It’s never too early to be thinking about future productions, particularly with an anniversary year approaching…which is why I am pretty excited about my own personal proposal: a stage adaptation of this.

Posted by Jen in Australia…

This photo was taken (by Mary Lou Christy) right before a performance of The Vertical Hour performed at the iconic Opera House by The Sydney Theatre Company. I won’t bore you with a total review, but the American accents weren’t that great. So far, my favorite company in town is Company B performing at the Belvoir Street Theatre. I really loved a show from their season called The Seed which is a three character drama by Kate Mulvany about a young Australian woman and her relationships with her Vietnam era father and ex-IRA grandfather.  This show will be perfect for Amphibian when Carman and Jonathan are in their 50’s but one of them looks to be in their 70’s (anyone want to guess who’s using more moisturizer?). I submit myself to play the late twenties woman as I do not plan on aging much. Let’s slate it for the Amphibian 2038 season.

Posted by Jen in Australia…

The phone rings and it’s my agent.

Me: Hooray!!!

Agent: “Jennifah, are you comfortable in a costume?”

Me: “Yes?” (internal) um, yeah, I’m an actor…

Agent: “Great. This is a breakfast cereal spot and the young mum has to dive into a pool in bathas.”

Me: “Bathers?” (internal) uh-oh.

Agent: “Yes. Swimmas?”

Me: “Uh-huh.” (internal) does swimmers mean swimsuit? I think she means a swimsuit.

Agent: “Supa. Don’t worry, they’re looking for a normal healthy body in a swim costume, not a model.”

Me: “Super.” (internal) Expletive expletive expletive.

Agent: “Just wear a tracksuit to the audition with your trainas.”

Me: “Ok, great.” (internal) at least I know trainers are running shoes. Wait a second… did she say young mum? I’m getting sent out as a MOM? For real? Supa.

Posted by Jen in Australia…

It so happens that my husband’s mother’s old college roommate is an agent in LA. It also happens that this agent used to represent an actress who was one of her favorite ever people and that actress now lives in Sydney. And… because the world is small and e-mail connects us, I met up with said actress, Barbara, for coffee. What a wealth of information I received. Barbara confirmed something I had been on the cusp of discovering myself: Australians don’t like the pushy American thing. Americans? Pushy? Come now. I mentioned to Barbara that my agent seemed a little concerned by my suggestion that I would be mailing headshots, resumes and letters of introduction to every casting director in town. In fact, my agent had told me not to do that but I was considering doing it anyway. How else would these casting directors know who I was and where to reach me? Was I just supposed to leave the casting directors alone and trust that my agent would be letting them know about me when the time is right? Yes. But shouldn’t I mail them things so that they have me in their files in case something comes up? No. Really? Yup. Hmmm. Does the fact that I still want to mail them my stuff after being told by two credible sources not to do so make me a pushy American? I thought so.

Posted by Jen in Australia…

When I first arrived in Sydney I did a mass mailing of headshots to all of the theatres in town introducing myself and begging them to keep me on file for that moment when they realized they needed an American for one of their shows. I’m working on my Australian dialect, but it’s pretty crude. As everyone knows, the Aussies are fantastic at American accents, and it’s a must have item for all Australian actors. Anyway, I got this big list of theatres and away my headshots went. Last night I got a call from a lovely sounding woman who wanted to tell me how much she liked my picture and how impressive my resume was. She went on to tell me she was running a small community theatre and I must have gotten her address by mistake because surely I was looking for professional work. Indeed, I told her, I was. This delightful lady then told me she assumed as much but just wanted to call because she didn’t want me to think that they didn’t like my picture. Then she said, “All right then dear, we’ll be looking out for you in the papers.”

Posted by Jen in Australia…

Size: Australian sizing is different, so in this slot I get to put a number which is 8 numbers higher than my size in the US. That’s not that very cool. 

Shoe size: Strangely, pretty much the same as US sizing. 

Bust:    Waist:    Hips:    Right! Like I’m going to post my measurements on the blog. But know that I was having to calculate these measurements into centimeters. And by calculate, I mean plugging the numbers in to the converter on my cell phone and letting it do the maths. That’s right, the Australians say maths. The reasoning is that “mathematics” is a plural and hence maths. Nevermind that when talking about rugby, footie and netball they say they are talking about sport. Anyway, back to my measurement maths. So, I get to the height section and I was pretty excited about writing down a massive amount of centimeters, and then there on the sheet all parenthetically it said,

height (feet & inches) ______ .

Just when I thought this maths would be fun. Ah well, I did get to put a whopping 86 in the bust section. Holla.

Posted by Jen in Australia…

Hi… it’s Jennifer and this April I’ll be telling you what life is like for me as I re-locate my acting career to Australia!

A fun thing about never quite knowing what scene comes next in the movie of your life is one day finding yourself living in Australia. After surviving seven Chicago winters, I want to say to the screenwriter of my movie, thank you, I like where you’re going with this. Naturally, one of the greatest things about moving to Australia for an American actress is that this is an English speaking country with a fantastic theatre scene. Good weather and real theatre? Why didn’t I think of this sooner? And I have to freak out about Sydney for a quick second. What a city! I’ve never been somewhere so incredibly beautiful, so healthy, active, welcoming, happening and cool. Plus, they have gigantic cockroaches and the hot-garbage-in-the-alley smell every so often so you still know you’re in a major city. The birds are exotic and noisy, the bats are bigger than my cat and the people are reeeeaaallly friendly. Here begins my first shocking generalization about life in Australia: Australians are amazingly friendly. It’s true. I cannot imagine nicer people. I have met two assholes… in six months. One example I can give you about the kindness of the folks here is to tell what it was like getting an agent. I mailed out headshots to everyone and received some calls from people who wanted me to come in for some meetings. Ok, nothing too exceptional about that (although all too often a mass mailing is met with a devastating silence so believe me I was very excited to hear that some of these people wanted to meet me and my American accent). BUT, what about all the calls I received from people who didn’t want to meet me but just wanted to thank me personally for submitting my information and to wish me the best? What about the agents who called to ask for my address so they could MAIL ME MY HEADSHOTS BACK AT THEIR OWN EXPENSE? Isn’t that shocking behavior? Can it be trusted? Why are they so nice? I mean it’s almost like they’re treating actors like… people. Anyway, I signed with an agent here and am now officially an actress in a foreign land.  

Ok, want to see some kangaroos?

Gutenberg! The Auditions! continue this weekend and Amphibian VIPs are in NYC for this round…while FirstPersonShooter artistes prepare for the Fort Worth reading of this dangerous play (or so we imagine based on the title alone).

The word on the street (and by “word on the street” I mean an email that just arrived in my inbox) is that First Person Shooter is going to be a good time…  Here is what I “heard”:

“If you talk to people about our upcoming reading, they will get excited.  After our Sunday performance we will have a talkback at Dos Gringos.  We will have the playwright, director, cast and Linda Fielding (intervention specialist for FWISD) and possibly a law-enforcement officer from TCU there.  Lots of discussion and controversy and, we hope, exchange of ideas.  Amphibian company member Jaime Castaneda directs, and amphibians Jonathan Fielding and Katya Campbell star—alongside some other great people.”

So, I spent the last 6 days in Ft. Worth, Texas working with Amphibian.  The first day I was down there Kathleen had me busy working the crowd at our Benefit party for the Devonian’s.  We had the party at Beverly and John Snyder’s amazing house which was designed by our very own Chairman of the Board, Gregory Ibanez.  David Fielding, Judy Norman, Peter Kowalski The house was beautiful.  That is all I can say about it.  You really had to be there to see it’s splendor.  I thought it was a museum when we went into it.  The art work was nothing short of phenomenal.  Pieces from Andy Warhol, and many other famous artists were everywhere.  I wasn’t sure if some of it was furniture or art!!!  It was extremely elegant, tasteful, and classy.  It was a real sight to see where the company is clearly going…up. I met many fine folks including Whit Smith and his lovely wife, who came to see Cyrano, Bob and Kay Bolls, who were the sweetest, and the new president of the Art’s Council.Kathleen, Anne-Lynn, Bob and Kay Bolls I gave a speech at the end of the party, was very nervous, but I was reassured that it was a good one.  That Speech Communication class I took at TCU suddenly paid off!  Melissa Mitchell and GuestWhile I was there I stayed at Chateau Fielding.  Jonathan’s amazing parents David and Linda, who are also on our board. JV Mercanti flew down and stayed for a couple of days and the Fielding’s made us breakfast like every day.  Did I mention we love the Fielding’s?!JV was in town to direct Full Gallop and to have local auditions for “A Dark Play” by Carlos Murillo.  They went well, and we cast a local young actor named Josh Heard.  He will be great.  You know, something about going to Texas makes you eat so much more, but I think it has mostly to do with the portions you get there.  They, (meaning the restaurants) just give you so much food!   JV was insistent on Papasito’s, which is a TexMex Restaurant, that gives you way too much food for one person to eat.  We waited for a table for about 1 and 1/2 hours.  While waiting we witnessed many waddling ducks coming out of the restaurant, very disconcerting for several New Yorkers who are very health conscious.  But nonetheless we went in and enjoyed the onslaught of Tex Mex, and I consequently spent the next morning on the toilet!!!  I also drank every night that I was there, if not at a restaurant, at some party or other.  JV had never experienced the Eskimo Hut, which is a drive thru frozen drink, beer, liquor barn.  He couldn’t believe that we could drive thru and get our drinks and drive off and continue drinking…something about the sealed container laws in Texas that is clearly much looser there than anywhere else.  But I slept so well and enjoyed the spring like weather, went to a TCU basketball game that we won, went to a TCU Tennis match that we won and everynight went to bed early and woke up early.  It was a complete change of pace but it was much needed.   The other events happening included several meals with company members and participating artists, like Anne Lynn Kettles who was doing the reading of Full Gallop, Judy Norman, Melissa Mitchell, Desiree Fultz, and my friend from New York, Melissa Le.  The reading was a huge success.  We had a great turnout for both performances and Anne Lynn was brilliant as is the norm and Judy was a sweet french maid… The audiences loved this play about Diana Vreeland, former, editor in chief at Vogue.   I also gave speeches at both of these events.  I think I would have done better at these with a few drinks in me, but I just ran with it and it was all in good fun.  The people in Fort Worth are excited about us.  I really got the feeling that they knew they were being a part of something fresh and exciting, yet smart and sophisticated.  It’s really something to witness that kind of excitement for something that you created and are being a part of.Carman,Linda Fielding, Sara Jung