her adventures (real and imagined)

This job was designed for me.

I must learn how to drive a stick shift between now and the fall but other  than that..

I am sending in a cover letter and resume and head shot to this job posting tomorrow. No joke.

How many other people do you know who speak french, ride horses and swim (together?!), have acting experience, are funny, are willing to try just about any type of food and have traveled in Europe previously?

If you fit the bill. You should join me!

Travel Commentator

Date: 2012-05-16, 4:37PM

Experienced filmmaker wants resilient, enthusiastic and funny travel commentator/journalist for foreign travel documentary in western Europe and the Mediterranean. This will be a film exploring origins of a small facet of European and Mediterranean art, folklore and folk history. The film will be dominated by striking visuals, fast cuts and short humorous soundbites. NOTE: This will be a two person team working guerrilla style and very low profile.

Requirements:

Must interview with and audition for both producer and filmmaker

Must have an enduring and endearing sense of humor

Must be able to prepare and deliver funny on-camera lead-ins, content and tags in sometimes less than ideal conditions

Must like foreign travel, foreign foods

Must like to enjoy and roam big cities, negotiate mountain trails, swim in the ocean, explore ancient ruins and picturesque villages

Must have a passing interest in European and Mediterranean art, folklore and folk history

Must have passport with at least 6 months remaining for travel to EU

Must be available for 10 to 14 days in early fall (dates to be negotiated)

Must enjoy traveling light and fast by air, rail, boat and car

Must be able to be resilient to weather, fatigue, schedule changes and stress

Must be licensed driver and able to safely operate vehicles with manual transmission (4 x 4 driving experience a plus – not required) in less than ideal conditions if required

Must be at least 21 years old

Must be a bit of a risk taker/adventurer

Must be comfortable around and be able to ride horses and to swim.

Must have (or be able to get) verifiable references that attest to your character (we have them and so should you)

Must have headshots and resume – demo clip desired if available

Must be able to communicate in simple Spanish, French or Italian (or at least be able to find the phrase you need in a phrase book)

Paid gig (amount negotiable). All transportation, food, lodging and travel insurance provided

• Location: Western Europe/Med
• Compensation: Comp compares to minimum SAG rates (more depending on demonstrated ability)
• This is a contract job.
• OK to highlight this job opening for persons with disabilities
• OK for recruiters to contact this job poster.
• Please, no phone calls about this job!
• Please do not contact job poster about other services, products or commercial interests.

Original URL: http://austin.craigslist.org/tfr/3019735172.html

Allow me to shed a bit of light into the actor’s brain, on stage: if you’re acting well, your brain is chalk full. You are busily suspending your disbelief (“there’s no audience there, there’s a wall, with a window and ahhh, such a view”), character perspective (“I love this man.”), motivations (“boy, I want to have sex with him! this very instant!”) and technical skills (“I’m holding for a laugh, but my character is just pausing”).

You’re on stage, delivering your lines but at the same time you are aware of your location in space. Is your face visible? Are you in your light? Can your voice be heard? Those are the most basic technical thoughts and all the secondary ones involving spatial relationships to other actors and set, as well as costumes and props can basically be fudged. (Unless you are in the middle of a carefully choreographed fight or dance).

Likewise, you are doing all kinds of “acting.” Some people might harbor the belief that beyond technical work, theater acting and film acting are the same. Not so! I shout. In the theater you are working with a live audience, your scene happens and there are no re-dos. You are listening and responding in real time, with no chance to go back and “get it again.” So, while little technical bits float around in the brain, you are also listening and responding, verbally and nonverbally to the words and action on stage (don’t worry, I’ll get to the sexy part soon). Acting, in other words, keeps the brain quite occupied.

That’s part of the relief of art, and for me, acting. Your day, your rent payment, your laundry and your work dissipate into the ether. They must, or else acting would be completely impossible. The challenge and richness of a scene and fellow actors gets me most of the way there and the additional adrenaline of a live audience helps cut that cord completely.

But, it’s always a little bit tougher when my mom sees a show. She’s seen almost every show I’ve ever done. She flew to Chicago once to see me perform. She visited LA to see me in a college production of Lysistrata and and has endured the most wonderfully unique fringe theater since my return to Seattle.

Death/Sex :Election, just happens to be a quirky, fun, sexy set of short shows by local writers and it is great fun. I have the great privilege to work in a piece that Wayne Rawley wrote: “Sex Life” . And, in this tightly written play, (excuse the foreshadowy pun / everything-becomes-a-sex-joke-when-think-about-this show) I am Deborah, a young women who begs/demands/seduces/blackmails a guy into having sex with her.

Let’s be clear: sex is not had on stage. There is low level nakedness (bra). However, there are vocabulary words that, well, let’s just say I don’t use these words in my daily life. Except as exclamations, sometimes, some of them. It is a show about two people and about sex. And my mom is seeing it.

It’s natural to imagine the experience of the show from your mom’s perspective when you know she is in the audience. Additionally, I suffering from the performers complex of feeling as though I am on stage most of the time and so I am quite practiced at self monitoring. I can picture what she is seeing. And, tonight, she will see me blush (as I have been doing throughout the run of the show, not out of character and completely beyond my control), and she will hear me say words such as, “pussy”, “anal” and “dick.” There are no cats and no guys named Richard in the show.

So! Wish me luck! Maybe I will be able to convince myself that she’s missed it and I will be able to not hear her gasping with surprise or laughing uncomfortably (or genuinely) as I stalk around the stage this evening. Either way, it is definitely an additional challenge. But she really wanted to see it. So, here. we. go.

Tech Week for Death/Sex is upon us. It’s been rehearsals, from 6 pm – 11 pm- all week long. And we open tomorrow (Thursday!)

This process is just as reassuring and as nerve wracking as it has been since the early techs of high school. Lights are hung and focused. Sound is added. All of a sudden it is bright out there, and you have a song that cues your entrance. It all becomes real and you realize, once again, that this is all really going to happen. (“God, why God, did I sign up for this?!” is a thought that crosses most actors’ minds during Tech. – an equally extreme thought, as the first laughs tinker in from the stage manager, sitting in the audience is: “God I love doing this.”)

Tech week consumes your thoughts: as you drift off to sleep you think, “am I really going to be wearing a wig?” As you bike to work, you wonder, “will the stage really be painted before we open?” Ah the wonders  and horrors of new and strange props, cut and added lines and mustaches that keep falling off.

Highlights of this particular tech: managing to feel sexy while saying the dirty dirty lines that brilliant local playwright, Wayne Rawley crafted. lowlight: last play, mustache failure. I completely lost it. Was laughing uncontrollably, as myself (not acting!), on stage. Sean (the director) had attempted to write a note but only got so far as: “Colleen.” Yeah. Note taken.

But, there is a saying: bad dress, great open. Let’s hope so!

You all know that feeling when a sushi chef knows your name?

Ok, maybe not, but you might have a bartender (or 3) who does and, if not, then you’ve at least seen Cheers?

Well, having a sushi chef who knows your name is pretty stellar. It’s a way to get treated like family, make good conversation and eat the best of the best, away from home.

A former boyfriend and I had been going to Hana Sushi ( meaning “flower”) once a month for about 5 months when we earned our masu! Masu are those square, wooden boxes that people drink sake out of and that you sometimes see stacked above the bar (sometimes with peoples’ names scrawled all over them). Those boxes, you think, are staged. Or, “what do you have to do to get one of those?” As it turns out, all you have to do is sit up front, appreciate the fantastic luck of eating like a king, and keep coming back. I recommend that you find yourself a sushi place with your own masu- Hana or elsewhere. 

Experiencing sushi as it was meant to be experienced means letting your sushi chef (in this case, the fabulously talented Yoshi) pick your meal for you (this is called “omakase” – the equivalent of “Chef’s choice”). Our first meal involved a fair amount of sake, quite a bit of conversation with Yoshi and a ton of fantastic food. That meal was the second time I had sea urchin (and certainly the 1st time I enjoyed it), the first time I enjoyed the sweet raw shrimp (and its following fried head) and the first time I’d compared two differently raised salmons (wild versus farm-raised) of the same breed (think: advanced cheese tasting in France).

I was raised on traditional, euro-influenced food. I remember the first time I had sushi (in high school) and until about 4 years ago, I was an eel-roll kind of girl. But, slowly, the wonders of nigiri (along with the “is this sustainable?” guilt) have become apparent. The escolar! the white tuna! The sea bass! Oh dear.

Hana doesn’t have a website (! I know!) but they do have a normal little location and phone number: 219 Broadway E
(between John St & Olive Way)
Seattle, WA 98102  - 206-328-1187

Visit them and you won’t be disappointed. Saunter right up to the sushi bar and ask Yoshi for whatever is good today.

I was pretty excited for my cheesey grits, kale and poached eggs

Since I have returned home with the cold that everyone was fighting when I left Seattle. And since I am moving from Ballard to Capitol Hill this week, it will be a struggle to post about my recent trip to NYC. But, I did photo doc the food well via Twitter, so if you wanna check out the pics immediately to the right of this post, please do!

This one is in a little spot called Egg- our last breakfast in Brooklyn. It was incredibly tasty. Also tried the sausage (a huge side serving- nicely spiced) and the french toast- which was a soft brioche. Of course, being a grits girl who rarely gets them, I had to order and def had to upgrade to cheesy! Hello! It was vacation!

The eggs were perfectly poached and the kale was fresh, and had a great texture/ flavor. As per a yelp review, we had the french press coffee- which is locally roasted and is good stuff.

If you find yourself in Brooklyn, get to Egg for a b-fast, but be prepared for a little wait if you arrive after about 10:30 – since that’s when the world actually starts to wake up in NYC.