Hi everyone! I am thrilled to be one of this year's Take 5ers. I am an actor and writer in NYC who grew up right outside Philadelphia. Have you ever noticed no one seems to be from Philadelphia but always "right outside Philadelphia"? While I happily work in many media (theater, commercials, voiceovers, audio books), one of my greatest joys as an actor is working on new plays.
Right now I'm having a ridiculously good time rehearsing "Mickey & Sage," by the wonderful Sara Farrington. I play Sage, a 9-year-old girl trapped in her backyard with Mickey, the 11-year-old pal she adores (and who finds her completely exasperating). We'll do a full run at NYC's Incubator Arts Project in September. Until then, we're offering workshop showings Jan. 20 to 29 at Foxy Films. Give a shout-out to MickeyandSage@gmail.com to join the fun.
I organize a new play–generating project in Brooklyn. One Friday night each month, six playwrights and 12 actors gather. The playwrights pick two actors' names from a hat, as well as one piece of inspiration to spark their writing (we've used everything from horror movie posters to family photos). Saturday we write the plays. Sunday we perform them for an audience. It's insane, and it's inspiring. Each time we dive into the madness, I'm reminded that we all have endless reserves of creativity inside us. Sometimes all we need to tap into the magic are two actors, one suggestion, and a firm deadline.
I am also a new member of InViolet Rep, a fantastic NYC theater company that began much in the same way companies like LAByrinth and Steppenwolf did: a group of actors coming together to diversify their talents in the theater and make great things happen. I feel like I have been invited to a wonderful party, and I'm excited to see where we grow from here. Speaking of parties, we have a big one coming up Feb. 12 in Manhattan: "InViolet InRed," our annual benefit gala. I'd love you to throw on your sexiest red outfit and join us for food, drinks, and dancing. Also, if you happen to be in the Atlanta area this month, check out "40 Weeks," our co-production with OnStage Atlanta.
My 2012 goals are pretty epic and include everything from spending more time in the voiceover booth (one of my favorite places to be) to publishing the line of humor storybooks I'm writing. Instead of rattling off that long list, I'd like to leave you with the overriding goal I have for us as an acting community this year. Paula Vogel once said, "We rise in circles." Let's take this concept 100 percent to heart. Let's embrace every opportunity to not only celebrate one another's successes but actively participate in bringing them about. Let's operate from a place of generosity and trust that when we provide encouragement and opportunity to others, it returns to us tenfold. Happy new year!
Tim Intravia, NYC
I finished Circle in the Square Theatre School's two-year program six years ago. After our industry showcase, I didn't get a single phone call or interview request. My classmates had meetings left and right, and I thought my career was over before it started. Turns out, that was the best thing to happen to me. It taught me that no one was going to do it for me and that I had to work for myself—be my own agent, manager, publicist, disciplinarian, what have you.
I started by going to every audition I was close to being right for. I woke up at the crack of dawn so Equity could turn me away day after day. My tenacity eventually paid off after going to a nonunion open call for something I was completely wrong for. The producers loved me and cast me in another show they also worked on (an Off-Broadway contract), and I joined Equity.
Commercials never seemed like my bag. I just didn't see myself as the "commercial type" I grew up watching, in between "Charles in Charge" and "The Brady Bunch" reruns. I've since booked more than two dozen commercials, including my first national spot (Friendly's) in August.
Writing wasn't even a thought in my mind when I got into acting (after graduating from college with an unrelated degree). But last year the one-man show I wrote about my survival job as a human statue street performer won best one-man comedy at the United Solo Theatre Festival. (Please like "From Busk Till Dawn" on Facebook, and excuse the shameless plug.)
I tell you all this not to brag or pat myself on the back but to let you know that hard work, patience, and perseverance pay off. People always tell me I'm going to make it in this business, and I'm finally starting to believe them. Look, I'm not famous, and I'm not supporting myself solely on acting work. I still have to catch lunch specials and happy hours and read the free newspapers in the morning, but I'm seeing the progress I've always heard about. I'm experiencing those small breaks that (hopefully) lead to the big ones, and I'm trying to enjoy the ride.
Anyone who knows me would say I'm a "glass half empty" guy, and that's something I want to change. I tend to see the negative more than the positive, and one of my main goals for this year is to embrace my career for where it is instead of where I wish it was. I also want to finally get a voiceover reel together and re-edit my acting reel with footage from "Dead by Friday," the film that, when it finally gets finished, could do very good things for me. Most important, I want to plan and have the best wedding ever, to the love of my life. After all, some things are more important than being on TV. Follow me on Twitter @timintravia.
Stephen Tobolowsky, Los Angeles
I was born in the 1950s in Dallas, Texas. That's when I wanted to become an actor. I thought it meant I would have adventures. Fly into space like Rocky Jones. Tame the West like John Wayne. Fall in love and try to save the old building and loan like Jimmy Stewart. I acted as a teenager in play competitions the Dallas city parks had during the summer months. I starred in "Wilber Takes His Medicine" and the "Ghost of Hootin' Holler"—which our director renamed "The Ghost of Pumpkin Holler" because she thought "hootin' " sounded too rowdy.
I was a child of the '60s who never did drugs. I had no idea what Woodstock was. In college I ate, drank, and dreamed theater. The stage. The English Stage. Olivier. Gielgud. Plowright. I read plays and thought that one day I would do Chekhov on Broadway. (Hold for laugh.)
Now I am a professional actor. I have been in more than 200 movies and television shows. I have been on Broadway twice. The first time we "closed" on opening night. The second time we were showered with praise, ran for a year. We were nominated for more Tonys than any other straight play in Broadway history (we, including me, lost them all).
I have been in a movie that has permeated popular culture, "Groundhog Day." I have been on landmark television programs: "Deadwood," "Heroes," and "Glee." I scored a national voiceover campaign—all the trappings of success. And yet I wake up every morning scared as a jackrabbit. I am terrified I will never work again. Daily, I torment over ways I can improve my auditions, my study techniques for a shoot, and strategies to keep my sanity when the cards are against me.
It is a brutal business. The irony is that I think most of us want to be actors because of something quite idyllic, perhaps something in our childhood—a moment when we saw a performance that moved us to laughter or tears and we said, "I want to do that, too." Or when we saw a community theater performance of "The Fantasticks," and we imagined ourselves trying to remember the kind of September. There are a lot of things I don't know about this business. We will get to those later. The one I do know is that we are involved in the creation of magic. Real magic. I have seen it work. I have seen its effects. I respect its power. I respect the cost it takes on all of us who still pursue that little flame. The one that warmed us years ago when we saw something we didn't quite understand. Something that kept us awake at night, dreaming.
Back Stage has asked us to express our goals for this year. In no specific order: To continue to try to get better. To get another job. To remember the little flame that got me here in the first place.
Vanessa Smith, Los Angeles
Hello, fellow artists and performers. I'm Vanessa Stewart (formerly Smith). I was married in June to a wonderful man who is an actor, despite telling myself I would never marry one. My heart apparently had other plans. Anyway, I'm very honored to have the opportunity to express in writing this year everything I've come to learn about this business since I started performing at age 8.
I studied musical theater at Webster Conservatory in St. Louis, where I received a BFA, and followed that up with classical training at the Oxford School of Drama with really awesome teachers from the RSC. Growing up, my favorite actors in TV and film (Glenn Close, Meryl Streep, Emma Thompson) had theater training—so I figured if I wanted to be as good as them, I had to train like them. After school, all I wanted to do was make a living as an actor. I didn't need to be "famous." I didn't need to be rich. I just wanted a normal life and to start a normal family like every girl who grew up in Monroe, La. And I knew that there were only two places to make a living as an actor: Los Angeles and New York City. New York intimidated me. I love the theater, but the idea of living hand to mouth in a cluster of tall buildings seemed scary to my small-town sensibilities.
So I moved to Los Angeles a decade ago to chase the elusive dream of making a living at playing pretend. The first smart idea I had was to find a good theater company that did great work and agreed with my artistic sensibilities. I started hanging out with the Sacred Fools theater company in 2004, and it quickly became my safe place, my West Coast family. I think it's really important to have something like that in Los Angeles. Mom always told me when I was a kid, "If you're lost, stay in the same place until somebody finds you." And that's what I did. I was "found" at the Sacred Fools theater company in 2008 while performing a show that I had written with Jake Broder called "Louis and Keely: Live at the Sahara." My family at Sacred Fools believed in me enough to produce this little play that, when I told them the idea, hadn't even been written. It premiered that May, then re-opened at the Matrix Theatre, then became one of the longest-running shows at the Geffen Playhouse, with Taylor Hackford at the helm.
I was finally able to quit my three jobs, get an agent, get a manager, and have the career I always hoped for. Over the course of 2012, we will be readying "Louis and Keely" for its next incarnation as we head east. Looks like I'm going to have to get used to the idea of tall buildings after all. 2012 is going to be quite the year, and I'm looking forward to sharing with you my journey of being a self-producing actor-writer. I'll end this with one of my favorite inspirational quotes: "The difference between a goal and a dream is a deadline." Make 2012 your year of achievable goals.
McKinley Belcher III, Los Angeles
I'm sitting here in an apartment in New Haven, Conn., having just had a nap after a long day of rehearsal at the Long Wharf Theatre. I'm gearing up to play Macbeth in a world-premiere adaptation called "Macbeth 1969" that's literally and unashamedly kicking my butt. I sit here a Southern boy from Atlanta, Ga., and technically still residing in Los Angeles. It's strange to consider the winding road that has left me bundled up in a blanket, in a strange new place, with a black binder next to me full of pages from one of Shakespeare's most haunting and dare I say disturbing plays. I can't help but laugh at the life I've found, or maybe I should say the life that found me. (Don't worry, more clichés to follow.)
I came to acting rather late. I spent all of high school admiring drama club from afar. Toward the end of my freshman year at Belmont University, a friend convinced me to audition for "A Raisin in the Sun." I got the part. On the first day, I was a stuttering-shaky mess, but somehow I found my own way to opening night and that there was something thrilling about how terrified I was. I was a private person who suddenly felt energized and alive to reveal myself in this very public forum. But I had planned to go to law school. Fast-forward through graduation, a miserable year working for a law firm, art stepping into the foreground, grad school auditions, and moving from Atlanta to attend USC in Los Angeles.
I graduated from USC with an MFA in May 2010 a more confident, centered actor. Thanks to our showcase, I entered the industry with theatrical and commercial representation. I was auditioning pretty regularly in Los Angeles, but I quickly gave myself the nickname "Almost" for the many times I almost got that career-changing role. I booked a couple of co-stars on TV and a commercial or two and did Equity waiver theater (what I like to call 99-cent theater). I was moving forward as an actor, but I was missing the catharsis and challenge that I'd learned to love in grad school. So I began my search for a play that might satisfy that desire. I found a theater in New York that was producing a play I knew I had to do. I booked the job. Those two months ended up stretching into four. I got a taste of what it'd be like to live in NYC and built a relationship with the New York branch of my agency. I booked two more shows, the last of which I'm working on now at the Long Wharf.
I'm proud to be Equity and SAG, and I'm investigating trading my L.A. sun for New York pavement. I couldn't be more excited to ride out this next year with you all. I already feel a bit naked, as we'll be experiencing together my successes, failures, growth, and hopefully a seamless move from the West Coast. Here's to parading around in my artistic birthday suit for the next year.
