Survival Mode is Kicking In

Living in the city can be challenging. At some point, your instincts kick in and it turns into a game of survival. Have you ever survived on $20 for two weeks? Have you ever eaten a ketchup sandwich? Have you ever wanted to throw your shoes at the local hobo to give your blisters a break? I am having one of those weeks.

To be fair, I've had a busy year. Important events in 2009-2010:

-Moved my life to California to receive the cultural shock of a lifetime

-Wound up living in a frat house with 7 other people

-Had a car crash that left me homeless and couch surfing for two weeks

-Had to be carried out of a bar in West Hollywood

-Moved out of the frat house

-Survived a six-alarm fire

-Had a substantial and short-lived fling

-Designed my first CalArts show

-Randomly hooked up with a masseuse

-Attended a college reunion and visited Waco for the last time

-Dealt with Mom's accident (random temporary amnesia)

-Completed first assistantship with my mentor

-Almost decided to drop out of grad school

-Completed first year of grad school

-Moved my life to New York

-Designed my first Off-Broadway show

-Suffering the not-getting-paid-any-time-soon thing

-Got my identity stolen by a Frenchman

-Offered first commercial work by a potentially shady character

-Maxed out the credit card and starved a little

soon...

-Fly to Texas to move youngest sister into college

-Fly to LA to start the cycle all over

And now you are caught up with my life! Hooray to me for posting. I'll put something up of value one day.

Working in the Big Apple

So maybe it's been a while. Try almost a year. But hey, give me a break. I'm in grad school here.

One year down in school. I survived. Too many things happened already for me to start listing stuff that happened in the school year including escaping both a crazy landlady and a burning building, getting kicked out of a bar, going on my first true assistantship, witnessing complete hippy anarchy, getting in a car accident, and hooking up with a masseuse (by now everyone knows that story). Old news. So here is what is going on now:

I have moved to NYC for the summer. My photographer/college buddy Sam is "vacationing" at Williamstown Theatre Festival currently so I am subletting his apartment and roommate in Astoria. It's working out fabulously. I bought a plane ticket with money only for rent and a Metropass and started looking for work.

My first job literally fell into my lap as I was making my connecting flight in Milwaukee. I said yes before I knew what it was. Turns out to be an Off-Broadway show with both a stipend and a budget. This is both rare and AWESOME. It's a restoration comedy, The Country Wife, set in an industrial, decrepit theatre. The acting and directing for this piece is truly phenomenal. Check it out: http://www.broadwayworld.com/article/MacCary_Minshew_Bobst_to_Star_in_THE_COUNTRY_WIFE_20010101

Part of my daily routine is cruising the net for jobs. My third day, I found another show, Den of Thieves, looking for a lighting designer that happened to be in the same space (again, Off-Broadway) that the first one was in. They got excited and hired me. I got excited and charged almost double the first show. Heh.

I found one more show that week, and it was one that is a new work in a really good Off-Broadway house (New World Stages). I really loved the piece and created a fantastic presentation for the director meeting. He got excited about me and my ideas and I'm pretty sure I'm top choice for this. This is a big budget show with a set that is in a two-story department store, really exciting and challenging. Unfortunately, I did a little checking up on this producer and he's got three different write-ups on Ripoff Report for not paying people. One of the reports including a video. Apparently this really fun producer was a failed American Idol contestant, one of the ones they put on the show for everyone else to laugh at. Yikes. This project is still pending, I'm a little shady-ed out.

CalArts Alum Association (AKA the CalArts Mafia) is pretty incredible. I'm managed to find a ton of alums that are totally cool with having a newbie around for whatever projects they are working on. One of the projects I helped out with took place in the Swedish cottage in Central Park. It was the Oresteia told with true puppets and Greek people. Working in a puppet theatre was actually a little bizarre. Everything is miniatured, even the lighting equipment! I felt like Alice in Wonderland, completely out of scale! It was fun and an interesting thing to be a part of.

The show that I am helping out with now is called Conni's Avant-Garde Restaurant in Cambridge, MA near Harvard. It is dinner theatre completely reimagined, staged in a club, and is running in rep with a nightclub show. It's theatre of the absurd but it's completely collaborative with the theatre group. They function like a family and this piece is so incredibly unique that I am having a blast. We are staying in a house of puppeteers, which is awesome. There are all kinds of puppets shoved in every corner of the house; art supplies, plants, cats, and journals strewn about amongst the clutter. Here is the show link:

http://www.avantgarderestaurant.com/Home.html

I will post more soon, chronicling the activities and sights that I have been experiencing soon! Also look forward to Working in the B.A. Part II: Spiderman The Musical (yes, it is going to happen).

Til next time!

-s

So I just traveled across the country ..

...and by 'just traveled' I actually mean that I've been in California for a whole week. I've decided to split posts up to catch you up to speed on. So here we go!

First and foremost you should know that driving to California is not for the faint of heart. It's not because you are trapped in a car for about thirty hours with your increasingly more senile parents, oh no. It's the fact that 93% of the journey you are traveling through NOTHINGNESS!! (also known as desert country). Most of the entire Southwest looks pretty much like this:

Can you imagine living in this? The only thing that has made this impossible journey bearable is the fact the Half-Priced Books has stocked up on their Harry Potter audiobooks (on cassette because no one have afford to buy the CDS, even at half price...) Audiobooks might be the most amazing thing of my life. Seriously! You are just listening along as the reader dude does different voices and finally understand why it takes some people like a week to finish an HP instead of the usual night...

We did have to drive through a crazy lightning storm in New Mexico. It was the most terrifying and awe-inspiring thing I've ever seen. These bolts of lightning are as tall as any skyscraper in New York City and connected the sky with the earth. They were striking ground literally in every direction and it felt very close to our cars! The vastness of the sky in the flat desert is overwhelming, almost intimidating...like it is about to swallow you or crush you.

Finally, we actually arrived in California to discover that most of "sunny California" is actually sunny because most of it is desert. Did you know that California's agriculture is so huge that they literally stop you at the border of the state and search your car for produce and plants? Crazy! Somewhere in the middle of of the journey, the desert turned into mountains! This is a picture of Valencia's mountains with Six Flags Magic Mountain in the foreground (while some people enjoy roller coasters, I enjoy breathing and living more so living right next is Six Flags is not excellent news for me)

Valencia is 30 miles away from downtown LA and 20 miles away from the Santa Monica beaches and is pretty much amazing. Wanna hear more about Valencia, the places I've visited, and CalArts? Tune in next time, ya'll!

First post....and it's already three in the morning...

So today is one of my last days in the good ole state of Texas so I am commemorating the occasion by pulling all-nighters every day this week in preparation for the upcoming 30+ hour drive on Thursday to my grad life in LA. PARTY! Zach and I recently purchased Macbook Pros together and are dedicating every waking moment to learning how to use them properly. Ya'll, seriously. Once you go Mac, you never go back for real. Check out this totally sweet picture of us learning the joys of PhotoBooth. We are getting ready to start our own emo band and hit up the nearest Common Grounds...


Be jealous of us. Til next time, Shelly OUT!