Have you ever worked on a project or at a job that you felt like was a sinking ship? Well, I just got a job on literally, a sinking ship. The Titanic, to be exact. I wonder what it will be like to go to work, knowing that no matter what, there is nothing you can do to change the outcome. You are going down. You may have read about my audition for the attraction Titanic, The Experience, and seen the video where I pathetically tried the different accents they were asking for. Thankfully, there were actually Americans on that fateful voyage, and because of their sacrifice..I got hired! I will be playing Dorothy Gibson, an American model and silent film actress. Her picture was often published on the cover of Cosmopolitan, Ladies Home Journal, and The Saturday Eventing Post. She survived the sinking of the Titanic in lifeboat #7, and went on to star in a film about that night titled Surviving the Titanic. I don’t know about you, but I’ve always found silent films to be kind of silly. I would love to see that film though. I wonder how they dealt with the gravity of this event, with out words. Maybe words couldn’t describe that night. Unfortunately, all the copies of this film were destroyed in a studio fire years ago. So, now I feel like I am back in school. I have A LOT to learn in not a lot of time. I have a lot of facts about the Titanic to cram into my mom brain. I have to take on the personality of not only a character, but a HISTORICAL character. Someone who really existed. It’s a little different. I went to orientation and they sent me home with...

After a week of learning new music, cramming monologues into my tired brain, driving back and forth in the pouring rain to one audition after another… ok, 4 total…I got some exciting news. I got cast in not one, but two of the shows! Now, before you start jumping up and down for me and spill your cereal all over your computer, here’s the bad news. I can only do one of them because the shows overlap. Just my luck, right? I really wish I could do both, BUT, the silver lining is, now I join the elite few that can say, “yeah, I turned that offer down”.  That makes you sound really important. So, the show I AM going to do is called Lizzie Borden. Does that name sound familiar? That’s because it is about a real person. An axe murderess from the 1800’s to be exact. She was tried for killing her parents. With an axe.  Sounds pretty dark, doesn’t it? Don’t worry….it’s a musical. When you put stuff to music it’s…fun! We start rehearsals in July and the show opens August 24th. What’s super exciting is that I’ll be working with Tony award winning director, Kenny Howard, an amazing cast, and the talented Michael Wanzie who wrote the script.  Ok, now, put down your cereal and jump up and down for me! YAY! Now that I have a new show to be excited about…I can pull myself out of the pool of self pity I’ve been sitting in over the last show I auditioned for and DIDN”T get in. I mean, you can’t get them all, right? So, to show how OK I am with it now…I am going to share with you my audition video from that show. That’s right. The one...

I’m going to share with you my little  humiliating, embarrassing, ego crushing, self esteem destroying moment from my audition tonight. Because if I share it with you, it won’t own me, or define me, or something like that. Right? Whatever. Here it goes. Tonight I auditioned for the musical Oklahoma. I know I did a good job because they asked me to stay for a callback. They wanted to hear me sing for the part of Ado Annie. I was pretty happy with that considering she is one of the main roles, and one of the “younger” characters in the show. As I looked around at the other girls asked to stay, they looked like the typical girls I see at auditions. Young, pretty, young. And for once, I felt like I was being grouped in with them. I was being asked to stay and try out for the same character that they were being seen for! This was big. This was exciting. I had to contain myself. I couldn’t let them know that this didn’t happen all the time. I didn’t want to come across as a newb, as my son calls it. So, we all went into the audition room, all of us “young chicks”, and learned the song for Ado Annie. Then they wanted to hear us individually. There was one note in the song that was particularly difficult to hit, and we, the girls, discussed it together and laughed about how we probably wouldn’t hit it when it was our turn. I walked in to face the directors with all the confidence I could muster. It must have been enough, because I nailed it. That note? Not a problem. So, you’re probably wondering why this is a humiliating, embarrassing, ego...

So today I am auditioning for Titanic, The Experience, which is a tourist attraction here in Orlando. It is an interactive museum/Dinner Show with full scale room re-creations, memorabilia and artifacts from the Titanic. There are interactive story tellers (the role I am auditioning for) that give tours through the museum and take visitors back to the sights, sounds, and emotions of that fateful night. Sounds fun, right? Don’t worry, the museum is on dry land. I am usually pretty calm at auditions, and don’t get the jitters. What bothers me the most is when I walk in and look around and notice that everyone else at the audition is practically in diapers! Where are the people my age? I mean, I took a break from acting to raise my kids, but I’m not THAT old. Did I miss the notice saying we had to quit auditioning for things when we turned 35? Or 30? Or even 27? Because I don’t think they are older than that. That’s ok..because every show that has a “mother” role, or “old lady”, or “grandma”….it’s mine! Back to Titanic. So, I have to do a 1 min comic monologue…which I am still preparing. It’s almost 11 am the day of. Yes, I know. You don’t have to tell me. I like to put pressure on myself. It makes me feel like I work harder. or something. They also want us to be able to do as many of these accents as possible. Irish, British, Cockney, English High Society From 1912. Um…great. I can speak English, does that count? So, I started playing around with the accents. This is what I came up with. Click Here To See...