Can You Speak French with a Southern Accent?

I woke up yesterday morning to a text message from the director of Big Country Blues with this picture:

And this caption: "Hey. LA webfest loved us... We're going to France for the Marseille webfest, and you're an award winning actress!" Ummm...What??! Turns out this is what he meant:

BIG NEWS for BIG COUNTRY BLUES! It has now not only won Best Drama at the IFQ Film and New Media Festival, but also 11 AWARDS at LAWeb Fest including Outstanding Drama Series, Acting awards for all three of us in the cast, direction, and writing! And it was chosen as 1 of 9 series to be screened in the Marseille WebFest! BCB goes to France!

I got online and saw the trailer was up, so I watched that for the first time. It looks great and I can't wait to see the full episodes! Watch it here : http://www.bigcountryblues.com/trailer/

I'm super excited and am so proud of everyone involved. Really talented and dedicated people involved in this project. And just genuinely nice people, too. How often does that happen? I wish everyone with BCB all the best. They SO deserve it!

I spent the rest of the day flyering. I met a lovely vegetarian named Nicolas who wanted to commiserate with me on the moral wrongness of eating meat. Now, I am a vegetarian - no animals for my mouth. However, that's just because I think it's gross. I spent the whole conversation hoping Nicolas didn't look down at my adorable and very comfortable suede boots. (Trust me, I've been in that conversation before with some crazies here on the streets of Williamsburg and it didn't go well. It seems it doesn't matter that the fur lining is faux when the rest of the boot is the back side of a cow's skin...) Ah, well. Can't win 'em all.

Last night I attended a play reading with a group that I was involved with a hundred years ago on a project that actually never happened...you heard me. You never know where your contacts come from - She actually saw me in a show another hundred years ago and then asked me to do a staged reading that unfortunately had to be canceled. Anyhow, she recently started a club where artists come together and read/listen/work on plays. Amazing. It was a lovely night and I'm so glad that was an email I responded to. I loved meeting everyone and reading her play was a great time. I hope to join them again soon for another club meeting.

So, in review: Our web series is kicking ass, I won an award - but not for being a good vegetarian, and I got to hang with talented lovely people and read a new play. Life is pretty freakin' sweet.

Preggers and Covered In Blood. (but don't worry, I was only acting preggo and the blood wasn't mine)

I started the week with one hell of a promotional shift. My friend and I were on the corner of 57th and Lex talking up the delicious cafe we were working for, when an old man with a walker came slowly passing by. I watched as he approached the crosswalk, a little nervous because he seemed fairly unsteady. Sure enough, the wheel of his walker caught the uneven sidewalk and the man toppled over sideways onto the street. And, holy hell, he fell hard. My friend and I rushed over to help him up when we noticed that he was bleeding profusely from his nose. The manager of Kenneth Cole brought out a folding chair, and after begging the hot dog man for some napkins (seriously he was not any helpful, I ended up basically jacking them and thanking him with serious sass for being a "great citizen" ...I know, I know, not very menacing but it was all I could think of at the time) my friend held an ice pack and a wad of napkins to poor Carl's gushing face. An incompetent police officer that spoke a form of English I've not heard before, called an ambulance and we waited with Carl the 78 year old sweet man who was bleeding like nothing I've ever seen. Finally help arrived and we reluctantly left him in the hands of a curt EMT. It was a sad goodbye as we yelled, "take care of yourself, Carl!" It was then that we noticed we were, in fact, covered in Carl's blood. On the vests, the scarf, the gloves...Sick. We went back to the cafe and washed up. You better believe I scrubbed like I was in the movie "Outbreak". We took off our uniforms to be washed, tried not to freak out...and finished our shift. Every once in a while asking each other, "Did that just happen?" Sure did. It was quite an eventful two hours (though not as eventful as poor Carl's).

We opened the show Wednesday night to a packed house and a very supportive audience. And, save for a few unfortunate mishaps, the show was a success. There were a few essential props out of place, a couple unfortunate wardrobe malfunctions, but we were able to push through and put on a pretty good show. I felt good about my performance and the scene I was worried about the most: a big crying, oh no! I'm preggo-and-don't-know-what-to-do-because-I'm-unmarried-and-it's-1919 scene, went pretty well! I only had one quick scene to prepare, so I had my IPod on the ready backstage with the music I was using for inspiration. I was able to connect and pull out a decent performance. I didn't get any notes about it being bad ;) and I felt good, so I assume all went well!

The other two performances were good, too. We had full houses each time. The laughs were big and we felt the energy. I had a blast with the cast. Super awesome people and I'm going to miss dancing "scrub the ground" style backstage in full period dress as warm-up. Which reminds me...I promised a picture. Here goes!So hot. Control yourselves.

There's talk of an extension to the run but for now, on to the next thing. I've been going going going with the two shows back to back. I think I'm going to take a little time to pull myself together with my marketing materials (website included) and maybe go to a couple workshops. I've got a couple readings this week and meetings with theater companies. I'm going home for a hot minute this weekend, so I'll get a little family re-charge, which is always good. Onward and Upward, as they say. Until next time...

Are you There Blog? It's Me, Sarah.

Sorry for the neglect. Someone call the authorities! I've treated you like a red-headed step child. But let's not dwell on my inability to balance life sometimes, and get right to catching you peeps up!

1. Flyering. Not terrible in bearable weather. I worked Ash Wednesday, which was a riot. I loved watching all the good church going people with ashes on their heads wave their hands in our faces and scoff in disgust as they walked by. Now, Is that what Jesus would do? Is it? No, ass holes, Jesus would take a flyer... or at least say no thank you. (This leads me on a Lent tangent. I hate Lent. Not because I give anything up, because I don't, but because it just makes for a lot of unhappy New York Catholics. Forgoing french fries, chocolate and booze isn't the real sacrifice this season. The real sacrifice is giving up manners: us bad Catholics are deprived of excuse me's and I'm sorry's. Lent-ers are ornery! I've definitely been on the train a few times and wished that the bitch next to me would just give in and eat a damn chocolate bunny, already. I'm really the good Catholic in this situation simply because I resisted punching her in the face... but enough about that...).

2. Big Country Blues update! The brains behind the project tells me that I should be seeing some footage soon! They entered a preliminary edit of the first episode into the IFQ Film and New Media festival...and get this: IT WON BEST DRAMA! Woop woop! It was just accepted into another festival in LA, too. So that's great news! I can't wait to see some of it, already!!

3. My first show opened and closed. It was a little bit of a crazy rehearsal process and putting the show together was interesting (one of the one-acts had to be cut, seeing as how the show was running 3.5 hours +. It was necessary so the audience didn't kill themselves in the middle...). Our dance/theater piece about the experience of watching our parents age did come together in the end. It was actually pretty tragic and viscerally affecting - for the audience, as well as me. In the middle of our performance the last day it hit me like a ton of bricks that it was within days of the date that my Grandmother passed away two years ago. As I sat on the floor flipping through what was supposed to be a "book of my character's grandmother's history" (stay with me), I lost my shit and began crying.

The moment of realization. Photo by Erika Rojas

I finished the piece and left the stage that night unable to stop my tears. I'm sick, because the actor in me went, "This is what theater is all about!" Amazing. I'd been working on the piece for months and somehow I hadn't allowed myself to remember the date. I've made such important discoveries in rehearsal, sure all the time, but never onstage before. It was really an experience. Anyway, after all the opening drama, I really had a blast doing the show and met some AMAZING people. I had such a good time with all of them and I can't wait to work on the next project with that company.

4. My next show opens Wednesday. We've been in intense rehearsals for a while now and I think major improvements have been made. It's hard to tell, though, because we don't get much positive feedback, which has been interesting. It's very hard to tell what we're doing right. But we keep hearing, "no feedback is good news," so I'm trying to trust that, and trust myself to know that the character development that I've done is working. Pictures and updates from this project coming soon. The pictures are gonna be amazing!! (1919 period dress and 1978 hippy garb...wait for it...)

5. I also worked an event for a well known microwave meal brand. My flyering girls and I manned the microwaves making everything from Pizza to eggrolls for a group of drunk, and sometimes inappropriate, advertising executives (I really get paid to do this shit :). My hair definitely smelled like basil and cabbage at the end of the night, but I had a great time. It's all about the attitude and the people. Same goes for the Shopping tours! They've been fantastic. I'm super comfortable now and I absolutely love my job! ... and I love that I can say that. :)

If you've made it this far, I appreciate your conviction. No one spit on me or anything this month, but give it time... I've got final dress rehearsal tomorrow night and we open Wednesday. Wish me broken legs!

Forgive Me

Dear Blog,

I'm sorry.
I haven't forgotten about you. New post is in the works.
Life is nuts.
I'm a hot disaster.

Talk soon...promise,
Sarah e J.