wisest man I ever knew once told me:

THE WISEST MAN EVER:

Lea, don't be a drama slut, be a drama whore. Whores get paid.

Basically his advice was, if it pays nothing but it gives you something for your soul, than it's worth it; if it pays you a lot, and gives you nothing for your soul, except a chance to fulfil it at another time because you'll be able to support yourself for a little while, then it's worth it. But if you're not getting either of these two compensations, turn around and Run in the other direction.

I've been through the ringer. I've done a lot of theatre that gave me nothing in return except a few embittered jokes and another credit on my resume. I've had my soul ripped out and built up again and again. I won't dwell on this too long, because every actor has known pain, and everyone who has had to sit and listen to them ramble on about their pain is almost instantly bored. But I got into a rut in New York that I couldn't shake, and a large reason for the change in scenery was to get out of it--and also to try to take steps to live a little more like a whore, in the monetary sense.

So here I am, sitting next to big change, on the brink of something I have no understanding of, and because of legal reasons I'm at the exact same place I was in New York. Now, there are a couple budding artistic relationships that might be good to see through here--partly because of the work that could be generated within those relationships, and partly because of my sheer enjoyment of working with those people. And so the soul has the potential to be paid. But sitting around, generating work that would possibly have to transfer to New York to ever see the light of day with me making any bank on it--it just doesn't quite work for me. Maybe I'm too impatient. But at twenty-four and a half, I already feel too old to pussy-foot about. I'll be the first to identify that statement as concerning myself and not anybody else. But as it is my life, and as it is how I feel about it, I can't shake the feeling that that many months without having some prospect of paid work, not even an opportunity, is exactly what I don't want. And I don't think pushing a piece of chalk around the drawing board of new work is going to cut it for me.

This sudden state of crisis that I've come to with all of this was brought on by Spotlight. Months in advance of publication, Spotlight gathers its clients information, headshots, and money, in order to print a large book listing all the registered actors in the UK. And there are a lot of us. I received a notice in the mail the other day informing me that to make it into the Actresses book that would be published in October, I would have to confirm by the last week in April. The books last for a year. If I spent the money--to me it's an investment--then that is like saying I am going to try to get a new visa and stay here through October 2010, the cost and potential agony be damned! But the unknown is frightening, and not *completely* appealing, I might add. And in truth: I don't know if I want to stay.

London is fine. It's great. But I miss my friends, I miss the grid system, and I miss REAL pizza (and again, *bagels*). Maybe it's just homesickness, but this not knowing when I'll return makes it hard to decide if I should stay, too. Though in truth--New York is just as much an unknown as London is in some ways. I have nothing to go back to: not a serious job prospect, not an apartment, not even a boyfriend or some kind of distant lover I could finally culminate things with and settle down with accordingly. I don't have those things here, either, but at least in America there's already a chance I could get paid acting work, and my accent wouldn't be working against me: one of the other Americans at the ADR work I booked the other day told me that many American actors were over here hiding their accents because they wouldn't be seen for British roles if the director knew they were American. That is a stressful prospect. But it's not worth stressing about, if you can't even get an audition because of your "alien" status.

I have a bet running with a certain someone regarding the date of my return, and if I headed back before March 2010, I'd lose it. The consequences aren't entirely unpleasant, but I'm not looking forward to what awaits me if I fail. Also: I hate losing. HATE IT. But to stay in a place simply out of stubbornness over a bet seems ridiculous, and further highlights the most important part of this decision: that whatever I end up choosing, must be my choice, and not something I submitted to or felt I should do, or whatever. And once I've made that choice, I have to commit to getting it done. If it means trying to stay here, then that's what I do: I work to stay here. If it means going back to the states, then it is with the understanding that I am going to make some large changes in my life, and that I will not return to the way I was running shop before (which was fine and all, but not nearly pro-active enough).

Either direction is hard to walk in. Now it's just a matter of knowing where to aim the first step.

Should I Stay or Should I Go Now?

Get your own Poll!

I could use some help. Feel free to cast your vote. Details re: this quandary to follow at a later date.

"Vacation, all I ever wanted..."

The first week of break turned out to be not very break-like, but more of a preparation for the rest of my time off from school—time off that seems like it will be pretty full, dominated by work that is going to lay the foundation for a lot that I need to accomplish in the upcoming third term.

The first few days were pretty loose and relaxed. I slept A LOT, napping more than once a day on occasion. I read the Guardian most mornings, and plodded through the web-based copy of the New Yorker I receive (thank you, online subscription). I spent a lot of time in coffee shops, trying to convince myself to go do something, then failing and not caring. One of the more productive things that hasn’t got anything to do with schoolwork: my friend Max and I have taken up jogging together on Sundays (we were at it again today). Max is a pretty big runner, and I can usually get myself out two, three times a week, but we’d both fallen out of the habit during our respective Stage Two Practices that essentially took over our hearts, bodies, and souls February onward. As one of my goals during this break was to get back into shape, having a running buddy seemed a very novel indeed, especially considering how much I loathe running. Truly: there’s nothing I dislike greater than starting running again after a long absence—but then after it becomes a routine, I start craving it like a crack fiend. Addictive, but at least it’s a healthier habit. But starting out is always so dreadful. Having company at least once a week is nice. And in all truth, we came to the decision to run together in order to “train” for a hash.

My friend Abby first told me about hashing when I visited her this summer while she was doing Doubt in Cape May, where she is huge. We got onto the topic of things I needed to do while I was over here, and suddenly she gasped and squealed out: “You have to go on a hash!” Now, before your mind wanders to illicit places, no, “hashing” has nothing to do with marijuana, though it does involve some kind of substance abuse. Essentially, you follow a path that has been laid down for you on the road with chalk markings or piles of sawdust (apparently) and you jog for quite a while. The catch is: the path always leads to a pub. So after you’ve jogged for a substantial amount of time, you drink. I think it’s genius, and all the more reason to bother with running in the first place. And I’m pretty sure Max agrees with this. Abby did tell me, however, that on your first hash, you’re meant to drink your first pint from your shoe, which sounds just awful. I’ll keep you lot posted on our progress.

In my effort to get into shape, I also registered for some yoga classes. The first day I went, I saw a London fox standing by the entry way to the studio. My deep-rooted affection for these little guys makes me believe this was a very fortuitous sign. The studio I’m going to is kind of a trip, in that the company seems to be the UK equivalent to the yoga corporation I used to work for (strange that phrase: “yoga corporation…”), which is both reassuring in its familiarity, and bizarre in some strange, almost cross-dimensional sense. “Yes, Spock—it would appear they promote the practice of yoga on this planet, too…” I hope it won’t take too long to get my practice up to snuff, and I think that the yoga will compliment the running nicely. I may even go to Pilates. But let’s not push it just yet.

But as I said, so many paragraphs ago: meetings. Wednesday I sat down with classmates Ariana, Poppy, and Loukia and discussed plans on developing work we’d started to touch on and generate during last term (a concept that is Ariana’s, so details will be scant here). Ariana is looking to have us present the piece in both London and in a couple towns in Germany this August, which means I won’t be flying home in July as originally planned. (The topic of when I’m actually going back to the states is a pretty hot one right now, but we’ll get to that in another entry.) The work that we’re doing with Ariana is new to me (here’s a hint: it’s largely NOT text based), is pretty exciting because of the newness, and I really like the concept she’s shooting for. Even the challenge of working in this manner is pretty freeing all on its own, and that’s been great so far. I look forward to more of the same over the coming months.

That evening I also caught The Lady From Shanghi at the BFI, and am once again convinced that I need a wardrobe akin to the women of Noir cinema. And a gun. Yeah, that would be good…

Thursday I met with Nick Wood, head of our course, alongside my fellow Space (in) Between cohort Mauro, to feedback on the success of the sessions, and in an effort to get The Space incorporated into next year’s first term offerings. The school is currently reviewing, revising, and re-writing the course as it stands, so there may be room to squeeze it in. Or there may not be. Either way, it was a good meeting, and it was nice to see that the head of the course would take the time out of his very busy week to discuss our findings and the possibility of adding this program to the schedule. We’ll see what comes of it.

Friday consisted of back-to-back meetings of my Stage Three Practice group, and my RMO group. In the first meeting, Chad, Maria, Hedva, Lisa and I basically discussed what attracted us to the project we’re going to be working on, and what our personal goals were as artists concerning our work for the piece. Then we generated a list of movies, plays, anything really that we knew about that dealt with a meal or consumption.

The second meeting with my RMO group was to discuss the upcoming "Great Orchidaceous Travesty," where THE BAND, our research experiment of beat-like quality, will be making its debut to an organized audience. I say “organized audience” because we always perform in public, gleaming our audience members from passers by, or unsuspecting produce shoppers, but this will be the first time we play in a venue where people will actually be watching us as part of an evening of bizarre cabaret acts. I am, admittedly, nervous. We’ve never really “performed” like this before, and will be short one group member, who’ll be replaced by another classmate who’s never seen our work and hasn’t rehearsed with us yet. It will all turn out one way or the other, I suppose. And if something does go terribly wrong, we’ll have a chance to redeem ourselves, as we perform again for a second time a fortnight later on the final night of the "Travesty." Anyway we’ll be wearing hats, so that’ll be good.

And speaking of hats, on Friday I also visited the Victoria and Albert Museum with my friend Caitlin to peruse a hat exhibit that is currently going on there. It was great, and if you’re in London reading this, please try to check it out before it goes away on June 1st.

Friday night I also caught the first half of a student production of Hamlet. I say “first half” because I left during intermission and held up in the theatre bar for the rest of the show. I may just be burnt out on the play (it is my favorite, and I even carry a miniature copy of it around in my purse—God Bless the Globe gift shop), so that may have been why I felt the need to leave. That being said, I have only ever walked out on two pieces of theatre, and this was the second. I actually have a lot of opinions on certain choices (mostly directorial) made during the time between 1.1 and the middle of 3.2 (they cut right after "Give me some light: away!"), but I’ll keep them to myself. I will say, though, keep an eye out for one George Taylor. He played Polonius and was by far the best thing up there in my opinion, and was the one actor that made me think, “Maybe I should stay...just until after the arras scene.”

The rest of the weekend was quite literally spent wholly confined to my dorm room, while I cleaned, read, and continued to sleep for a good long while, when not watching downloaded American television on iTunes. And touching on that briefly: some of you may have noted an absence in any blog entry relating to the finale of Battlestar Galactica. I have had so many random post-finale discussions, that to delve into one here just seems wasteful. Be that as it may, I will say I enjoyed it, though could have done without the coda, and that I also sobbed through the last thirty minutes or so. And no: I am not ashamed.

Rest in peace, Galactica.

This week I am meeting my RMO group to discuss how our dry run of our research presentation went, and prep a little for our final presentation. I have two meetings with the Ariana group scheduled, THE BAND will perform, and I’ll be catching the first part of Romeo Castellucci’s trilogy of Dante’s Divine Comedy, Inferno at the Barbican. I also have a couple days of transcription work at Central, typing out some research presentation or other for £££.

That was a long entry and is probably just an indicator of what the next few weeks will bring: massive fullness. But this I vow: I’ll keep finding time for naps somehow.

"...I ain't lost, just wandering."

Okay, so break has officially started, and I've decided to fall back into step as a tourist in the fine city of London. Much like the last few months I spent in New York, I'm going to try to embark on "London events." It will help pass break by more quickly and enjoyably, and will also distract from the working out I plan to do (yeep). Again, I'm open for any recommendations from people, and will report my own findings upon discovery.

"And as for me/I made my mind up back in Chelsea/When I go, I'm going like Elsie..."

I can't really believe Natasha Richardson is dead. With all the rumors flying around the past couple days, I had been hoping to discover that she had turned around and would soon be on her way to a full recovery. It was such a freak accident kind of thing, and so unexpected. I'm reminded of mine and my friends' reactions back in New York last year when Heath Ledger died, just as unexpected, and just as seemingly unfair--though more unfair, of course, to his family and friends than to the masses. Still, there is strange sense of loss to the acting world, and particularly to the world of Central, where Richardson was educated, and whose name I walk over ever time I mount the steps to the front entrance to the school (as evidenced above).

The saddest thing to me is that she was still so young. Forty-five is really nothing, and considering how much she'd accomplished in her career already, I think most of the world was excited by what she would deliver in the latter days of her life. She was also a woman not to emulate solely in her career, but in her personal life: she had a husband and two children, and somehow balanced that while working. These are things that I want for myself, and to have someone embody those ideals so well, and with so much class, talent, and poise...it's just hard to see that dissolve in a moment.

It's sad losing two alumni this academic year (first Pinter, now Richardson), and especially two alumni who did so much for the industry. As I post this, the school has yet to make any kind of formalized statement to the student body about how they will be honoring the passing of Richardson. I for one will try to be there for whatever it is they do. And until then, I'll probably be listening to the Cabaret soundtrack nonstop.