Starting next week I will also be writing a blog on aussietheatre.com.au entitled Matt’s Murmurs.
It will basically be my feelings on the industry, the business side of acting and technology that I think will be useful for actors.
My first post I think is going to be about successfully using twitter as an actor.
Matt
Ok, so I had a great response to my article on Dr Zhivago audition info, so I thought I would keep them coming. Please leave a message or facebook like it, as it helps google recognise its a decent article, so more people can find it.
Produced by: Rodney Rigby, Carl Levin, Matthew Weaver, Jeff Davis, Barry Habib, Scott Prisand and Corner Store Fund.
CASTING TEAM
Director: Kristin Hanggi
Choreographer: Kelly Devine
Musical Supervisor: Ethan Popp
Musical Consultant: Luke Hunter
Casting Director: Lynne Ruthven
Opens: Comedy Theatre Melbourne, April 2011
Rehearsals: Feb 2011
Part of a national tour
Audition Schedule First Round
Melbourne – from Sunday 23 May
Sydney – from Monday 31 May
Brisbane – from Friday 4 June
Perth – from Sat 5 June
From: http://www.guidetomusicaltheatre.com/shows_r/rockofages.html
In the late 1980s, an aspiring rocker, Drew, works as a busboy in the trademark Hollywood bar/club The Bourbon Room. He falls instantly for a cute girl, Sherrie, who arrives from Kansas hoping to make it big in acting. After being hired by the bar, Sherrie accepts Drew’s invitation to have a picnic at a place overlooking Los Angeles. There, he mistakenly suggests that the two are just friends. Later, at the Bourbon Room, ladies’ man and lead singer for his band Arsenal, Stacee Jaxx, will be playing that night and instantly hits it off with Sherrie and the two have sex in the bar’s bathroom. Subsequently, Drew proves his musical ability in the club and is chosen to open for Stacee. A record producer in the club offers Drew a contract, which he accepts.
Meanwhile, German city developers, Hertz and his son Franz, convince the city’s mayor to abandon the “sex, drugs and rock-n-roll” lifestyle of the Sunset Strip to introduce “clean living” into the area. It is revealed that the club will be torn down in the process, much to the anger of the Mayor’s city planner, Regina (pronounced so as to rhyme with vagina).
Initially embarrassed when they meet on the street, Drew later tells Sherrie that he was angry that she left him for Stacee, but she did not think Drew liked her, since he said the two were just friends. After arguing in the street, Sherrie announces that she had actually liked Drew, but she is now over him. Sherrie becomes upset at Stacee’s uncaring nature (he continually calls her “Rachel” for starters). Drew’s rocker image has been changed to that of a boy band by his new record producer. An upset Sherrie meets “Mama”, the owner of a nearby strip club (though she clearly prefers the term “gentleman’s club”). She relates to Sherrie’s story, saying that many of the small-town girls hoping to hit it big in LA end up making a living as strippers. Much to her dislike, she accepts Mama’s offer to work in her club.
Stacee arrives at the club and is pleased to see Sherrie there, though Sherrie is not happy to see Stacee. Drew arrives to admit his feelings to her, but become disheartened when he sees the two in a suggestive position. Mama later tells Drew that as soon as he left, Sherrie punched Stacee in the jaw.
Regina continues her protest against the destruction of the Strip, but yields no success. She convinces Franz to stand up to his father if he does not believe in this cause. Franz admits he’s had dreams of his own, namely to open a confectioner’s store back home in Germany. He finally rebels against his father and admits his love for Regina. Finally, Sherrie and Drew let bygones be bygones and rekindle their love for each other. The Bourbon Room is spared demolition and wash-up Stacee Jaxx has since moved to Uruguay. His position in Arsenal is replaced with Joey Primo. Everyone celebrates (Don’t Stop Believin’)
Rock of ages at the 2009 Tony Awards.
youTube group – Everything Rock of Ages – Lots of RoA Videos.
Will be adding more info soon. Please Comment or contact me if you have something to add.
Chookas for your auditions – Matt
So recently announced, completely out of the blue, are auditions for a new musical based on the Boris Pasternak novel Dr Zhivago.
Not being able to find out much about it, and with the Dr Zhivago website down at the moment I thought I would compile as much information as I could find.
What we know:
The production is scheduled for 2011, produced by John Frost and Anita Waxman and is to star Anthony Warlow.
Auditions are scheduled for:
Production:
Rehearsals: Sydney 23 December 2010
Previews: Sydney 11 February 2011
Opens: Sydney 19 February 2011
Creative Team:
Composer:
Lyricists:
Book:
Synopsis – Directly from “http://www.thegordonfrostorganisation.com/home.html”
Boris Paternak’s epic love story, set against the Russian Revolution, comes to life as a new musical directed by Tony® Award winner Des McAnuff.
Dr Zhivago tells the story of Yuri Zhivago, a man torn between his love for two women, his wife Tonya and Lara the love of his life, while caught in the tumultuous course of early twentieth century Russian history.
“Having a chance to enter the world of Doctor Zhivago with my esteemed collaborators to bring a great love story and a turbulent period in Russian history to life is a rare opportunity. We can go full-out and make Pasternak’s sweeping romances – that of Lara and Zhivago and their beloved country – musically and theatrically soar.” Des McAnuff, Director
Links to articles and Reviews:
Review of the 2006 production – La Jolla Playhouse, California.
Second review of the 2006 production – La Jolla Playhouse, California. – by Anne Marie Welsh
Playbill review of the same production.
Will post more information as I find it.
Please feel free to comment or email me if you have anything to add.
As a follow up to this weeks earlier article on the amount of local content on our TV stations, this was mentioned in the weekly Equity E-Bulleton:
Multi-channelling debate: The debate keeps raging on the licence fee rebate: http://tinyurl.com/ycxjbhf. According to this week’s schedule, the Nine Network’s multi-channel Go! will reach a grand total of 10 minutes of local programming – a locally hosted introduction to Warner Brothers cartoons on Saturday and Sunday morning. This equates to the appalling figure of 0.13 per cent local content.
- Christopher Warren, Equity E-Bulletin, 19 March 2010.
REALLY? How do they even manage to get something that is 10 minutes on there… or is that 5 x 2 minute news updates or something.
And read it people… this is for an entire week!!!!
I read an interesting article today in the Herald Sun about the recent government handouts for local TV stations and what it means as far as issues with broadcasting local content. Apparently they are supposed to broadcast at least 55% local content between 6am and midnight.
I thought it was an interesting article. Opening quote below and link below that:
THERE is nothing like a $250 million government handout to bring the critics out of the woodwork. Just ask the free-to-air TV networks – Seven, Nine and Ten – which are under pressure to increase their level of Australian content after the Government’s recent $250 million licence rebate.
Herald Sun article. | Article details: Geoff Shearer, Colin Vickery From:Herald Sun. March 17, 2010 2:19PM.
After my last article I thought I would continue to talk about branding for actors. One thing that I think I failed to mention in my last post is that it is not about pretending to be something else, being fake or choosing what you are going to portray. It’s about finding out who you truly are, playing to that, and letting your natural personality do the work for you. In a word, your 'essence.'
Work out who you are, and what your essence is. What are your strengths? What makes you unique? What are you going to bring to this production that no one else can? A huge part of marketing for actors is just that. If you can walk into an audition room, and have already answered those questions, coupled with adequate preparation, you will already feel much more at ease and seem more comfortable and confident with what you are offering. You also take the pressure off the casting team, if you have worked out where you fit and what you can offer, they don't need to do it. After all you are asking them to buy your product. You need to know exactly what your product is, why they need it and do it with confidence.
So this is the start of branding, being comfortable in your brand, owning your brand. It will allow you to shine through, giving you the best possible chance to be cast in something that you are truly right for, can excel at, and hopefully will lead on to bigger things.
Matt Edwards
As actors we are our own small businesses, we are in charge of our careers, their direction and inevitably their success and failure. Many people will probably disagree with that statement “The industry is luck” or “Right place, right time,” but isn’t it nicer to think that you have some control over what is happening, rather than being a bottle tossed around at the whim of the industry. I think that taking some ownership and responsibility for your career and being proactive about its direction is incredibly powerful. We have advisors, agents and mentors, but the final say is up to you. Just simply for your peace of mind, your career can live and die by your own decisions.
One of the first steps in this process is personal branding. We will go into more details on how to communicate your brand in future posts, but this is an introduction to personal branding for actors and will hopefully give you just a few things to think about with your own career.
A brand is a set of perceptions that enter peoples minds when they think of a product or service, (an initial reaction). It can stimulate positive or negative connotations depending on how well the companies branding is succeeding. The aim is for a brand to represent how the company would like to be portrayed. This is where we hope to end up.
For personal branding it can be broken down to:
Why is it important to actors? First and foremost it help you to work out what roles you will be considered for, and work towards them. Secondly if it turns out your idea of yourself is vastly different to everyone else’s then you need to sit down and analyse why this is.
Now, this doesn’t mean that you have to choose a personality and stick to it, or you can’t be yourself, or that you have to be always ‘on’. It is about considering how you are seen and aiming to keep it consistent. Do your headshots match your personality? Are your favourite audition songs supporting your brand? Do casting directors see what you are aiming for? If not you either have to MAKE them change their minds, or align more closely with what they are seeing.
Consider this situation: you really want a role that is coming up for audition, a young, charming romantic lead. You believe your skills are perfect for this role. If you have managed to exude young, charming and romantic ‘leadishness’ every time you have met the director in the past whether at an audition, or at an opening night they will already have a positive feeling when you walk into the room. It is still up to you to prove your skill, but you are in a much stronger position.
Thats all for now, hope this leaves you with a little something to think about. Would love to hear any comments people might have.
Matt
Hi, My names Matt and I make websites for actors.
On top of that I have started this blog which is aimed at Australian Actors. There is so much information out there on the internet at the moment for actors, however most of it is American, and while their industry seems very similar to ours there are as many differences.
For instange in Australia should you send a casting director a postcard of your headshot every month? Possibly not.
These are the kind of ideas that we will be exploring here. I will also delve into the idea of Marketing for actors. What simple marketing techniques can we apply to our careers? Personal brand management, what is it and how can it be used by an actor. Leveraging social media like facebook and twitter to help us in our careers, not just to keep up on gossip.
So I hope you find what I am about to embark on interesting, informative and entertaining.
Please… PLEASE leave comments with ideas for articles, comments and even more if you disagree with what I am saying, would be great to get a debate started.
Cheers, Matt.
