2012, I'll miss you...

Hello one and all! I do hope you are all well and survived the apocalypse, otherwise this blog post seems quite pointless!

So it's now 21st December which means there are only 3 days of 'The Wild Things' left and I'm feeling quite saddened! I've had such a lovely time doing this show. I'm not going to get all weepy about it, don't worry!

It seems forever ago that it was first mentioned to me, and it's all going to be over in the blink of an eye.

Thinking back on it, the first day of rehearsal seems like months ago, but now we're at the end, I wish I was back at the start again.

I've been so lucky to have been able to work with such lovely and talented people again this Christmas, and thankfully it prevented me from having to trawl up and down the country to endless panto auditions this year!

We've had quite a busy schedule over the past few days and despite my tiredness, I've had the best time!

2012 has been a year of ups and downs, but thankfully there have been more ups, and this has definitely been one of the best ones. I was speaking on the phone to one of my uni friends the other day who was in the Olympic Opening Ceremony along with her mum and sister, and she was telling me how much more confident her mum had become after taking part.

I didn't think too much about it at the time, but afterwards, I realised the effect that it has had on me too. I thought that the only things I'd take away from my Paralympics Opening Ceremony journey would be my fantastic new friendships, my costume(!) fantastic memories, and the bragging rights of being shown on TV and performing with Sir Ian McKellan, but I was wrong.

I realised that since the ceremony I too have become more confident. Acting is a tough profession, but I've come away being a stronger person and feel that I can actually achieve what I want to do. I always feel terrified on the first day of any acting job, but since the ceremony, I haven't cared, I've started to believe in myself. My fellow Wild Things have also been an inspiration to me without even knowing it. They're so ridiculously talented that it makes me want to up my game and work harder for what I want. I've already planned out my January and it's looking busy!

So, as I said before, there are only 3 days of shows left, five performances, three of which are completely sold out, with the others not far off. I'm definitely going to make the most of them and let 2012 go out with a bang!

(*so much for getting weepy, I'm crying!!)

I may be the poorest financially that I've ever been in my life right now, but I've had a pretty good year. Five short films, a music video, my first taste of outdoor Shakespeare, performing in the West End twice, several murder mysteries, appearing on 'The Chase' the Paralympics Opening Ceremony, and of course, The Wild Things. I also found a man who I will be spending Christmas with! I never thought that I could fit so much into such a short space of time. I can't wait to beat it in 2013, I've already got my first job of the year sorted!

I don't know how many of these people will be reading this, but I just want to thank Cally, John, Stefanie, Tanya, Lynsay and Chris. You've made me the happiest girl on the planet, thank you. And to my fellow Wild Things, let's get this rumpus started!

I hope you all have a fantastic Christmas and New Year. Eat, drink, be merry, and let's party like the world is going to end... oh, wait! :/

Nxxx

Cold films, hot chocolate and lukewarm laughter...

Back for more you lovely readers? Well it’s a good job I have more to share! Let’s go…

So, last Monday I found myself in Stoke-on-Trent for another short film. Well, I didn’t just find myself there, I woke up at a semi-reasonable hour for a Monday and drove myself up there, facing my biggest enemy, the M6.I have spent many an hour on that dastardly motorway and I had to reach Stoke by a certain time so I didn’t want to be thwarted that day. I eventually managed to drag myself from my bed, and thankfully as I would be having my hair and make-up done once I arrived, I didn’t have to make much of an effort in the looks department. I had been told to dress in lots of warm clothes as it wasn’t the hottest of locations, so I donned two pairs of tights under my normal attire and hoped for the best.

Despite a small hold-up on the motorway around the Birmingham area, the journey up was quite smooth, if a little dirty, and with the help of my trusty sat-nav, I ended up in the right place at the right time. Hoorah! The location was an old abandoned pottery factory called Spode. I guess that means something to pottery fans or Stoke locals, but I had never been there before and it looked like every other general factory that I have encountered. All I knew was, it was cold.

After a quick hello to the crew, I was ushered over to another building that had electricity(!) to have my hair and make-up done, 1940’s style! I was slightly startled by my appearance at first, too much make-up tends to make me look like a drag queen, but I trusted the girl who made me up, and it looked pretty awesome on camera! I donned my office wear and waited to be called over to do my thing! I wasn’t called for a while, as another girl who was supposed to be there dropped out right at the last minute, leaving them no option but for me to play both roles, meaning they had to work out the logistics of filming me so that two of me could appear on screen at the same time.

We made our way over to the room where we would be shooting and I don’t think I’ve ever been so cold in all of my life! As I was playing office girls, I was clad in only a blouse and a pencil skirt. Thankfully I had chosen a padded bra that day! Even the lighting didn’t warm up the room. It was actually warmer outside than it was in any of the buildings. Yep, another film in arctic conditions, why do I agree to these things??

Once I got started I had lots of fun. I had an old-school typewriter to play with, files to sort and write in, I felt like I was a real office worker! At one point during the shoot I really felt that it was my job and that it was incredibly important! Haha! I won’t give anything away about the film as hopefully I can post links on here when it’s all finished, but I had so much fun and again, thanks to everyone involved.
I was saddened that I didn’t get to play with the other Wild Things that day but it was another credit on my CV and a fabulous day. The only thing that ruined it was getting diverted 20 minutes from home and driving extra miles for nothing! Anger!!

I know that acting isn’t the most tiring of professions but I think that my body was working extra hard to stay warm on Monday, and with the added driving for hours, I was stupidly tired at the end of it all. I was so grateful to have a late start on Tuesday. I rocked up in Bedford at about 11.10, and did some work with Theo on our mother-son bonding!! Only one more Wild Thing turned up that day as one was doing some other work that he couldn’t get out of, and our final Wild one was poorly, so we ended up finishing early too. The director had thrust some flyers in our hands so that we could do something productive with our day, but we decided to go into Bedford town first to have a little wander about and have a hot chocolate before we tackled the task!

We had a lovely time getting to know each other a bit better over our hot beverages, and went for a little walk around the shops to see what bargains we could find. I had remembered that Matt, the very clever prop making man, had found a Wild Things bobble head toy in Poundland so I wondered if they would still have any in stock… we went in! We didn’t emerge for at least half an hour! We got so excited by all of the cheap products! Don’t get me wrong, I’ve been to Poundland before, there’s nothing new about it, but the Christmas delights were just too tempting! We all spent a few pounds in there and were very chuffed with our purchases, none more than me- I found a Christmas film, ‘The Christmas Shoes’. A few years ago while on tour, I bought a Christmas film from Tesco entitled ‘The Town That Cancelled Christmas’ and it was the worst film ever. I looked at the case of ‘The Christmas Shoes’ and though that it would be of the same level. I bought it for a laugh.

The rest of the week was pretty much spent running the show. We did as best as we could on Wednesday, as we were still missing Wild Thing Tom, but we muddled through, and he was back on Thursday so that we could play properly.
Before our final run on Friday, I attempted a line run with Theo for the opening scene of Max with his mum. Every time we play the scene we both end up laughing and we don’t know why. We spent about ten minutes going over the same lines with the same result, constant laughter. At this rate we were going to be sacked. But something happened to us during the final run and we nailed it, not even a smirk! Finally! Actors doing their jobs properly!
We had an early finish, and I made it back to Kettering just in time for Fame rehearsals, attempting our first full run of the show… it went surprisingly well! I was absolutely shattered after the week though, and couldn’t wait for Saturday to begin… I was going to have a long weekend, not having to be back in Bedford until 10.45 on Tuesday, bliss! :)

I had a fabulous weekend of not doing much at all, (apart from watching 'The Christmas Shoes' which was not what I was expecting! I sobbed my heart out! Don't watch it!!) and my Sunday evening was made by the arrival of an email from Mutant Candy Films saying that the music video I did a few weeks ago is now online!

So here it is for your viewing pleasure! Enjoy :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CbCSC3c68a4

Nxxx

Theatre, TV, Radio and Film...!

Hello once again dear blog readers. It’s now December, which can only mean one thing… it’s Christmas show time! Rehearsals are in full swing now, and it’s been quite an exciting couple of weeks! Let’s go…
So we began rehearsals last Monday, and I got to meet our final cast member Theo, who is playing Max. He’s lovely! We started the week off by doing a read-through of the script, tried on costumes and learned the songs that would make the show magical! Everyone has done a fantastic job on every aspect of the show, so even on day one it was so exciting that I couldn’t contain myself!!

We spent the afternoon working on act one of the show and I finally got to release my wild side! It was going to be a fun week!

It was my turn to step up on Tuesday. We started by running what we had worked on Monday, but then we moved on to routines!! It was time to see if my choreography was going to work, gulp! We started with the monster song. I felt like I had a bit of a battle to face with one cast member who said he would refuse to dance, but once he saw what was involved he was absolutely fine with it, and after a couple of run-throughs, he was almost a pro! I was so pleased that everyone could do it, and from what I could see, it all worked really well and looked good! Relief! The afternoon brought with it an attempt at act two, and we had pretty much bashed out the whole play by the end of the day! We were on fire! I went home happy and gave the casting websites a quick look. I found a short film that interested me, but I wasn’t suitable for it. They wanted someone ‘not caucasian’. No more details of what they did want, just not Caucasian. Descriptive! I found a job that sounded interesting, it was a 48 hour film challenge, making a music video. There wasn’t much detail, as the company wouldn’t find out what they would be doing until the competition started. I threw in my application and thought no more of it.

We ran through dance numbers again on Wednesday morning, making sure everyone was up to speed, and had a lovely early finish of 2pm. Before I left I received a message saying that the film people were interested in chatting to me about their project and that they would call me later. Sounded exciting! I got home just before 3pm and decided to settle down in bed to watch The Big Bang Theory. I felt I deserved it for working so hard! Unfortunately I didn’t get to watch it as I fell asleep! I woke up just in time for dinner, perfect! It was only me and Dad for dinner, and as quick eaters we finished just in time to watch ‘The Chase’. Bradley Walsh’s cheeky face popped up on screen with the four contestants behind him, and who was sitting there? Me!!! ITV hadn’t told me that I was going to be on! All of a sudden my phone went absolutely mental with people sending me text messages, Facebook notifications and Twitter updates. It was like every single person I knew happened to be watching and decided to let me know all at once. After the initial shock of seeing myself on the screen, I just settled myself down to watch properly when my phone rang. It was about the film project. Great timing!!
As much as I wanted to be part of the project, I was trying really hard to get through all of the lovely lady’s questions before I was due on screen. The tension was almost unbearable! I finished my conversation just in time! I raced back in the room and watched and cringed at myself. To be fair, I did quite well and people said I was good! Hoorah! I also gained several new Facebook friends and Twitter followers that night. The magic of television!

Thursday brought more routine work, we ran scenes of the show, and we staged the goodbye scene when Max leaves the Wild Things. I had been sent the music weeks before but hadn’t come up with a routine. But it worked out well as we came up with something as a group that is pretty emotional! If you’re coming to see the show, bring a tissue, it’s a weepie!
We did some more work on our wonderful singing on Friday, before facing the cold to appear on 3 counties radio! We went down to The Kiosk in Bedford where the radio station had been broadcasting from for their lunchtime show, with lots of local people showing off stuff and advertising. We wanted a bit of that! We wrapped our hands around some hot beverages and stood around waiting for our chance to chat to the presenter. He did a small chat with Cally, our director, and Theo, before we launched into an extract from the play to try and get some more ticket sales. Everyone at the kiosk stood in complete silence while we ‘performed’, it was fabulous! We headed back to the theatre for another afternoon of work, before I had Fame rehearsals back in Kettering. I was absolutely shattered but still had to make my way to my brothers flat as his girlfriend was having a Body Shop Party. I stuck my nose in for a few minutes, collected my mother (who had been sipping fizzy wine!) and finally got something to eat before collapsing into bed. What a week!

I still had to be up early on Saturday for the music video shoot. I received a text message on Friday night saying that we would be doing a video for a punk band. I was asked to bring office wear, ballgowns and tap shoes. I had absolutely no idea what I would be doing. It was exciting!
I eventually found the location, which was an old shoe factory (one of many in my shire). It honestly looked at as if was going to fall down. I was let in by a lady who lived there(!) and met a girl called Imogen who would also be in the video. She was a aerialist, and had brought a trapeze with her, as well as a fire hula hoop! I was immediately jealous of her. I met a few others, there was a stilt walker, a graffiti artist, and I also met the costume/make-up lady. Everyone seemed lovely, but we were still quite vague on what would be happening. It turned out that I would do a lot of sitting down that day. A couple of hours after I got there I was sat in the hair chair. After finding out that I would be a tap dancing punk, I set the lady free on my hair to do as she pleased. She decided to give me a Mohawk! A lot of pins and pain later I looked awesome!

The others got their hair wrangled into shape too and we all had brilliant individual looks. The crew kept mentioning tap dancing and panic started to set in. It looked like I would be alone. I couldn’t remember any tap moves and I hadn’t heard the song to begin thinking of what would fit. I hung around in the shadows for a bit and waited to see what would happen. Thankfully at 3pm, another girl arrived who I would be dancing with. We were given the track on CD and found a place to choreograph something. Well, I say ‘we’, I had frantically Googled tap moves to try and think of something, but Danielle, the lovely girl who I would dance with, runs her own dance school so I let her do most of the work! We came up with something pretty decent, so it was now time to wait for hair and make-up and costume. A couple of hours later I emerged from the make-up chair with a face that closely resembled David Bowie in Labyrinth. I loved it! I even had white lipstick! Amazing.

We eventually managed to wrangle some costumes together and we looked pretty cool. I wasn’t sure whether I looked entirely punk, but I could see me wearing it in the future, which slightly concerned me! We filmed our routine at about 7.15pm, and after a few takes where I forgot the routine, I managed to get a couple of good takes and I was headed back home with a Mohawk. I think I might have startled the other half with my strange look, but he didn’t mention how ridiculous it was so I think I got away with it! After a crazy week, I slept til noon on Sunday. Perfect!

Week two of rehearsals started in a jolly fashion. I had to come up with an extended routine for one piece of music on Sunday so that we could fit in something else, so I taught the new bits and it looked brilliant! We also recorded another radio segment which will be broadcast soon, I shall keep you informed! We also had my home made cakes as it was cast member Tom and producer Alex’s birthdays, and we attempted a run of the show wearing our monster heads and claws. Much hilarity ensued!
I had a late start on Tuesday which suited me just fine, I was still trying to catch up with my sleep from the weekend! We ran the show again, stopping occasionally to add in comedy spots of value that amused Cally greatly!
Cally wasn’t available to rehearse us on Wednesday so we were left in the wonderful hands of Lizzie, the assistant director. We did some butterfly work (if you come to the show you will understand!), and had lots of laughter. Almost everything that came out of anyone’s mouth turned into filthy innuendo! My poor ears were ruined! I was also incredibly hungry that day, and as I was eating so much, I became the target of a pregnancy rumour. Sigh. Actors!!


At lunch I checked my emails and had received a message from a man asking me to be in his short film. I had been recommended by Beth, the girl whose rabbit film I had done a couple of weeks previously. I jumped at the chance and was in! Acting jobs without auditions, how marvellous!
Myself and Wild Thing Beth donned our costumes later on in the day and we all made our way into town to hand out flyers. We were hoping for big crowds as Santa was turning on the Christmas tree lights, but there weren’t too many folks out, and I think we might have scared a few children instead of being nice friendly monsters. But I still had fun!

I had another late start on Thursday, and it was just me and Theo in the morning, working on our Mum/Max scenes together. The others joined us in the afternoon and we spent it working on smaller details of the show. We were also reminded that we would be leaving the rehearsal on Friday to record one of the songs to go onto a CD that will be available to buy when you come to see the show! How exciting indeed!
It was a lot of fun! It was in someone’s house, but we all did it properly, with the headphones and the big microphone, it was very good! We all recorded together before going in individually to record our solo lines. Apart from being completely flat on one note, I think I pulled it off quite well!
We headed back to the theatre for our first complete run of the show in costume and with props. We got through it, but we are awaiting feedback notes… Gulp!

I’ve had a pretty good weekend of making things, I am officially in the Christmas spirit, I have made Christmas bunting, and have my Christmas-scented candles burning! I’m just sad that I have to go to work this week, I’ve enjoyed my weekend, and who knows when I’ll get to watch Christmas films now?!?
Don’t eat all of your advent calendars at once! :)
Nxxx

Working for money? That's new!

Greetings one and all, and welcome back to the ramblings of my mind and my fascinating week in the world of acting. Are you sitting comfortably? Then I shall begin.

Monday: This Monday took me back to Bedford to work with some delightful boys at Bedford Prep School. Myself, and 2 others from the Wild Things team went in to deliver 2 workshops based on our fabulous show, each earning ourselves a few pennies, and hopefully getting a few more ticket sales out of the bargain!
I had grumpily set my alarm for 6.30am, but woke up surprisingly cheerful despite the lack of daylight coming in at my window. I hitched a ride to the train station with my mother on her way to work, hopped on the train with the daily commuters and weaved my way through the streets of Bedford to find the school. On reaching reception I felt like I had gone backwards in my career. I thought my days of going into schools to perform at atrocious hours of the morning were long behind me, but I settled in nicely in the staffroom, where biscuits were offered! I declined, I should still be sleeping! Another perk that I had forgotten about was finding very handsome male teachers to look at while waiting for the others to arrive. Oh how I miss that!

We got started on the workshops, and they went quite well. The kids knew the story and some of them were performing their own version too, so they were very eager to join in. I even put on costumes for them so they could see what our interpretation would look like. They, and I had enormous fun! We retired to a local cake shop to reward ourselves, and after a quick chocolate brownie, I headed back home in the rain, slightly richer and extremely tired. On reaching home, I switched on my TV for my daily viewing of ‘The Big Bang Theory’ and promptly fell asleep for two whole hours, waking up just in time for dinner! Oops!

I logged on to my usual casting website that night to see if anything excited me and inspired me to apply, and my eye was immediately drawn to a theatre-in-education tour, I think I still had the mornings work on my brain. I clicked the casting for it to reveal more information about the job and my heart stopped beating for a good few seconds. I won’t say who it was, for fear of getting into trouble, but it was a company that I have worked for previously, who I had a very bad experience of touring with. As have some of my friends. Needless to say, I won’t be applying to go back. Swines. That was enough to halt my search for the evening.

Tuesday: Tuesday was a very lazy day for me. I had every intention of getting up and learning my script, but did I? Of course not! Monday had completely zapped me of energy and I couldn’t find any motivation anywhere. I picked up my script, only to put it down again 5 minutes later, I didn’t even learn one page. Shocking. I even found it difficult to get motivated for Fame singing rehearsal that night, and that always cheers me up. Not on Tuesday though. I quickly visited my brother after rehearsal, and was appalled to see that he has already put his Christmas tree up! 13th November! No! Christmas decorations should go up on December 1st at the very earliest! That boy!!

I stumbled home and opened up my emails to find one new email in my party inbox. There was going to be an extra guest at this weekend’s party. This was fine for me, more money headed my way, but one problem showed its angry head… I didn’t have enough party bags! Last week I had counted out just enough for everyone and was feeling incredibly smug, but now that had come back to bit me on the behind. I had to come up with a plan. I could cobble together half a party bag, and buy something a little bit extra for the birthday girl for her bag! Sorted! Crisis averted.
My work email also had an email waiting for me… We finally had our final cast member to play Max! Huzzah! Now I really had to do some work!

Wednesday: Also known as shoot day! I was off to Birmingham to be a rabbit! I wasn’t due on set until 3, so I had a lazy morning just packing my bag, which didn’t happen on lazy Tuesday! 2 not so fragrant trains and a short taxi ride later, I arrived at the house where we would be shooting. It was a lovely little holiday home in the centre of Birmingham, but it looked like it should belong in the middle of the countryside. (Which was what was desired, as it was our rabbit house!) The crew had decorated the set by the time I had arrived, and everywhere had leaves and twigs and little touches that made it look like a proper rabbit home! I made my way up to the top floor of the house where the make-up lady, director, and the man playing my rabbit husband were located. After a quick hello, I was straight into the make-up chair being transformed! I had a mask stuck to my face, latex added so it looked like it blended in with my face, and lashings of face paint. There was no mirror in front of me, so I had no idea what I looked like, but people kept popping into the room and saying how good it looked. Once I was finished, I took a photo of myself and was quite startled, I wasn’t as cute as I thought I would be, but that’s not what was needed. Once I had put my rabbit ears and my costume on, it looked pretty amazing!

While Father rabbit was having his mask applied, I was taken downstairs (making my way down on my bottom as the ceilings were too small to accommodate my rabbit ears!) into the kitchen to do a few shots by myself. This involved chopping carrots. I’m not the best person in the world at chopping food up anyway, but for the camera angles they wanted, I had to chop them left handed. I am not left handed! I went through several carrots and a few takes before I managed to chop sufficiently without pieces of carrot flying all over the kitchen. I hoped this was as stressful as it would get.

Matt came down after being bunny-fied and we were able to get on with the main shot. We had a sequence of events set around the breakfast table, going along in our happy rabbit ways, until something startles us. There were no lines so it was pretty simple to remember and get on with. Take one went a treat. Unfortunately, during the rest of the takes, a protest march was going on over the road, and various people were hurling abuse at each other in the streets and making a lot of noise. We had to carry on, but it was quite distracting working against it. I think we coped well enough.

We had a break for some food, which turned out to be a more difficult task than anticipated, With my mask on, I had to constantly lift it up to get my food anywhere near my mouth,, while trying not to rip it off my face! Food done, we headed back down to do the same thing again from different angles. And then it was death time! This was pretty easy for me, all I had to do was lie down on the floor and pretend to be dead! We did the scene in 2 takes, job done. While we de-bunnied, the crew packed up their kit and moved out of the house. I was staying there for the night, and as soon as everyone left, I had the feeling that I didn’t really want to be there on my own after all. It was quite creepy, so I put a film on and decided to watch it until I could keep my eyes open no longer, before running to the bedroom and falling straight to sleep. It had been a good day, I was exhausted again.

Thursday: I woke up on Thursday bright and early so that I could hand the house keys back and catch my train home. As I approached the train station I chuckled to myself. I spotted a poster that stated “Crime is going down in Birmingham”. It hadn’t looked like it the day before when upon exiting the station, there were two people being arrested right in front of my eyes! I bought myself a magazine and made my way to the appropriate platform, after noting the extortionate price of 30p to use the toilet, and began watching a fat pigeon waddle as if he were dancing. He seemed to be having a good day. It took me the whole of my journey home to get through my magazine, and despite it making the journey much more enjoyable, I was annoyed at myself for neglecting my script again. I had packed it specifically so that I could learn lines on the train. Did I? Again the answer is no. Fool. I’m going to be sacked!
A quick sandwich later, and I was back out of the house again, and on my way to watch two of my lovely friends in a college performance of the play ‘Two’. They also had a physical theatre piece after this that I stayed to watch too. I’m normally not a fan of college shows, but I was really swept up in it, and not just because of the people that I knew in it, some of them that I didn’t know were fantastic! As much as I enjoyed ‘Two’, their physical theatre section was phenomenal. There were perhaps about 30 words spoken and the rest was done to music. I almost cried at one point because it was so emotional! Good job guys! Fantastic!
I spent the evening with the other half watching the new episode of ‘Elementary’. It really Is growing on me!

Friday: Friday rolled around quicker than I thought and brought with it a great deal of stress. I had lots of things to do, including sorting out the rogue party bag for Saturday. Of course with this being my life, I decided to stay in bed and watch the latest episodes of ‘Glee’ and ‘New Girl’ before getting angry at the world. My parents were also going away that day so I waited until they had left and got to work. I received a new script for ‘The Wild Things’ so I furiously printed that out, as well as some more treats, to be revealed at a later date. After jumping in the shower to remove the final pieces of rabbit from my face, I stupidly decided to use a hairdryer and gave myself an afro. Not my finest look. I sped to Tesco to buy something for the birthday girl, and picked myself up a cheeky alcoholic beverage for the weekend. I sensed I’d need it. After Tesco came a quick trip into town to pop a cheque in the bank, I also managed to grab another Christmas present off my list! I’m almost finished! Huzzah! After racing around like a mad woman, I had one hour to learn my lines for my ‘Fame’ rehearsal. They didn’t go in. As soon as it came to the troublesome scene that just won’t stay in my head, they were gone. But rehearsal flew by, and I could finally relax with a glass of bubbly alcohol. Before I went to bed I gathered together all of what I would need for the princess party. What did I find? A spare party bag! Grrr!!

Saturday: Saturday went a lot smoother than I had anticipated. As I had already prepared everything in advance, I was ready in plenty of time and could chill out before the madness of the rest of the day. I arrived at the birthday girls house at 1.30, ready for a 2pm start. She was very excited and was running around the house like a complete loon! Her guests took a while to arrive, but once they were all there, we played games and everyone had fun. After they had eaten, her dad brought out her birthday cake. As everyone sang to her, she suddenly screamed “I don’t like singing!” and burst into tears! I was trying so hard not to laugh at her! It was her party and she’d cry if she wanted to!!
Party done, and I had a quick pit stop at home before on to my next job of the day. The murder mystery! It was the same story and character that I had played in the last two that I’ve done so I knew what to expect. I didn’t know the other two actors, but they were lovely and we all had a good night, despite finishing 45 minutes later than planned. The hotel never gets it right!! I didn’t get too many difficult questions asked of me, and only 1 out of the 5 tables guessed correctly that I was the murderer. I successfully put the rest of them onto the other female characters trail!
I was absolutely shattered when I got home, and happily climbed into bed to watch ‘Merlin’ with my second alcoholic beverage of the weekend, careful!!

Sunday: And so we come to Sunday. I awoke at the hour of ten, had breakfast and cleaned the whole house before my parents got back from their weekend away. I didn’t have too much time in the house on my own to enjoy it, but it was nice to not have to creep around the house like a mouse with everyone’s different sleeping patterns. They made my cleaning worth my while by bringing me back some Bakewell tarts from the real Bakewell(!) and a lovely candle. Aaw! There was a small time frame for me to look at their photos before I had to leave to have my headshot taken for the ‘Fame’ programme as well as a small rehearsal while we were waiting. I was hoping that my headshot would be good enough to use as my professional headshot for a while, but my face wasn’t playing!
And here we are now! Blog writing! I’ve been back for almost 2 hours and I still haven’t looked at that pesky script! There are 17 hours to go before rehearsals start, take away my sleeping and travel time, plus time to watch the Strictly Come Dancing results and I probably have about an hour to cram all of my lines in! I suppose I should take a little bit of time out to prepare for being told off too!! Haha!
Next week, prepare for a wild read, we begin tomorrow at ten! See ya!

Nxxx

Where have all the jobs gone?

Hello again dear readers! I do hope you are all well.
It’s been a mixed week in my life. Unfortunately with my severe lack of funding, I’ve still only been able to apply for unpaid work, but I did end up doing things that I’d been putting off or had forgotten about, as well as having time for playing too! Marvellous!

So, Monday’s offering of jobs was poor, very poor. I had decided that with rehearsals for ‘The Wild Things beginning very soon, that I would try to start waking up early so that my body didn’t have too much of a shock when I could no longer sleep til noon. So on Monday I woke up early. Ish. 9am. Therefore I was checking my casting website of choice regularly throughout the day. Nothing, not even a celebrity lookalike job. Not that I look like any celebrity, the only thing I’ve ever been compared to is a spaniel. But I dragged myself downstairs and began to choreograph a routine for the show. And I finished it! Being the lazy girl that I am, I set myself the challenge of completing it in an hour, and that’s exactly what I did! I was proud! I also received emails from Beth, who is directing the film I’m doing next week, and she arranged all of my travelling for me, all I have to do is turn up! Brilliant! Such organisation!

On Tuesday, I found a casting for a short film that I applied to. It was a student film in Stoke. I had shot a film there earlier this year, and it was fantastic, so I thought I’d give it a go. It featured a couple who were in a car crash, and flashed back to moments of their relationship. I liked the sound of it so off went my application. It was only after I’d sent it that I realised I couldn’t make one of the shooting dates as I was scheduled to do a schools workshop in Bedford. Oops. Thankfully they never got back to me. Phew. I followed the day up with an evening of singing rehearsal for ‘Fame’. We sounded good and it put me in a very good mood. I went to bed happy.

Wednesday was another slow day on the casting front. No applications again. I was feeling creative though, and picked up the script that I had been working on and put to one side a couple of months ago, gave it a read and impressed myself with what I had already got. I picked up my pen, finished the scene off, and added five new pages of dialogue after that. It felt good. I was on a roll, so I turned my laptop on, found the Wild Things music on my iTunes, and choreographed a second routine. Done in another hour, boom! I then realised that I had a princess party coming up next weekend and filled all of the party bags that I needed. I was on fire! If only I was this motivated every day…

Thursday was play day. It was my lovely other half’s day off, and we had a day out in Leicester. Mainly because he had to go to the Apple store to get his broken iPad looked at, but we turned it into a day of wandering around the city centre and eating. The Apple store is a very strange place to be. We had had to postpone our Leicester trip for a week, as he had found out that you have to book your piece of technology in. Yep, you have to make it an appointment. It’s like some sort of surgery for broken toys. We walked up to the store and stood outside for a while, as we were early for iPad’s appointment (and we didn’t want to catch anything from the other poorly technology!). I didn’t like it. To me, Apple try to make things seem all shiny and exciting, but the décor in the shop was anything but. It was grey and miserable, and seemed really dark. I think I even joked that it looked seedy. The brightest things in there were the staff’s blue t-shirts, and the customers faces from the glare of computer screens. After we had checked in (!), we were told to make our way down to the Genius bar, where iPad would see it’s surgeon. I will say that I was more impressed with what actually goes on in the store. Customers were sitting down with Apple staff sorting their problems, people were getting training on how to use things, and next to the genius bar, there was even a little table with iPads on for children to use. There were no children there, so I stood and watched what the little thing could do. After explaining what was wrong with iPad, the Apple ‘genius’ tapped away on what looked like a brick of an iPhone, and decided that he would just replace the whole thing with a brand new one. As far as I could see, he didn’t even touch it. Genius? Schmenius!

We carried on our banter over Apple later on that day while talking about the iPhone. Upgrading to the iPhone5 seemed ridiculous to me. Although the staff were very helpful in the store, I couldn’t help noticing that nearly every customer in the shop were going in with faulty goods and having them replaced with shiny new ones. Surely you might as well buy something that won’t break after a couple of months, say a Samsung Galaxy s2…? ;) I think I won the argument!
We stumbled home and rounded off our evening by watching the new Sherlock Holmes series from the US of A, ‘Elementary’. I love the Robert Downey Jr films, and absolutely cannot fault our British series ‘Sherlock’. I’m slowly warming to ‘Elementary’, but I’m still not won over by having a female Watson. We’ll see how I feel at the end of the series.

Friday had some truly marvellous castings on offer. They all sounded too good to be true. It turned out that they were. Every role I tried to apply for said that I was either too old or too young. I’m 27, why is this such a difficult age?!? I sighed a heavy sigh and clicked to see if anyone had read my blog this week. And they had! That cheered me up! I had thought that only people in the UK would be reading it, but I was wrong! So before I continue, I would just like to say hello to all readers in the USA, Ukraine, Latvia, Philippines, Russia, Thailand and Uzbekistan! Of course hello to you lovely UK people too!

I continued my day by travelling to the job centre, which was relatively painless due to the loveliness of my favourite member of staff who makes me feel as if he really cares, and then I made my way to the dance studio for Fame rehearsals. I was very early, so I whipped my notebooks out of my bag, and managed to scribble out a few more lines of a scene for my play, and attempted to start my final choreography. Unfortunately, this was more of a challenge than I anticipated. Being in a dance school, there was a lot of noise coming from the other rooms. My monster music was contending with a piano in someone’s singing lesson, tiny little girls ballet and tap lessons, and a boys ballet class where they seemed to be dancing to Celine Dion. Only at Starlight! Fame rehearsals went well, but I was relieved to get home to a nice pizza, watch a bit of Derren Brown, and lay my head down until 11am the next morning!

I’ve had an incredibly lazy weekend, but I think I need it. Tomorrow is the Wild Things school workshop in Bedford, I have a make-up test on Tuesday for the film I’m shooting in Birmingham on Wednesday, I will return on Thursday, before I do a princess party and a murder mystery on Saturday, and have my photo taken for the ‘Fame’ programme on Sunday! I’m exhausted just thinking about it. See you on the other side!

Nxxx

Savile, Tulisa, and bunnies, oh my!

Hello blog fans!

So, last week threw up a treat for all of the acting job seekers across the lands! Let’s start at the very beginning shall we?
Monday: Logging on to my casting website of choice first thing on a Monday morning, I spy a job that would put the fear up anyone of a certain age who watches the news. ‘Jimmy Savile lookalike’. I don’t know about anyone else, but despite the fact that I’ve always had a weird obsession with wanting to be part of a reconstruction on ‘Crimewatch’, there is no way in the world that I would want to take on that job. And who on earth would want to admit to looking like him now?!? Thank goodness I’m of the wrong gender!
I then stumbled upon a very specific description of a character that was needed. Clearly some university somewhere is making their students re-create a scene from any film of their choosing. This one was for a scene from horror film ‘The Pact’. I haven’t seen this film, but I could tell what sort of girl they had hired to be in it. Let’s see if you can guess too!
‘Long straight blonde hair with roots showing, a decent American accent, English spoken, reasonable bust(!), white, average waist and height. Yep, a bimbo then. The reasonable bust was all I could manage, no applications sent today.

Tuesday: Tuesday was educational for me. I learned a new word. Strangely enough, it was the first time of two that I would read the word in a casting that week. The word was anthropomorphic. The job, to be an anthropomorphic rabbit! It was a short film about a family of rabbits, of which mother rabbit gets killed. It was all about animal rights. It sounded interesting and I noticed the name of the girl who sent out the casting was one that I recognised from another film I did in Stoke earlier this year. Obviously it could have been anyone, so I remained professional in my application but secretly hoped it was her, and that I could wangle my way into the job through knowing her and being Facebook friends! I didn’t hear anything back that day. Rats.

Wednesday: Two jobs caught my eye on Wednesday. The first one was a film about a couple who were at a party, and the male half of the couple slowly noticed the different personalities of his girlfriend. Therefore, the girlfriend would be played by five different girls. Sounded very interesting, application sent. And then it all turned around. Next job advertised: ‘Tulisa lookalike’. I think I’d rather be Jimmy Savile.

Thursday: Anthropomorphic day 2. Today’s anthropomorphic animal; a cat. More specifically, a cat owned by a man, but who gets left by the side of the road by the man’s girlfriend. What a bitch! I wasn’t suitable for any of the roles but it made me smile.

Friday: I found myself in Bedford again on Friday for some more Wild activities. To try and drum up some more ticket sales, we did a small event where children of the town could come and colour in pictures of the Wild Things, make their own Max crown, and participate in our Wild Things quiz. I sat in the cold for 3 hours, lost all feeling in my feet but actually had a very nice time! The kids seemed to enjoy themselves greatly, and eagerly went away clutching flyers and covered in glitter! Result!

Saturday: Another promotional day on Saturday, this time much closer to home. It was Wicksteed Park’s bonfire night, and Starlight were performing before the fireworks hit the sky! The seniors performed an excerpt from ‘Fame’ (happening in January, buy tickets!). The kids performed first and I was slightly apprehensive as I saw the lorry (yes, lorry, not stage!) shaking as they jumped up and down. I was relieved to only perform once out of the two showings. I’m not sure what would have happened if it had collapsed. Gulp! Anyway, performing meant that we got in for free, and I stayed to watch the fireworks which was lovely, but would have been more enjoyable had I not been scared! Oh well, better luck next year!

Sunday: I had a marvellously relaxing Sunday yesterday, I had my lovely friend Christine come over from Leicester and we just sat and talked for about 6 hours. Marvellous. My phone kept buzzing with Facebook messages from a friend who wanted to come and see Fame, but didn’t know what day she should come to, so I was surprised and chuffed when it buzzed later on with a message from the girl about the anthropomorphic rabbit film asking me if I was still interested because she’d love me to be in it! Boom! It proves after all that it’s who you know, not your talent!
So, next week, if you’re in Birmingham and see a girl dressed as a rabbit, come and say hi!

Let’s see what delights are in store this week…
Nxxx

Natalie; relaunched...

Another blog post in quick succession! You lucky readers! I’m attempting to write more about my attempts to crack this blasted industry instead of sitting waiting for the email responses to start rolling in while I watch ‘The Big Bang Theory’ double bill on E4 every weekday afternoon and dreaming of being in ‘Downton Abbey’ hanging out with Bates! So here goes!

Monday found me extremely excited to get myself motivated again. Although I do have a show coming up in a matter of weeks, it finishes on Christmas Eve, therefore leaving me ruefully unemployed again after the festivities.
I hit my go-to casting website of choice and headed straight for the ‘Opportunites’ section. This naturally means unpaid work. I’m too poor to renew my membership to see the paid stuff at the moment, but I figured that the more I get my face around, even for unpaid stuff, the more chance I have of being seen.

I was faced with a broad selection of student final year films to choose from. My first application went to a film involving a girl whose fiancée had been killed by a man whose house she ended up in. It was a non-speaking role, and for most of the film she would have to have a blank expression and glazed over eyes. Off went my application. I received an email later that day saying that I wasn’t suitable. My headshot is pretty much a blank expression with glazed over eyes, what more did they want from me?!? Oh well, on to the next one!

Application two caught my eye for the reason that it was based in Northamptonshire. I live there! Pick me! It was incredibly vague, with the only information being that actors would be typecast with the chance to input dialogue ideas. I sent my application off not really expecting to hear anything for a while, as there was still a week left before submissions would stop being accepted. But yet again I was responded to on the same day. It must have been a slow day for everyone. I opened the email and was asked if I would be interested in being part of the crew selection team. This was getting more bizarre. I don’t know much about crew work! I know they do a bloody good job but I don’t know how to choose the right people! I replied saying that acting was my main focus, as that’s what I’m trained in, but I’d be glad to help out in any way that would be useful. I had another immediate response asking me to email a different address with my contact details. I did this the next day and received a message saying that they couldn’t give anything away at the moment but that I would DEFINITELY be involved. Watch this space I guess!

My final application of the day went to a student film at Bournemouth University about a girl who goes into a cake shop. It sounded amazing! I love Bournemouth, I love cake. Done. I don’t think I even read to the end of the casting breakdown before I started writing my application. Fingers crossed if they hired me they’d pay me in cake! I had to wait for a reply to this one…

Tuesday took me back to Bedford for the read-through of the script for ‘The Wild Things’, more of which can be read on my previous blog entry. With a pre-read though Nando’s, free Domino’s pizza and my very own cheesecake and cupcake offerings, it was a very good night indeed!

Wednesday saw me applying for a pilot for a crime drama. The only role that I was suitable for was the police station receptionist, but I’ll take anything! It was a small role but recurring throughout the series (if it got made!). Sometimes I do remember smaller characters more than the leads, so anything could happen. I clicked the ‘send application’ box and sat back trawling the listings of unsuitable jobs…
And then I found a Shakespeare job. This one was completely different to anything I had seen before. This was an online Shakespeare which would be filmed in different ways and the viewers could choose how they wanted it to go. It was ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ which is my favourite Shakespeare play but one that I have never been lucky enough to be in. Again I jumped at the chance to apply.
I received an email later that day with a script attached and instructions for auditioning. I had to learn the scene, and film it, leaving gaps for the other characters lines to be edited in. I could film it in any way that I liked, there was no wrong way to do it. It sounded fun, so I raced to my printer and collected the pages. I had chosen the role of Helena to audition for and was that the wrong decision! The scene that had been chosen saw Helena with long rambling monologues! It was going to take me a while to learn it, and I only had until Sunday to do it and email it over. I was busy in the evening so I postponed it to the morning.

I woke up bright and early on Thursday to learn the epic scene, spent about 2 hours trying to force it into my brain before giving up and deciding that I wouldn’t audition after all. The lines were going in but I was rapidly running out of time. I had one time gap to do it in on Friday morning and that was pushing it. It seemed like an awful lot of effort to go to just for an audition for a job that wouldn’t get me paid. I knocked it on the head.
I took a look at Friday morning’s casting offers but wasn’t tempted or suitable for anything so I dragged myself into town for my fortnightly visit to the job centre. Thankfully, large Trevor wasn’t there to scoff in my direction, and instead I was directed to a lady who was obviously new to the job. I could tell that she was new because she was incredibly nice to me and helpful. She also didn’t have the beaten-down look about her. They hadn’t broken her yet.

With a skip in my step I made my way to the Lighthouse Theatre to help out with Starlight’s latest show dress rehearsal. It was the first show that wouldn’t include the senior team, but we were all there to help out. The kids in the show ranged in age from 2 to 14-ish, and I was sickened by their incredible talent. I really have to start upping my game!! But their shiny gleeful faces made me smile, and off home I went ready to prepare for a beast of a Saturday.
I arose at 8am, threw some clothes on and got things ready that I would be needing for my evenings activities. At 9am I left the house and again made my way to the theatre. I hadn’t been assigned a job on Friday night, but I was swiftly made ‘runner’ for the matinee performance. I was hoping for a nice sit-down job, but instead I really was literally running all over the theatre building trying to make sure every child was on stage at the right time. Almost-300 of them. And I did it! There was one hairy moment when I thought that Starlight Kids wouldn’t make it on in time for their beautiful version of ‘Hey Jude’ but with a little encouragement, they made it and my neck was spared.


I left just as they were about to take their bows, met my driver (dad) outside and made my way to the next venue of the day, The Hampton by Hilton hotel in Corby. It was murder mystery time! Yes, I actually did some acting work this week! Huzzah! I was looking forward to this one. I had done the story before, and there was only one actor that I didn’t know in it, but she was lovely! We had such a good night, I wasn’t asked any difficult questions, and we got some free food thrown in! Perfect! I normally panic if someone asks me a question that I’m completely unprepared for, but last night’s crowd were of the blue rinse brigade, and I evaded one gentleman’s questions by flirting outrageously with him! He loved it, and was really upset that I was the murderer as he really liked me! Ha!

Job done, it was back to Kettering to meet up with some beautiful girl friends of mine and to ignore anything I ever learned from every single one of my voice and singing teachers by yelling at each other in loud noisy pubs and doing awful karaoke with incredibly drunk boys.
I woke up today with everything hurting, and feeling that I wouldn’t be able to speak for a week, but what a glorious night it was. Theatre and murders and jobs, oh my!


No rest for the wicked! ;)

Wild Things in Bedford!!

Way back in June of this year, I was on my way to a performance venue of the show I was performing in, when it was mentioned that the company would be producing an adaptation of the classic children’s book ‘Where The Wild Things Are’ by Maurice Sendak. At the mention of the name I almost caused an accident by startling the driver with my high pitched shriek! It was casually mentioned that I was being thought of as a potential choreographer/movement director, how very exciting! I was also asked to help out with costume as I’m quite nifty with a sewing machine! I hadn’t said yes yet!! After a couple of days of remembering how fantastic the book was to me when I was younger, I forgot all about it. Well, I was doing another show!

Time rolled along and soon enough it came to September. Emails were flying about, and there was to be a workshop to come up with ideas and to see how things were progressing so far. I was sent some music tracks so that I could put together some movement bits and pieces to play around with. I started to get nervous. I had casually agreed to do it, but inside I was absolutely terrified! I’m not a choreographer! Yes, I may have been dancing since the age of three, but I’m 27 now, and I’ve only ever danced other people’s choreography! Does that make me qualified to boss other people around doing my moves? The panic was overwhelming! Luckily I wasn’t the only one freaking out. My lovely friend David had written the script, and he was equally as nervous. I half expected us both to be quivering in a corner somewhere while everyone annihilated our work.

The day of the workshop rolled around and I was extremely glad to find that I knew everyone there, except one. That made it much better, at least I wouldn’t have complete strangers thinking I was awful, these people were my friends, they would surely break the news to me gently! We started off by doing some actor warm-ups, followed by learning the songs that had been composed for the show, and then it was my turn. I only worked with a group of four, as the boys were playing around with costumes and props, so it was left to me and the girls to work some monster magic!

And amazingly, it went really well! Everyone learned the routine really quickly and when it came to showing the rest of the group, they laughed in all of the appropriate places when my humorous choreography called for it and everyone seemed to be having a lovely time! Huzzah!
I had time to relax afterwards as it was David’s turn to squirm as we took to the floor to act out some of his script. And yet again we had so much fun! All of my nerves had disappeared, David began to smile and we all realised that this was going to be a fabulous show!

The next step was trying to find actors! I had to come up with two routines for the audition, for a group of an unknown number. I left it pretty much to the last minute as I work better under pressure, so I spent an hour sat in Starlight Dance studios girls toilets listening to my iPod and dancing around trying to come up with something! I thought it turned out pretty good considering my location!

The audition day came around and I arrived at the theatre full of excitement. When I walked in there were only two girls waiting and there wasn’t much time left before we were due to start. I was half relieved, less people to judge me! It got to start time and one more girl had arrived. I could cope with that! As there were an odd number, I joined in with the auditionees which made me more relaxed as I could forget about my impending doom! But yet again I was surprised and pleased with how everything went. The routine was picked up easily and it looked fabulous! And the boss was pleased! Bonus! This was going to be easier than I thought!

A few days ago I received my script and immediately fell in love with it. I was cast as Eighties (my favourite decade fact fans!), and a couple of my ideas from the workshop had made it into the script and I got to play them! Hooray! I battled with my printer to get a hard copy in my hands and put it all into a nice shiny folder! And then came last night, the first script read-through! Three out of the four Wild Things were there, we got to try on costumes (I got the one I wanted, yippee!) and read the script out loud with appropriate gusto! All of the tech people were there, as well as the composer and designers and it felt marvellous! Myself and two of the other Wild Things worked together last Christmas too, so it felt like I had come home. One of them stated last year that he absolutely refused to sing or dance and yet he has willingly signed up to endure both of these! I can’t wait to make him dance!

I had already spent a couple of days working on costumes and props with a few others, and had also spent time lurking in the woods dressed as a Wild Thing for promo photos, but last night was the best fun of them all!

Rehearsals start on 19th November so there’s really not a lot of time left! I suppose I should get on with some choreography rather than sitting here typing away! I feel so much more confident now and can’t wait to get started! Book your tickets!!

Don't mention the 'C' word...

No, not the naughty one, you can mention that one as much as you like as long as I don't hear you, I despise that word. The 'C' word I'm talking about is Christmas! Sorry, I'm very aware that we're only at the beginning of September but you have to plan ahead in this career! Monday saw me back in Bedford with No Loss Productions to workshop this year's Christmas show entitled 'The Wild Things'. It's based on Maurice Sendak's 'Where The Wild Things Are', a classic children's book with probably less than 100 words in it from start to finish. How can you make that into a play? Well that's what Monday was all about.

The show was first mentioned to me during a journey to rehearsals for 'The Merry Wives of Windsor'in June and I was excited just hearing about it, and when the boss said she was thinking of me to do choreography I practically jumped out of my seat into oncoming traffic. A couple of days later, seamstress was added into the mix and I agreed to that too. What? I like a nice big workload! A few emails had come my way saying who was in the creative team, and I was over the moon to find that it was a jolly lot of people that I had worked with before, it sounded marvellous! I had half pushed it to the back of my mind as I was stupidly busy dashing forwards and backwards to London for rehearsals for the Opening Ceremony of the Paralympic Games (more of that when I get round to writing it!) but the arrival of a piece of music meant that I had to focus and create a dance/movement piece to teach at the workshop to see if it would work/I was on the right track. I had jumped at the chance to do it, but I'm in no way at all a professional choreographer! The first thing I ever choreographed was for the Christmas show last year, and that lasted less than 30 seconds. Someone clearly had faith in me though, so I sat myself down, got out a new notebook and pen and began to scribble. I was quite pleased with myself, after half an hour I had put together some moves for half the track, so naturally I treated myself with a snack and left the rest for another day.

Then came the mammoth Paralympics rehearsal schedule, followed by the ceremony itself, and I realised on Sunday that I hadn't finished. I had 13 hours to finish it, sleep, and get to Bedford, oops. I whacked a couple of bits onto the end and hoped that someone else could come up with something on the day that I could take credit for. Being a Twitter addict (@nataliecastka), I was eagerly following the writer of the show and teasing him about his nerves for the workshop. He was absolutely terrified that his work would be awful and that we would all turn on him. It hadn't hit me until that point that people could possibly ridicule everything that I had done too. The Paralympics had left me on a super-high, making me feel invincible and that I was capable of anything, but what if it really was incredibly awful? I kept my mouth shut and told him everything would be fine. Monday arrived, I grabbed my notebook and ran to the station to get my train. I was feeling happy to be back in Bedford, it's starting to feel like my second home and I couldn't wait to see all of the lovely people that have become my friends as well as work colleagues. We all greeted each other with plenty of hugs and whoops of glee, and then it was time to get busy! We kicked off with learning the songs that have been written for the show, and the lovely muscal lady Sophie seemed suitably impressed with our abilities (good start!) I then got to hear the rest of the music that she has composed for the rest of the show and my choreographers hat slipped back on while the music whisked me away!

Next up, we did a few physical exploration things which would lead into me doing my teachery thing. Which actually went really well! I was happy. I worled with 4 others and I worked through my notes and got them all moving where I wanted them to go. Thankfully the bits that I intended to be funny got a some laughs and it was simple yet effective in how it worked. Chuffed! The very talented Matt then showed us some magical creations that he had come up with for the show (none of which I could possibly tell you about) and we all stood around in amazement, he's so clever! A couple of items of costume were handed out and it finally began to feel real, I was getting excited! Then came the script! I have no idea why Dave had been so nervous, it was fabulous! We all laughed, the characters were awesome, we had so much fun acting it out. It's going to be a fabulous show! :) And that was Monday! It felt so good to be back with creative people. I loved every second of my Paralympics experience, but jut being a number and being told where to stand rather than being a part of the creative process was a tad infuriating for me. Being back and being actively involved in the process felt so good, and reignited my motivation for writing my own play. Oh yes, I'm doing that too! :D So the next few months are pretty sorted for me, choreography, costume making, and with a little bit of luck, hopefully I'll land a part in it too... I am an actor after all! Tickets are available now, so get booking! And here's a little treat in the form of the poster for the show. Christmas is coming....!

Tweeting, anonymity, and West End dreams...

Hello blog readers! It's been a while, I apologise. Despite spending most of my time being unemployed, I've been quite busy! But enough rambling, let's get to what you came here for!

I'm going to make you read a word. Some of you might love it. some of you probably don't understand it, but here it is; Twitter. I have to admit, I only got sucked in to Twitter when I heard people talking about it on the radio, and for a while I didn't use my account as I wasn't really sure what I was doing with it. Oh, how things change!

Yes, I do follow a few 'celebrities', but my 'following' list mainly comprises of friends (who pretty much say the same things on Twitter as they do on their Facebook statuses, and people in the performing arts industry who I think might leak any exciting information or job opportunities. Then there is one man who is a mystery to all. His knowledge of the performing arts world is extensive, he is witty, he is a legend, he is @westendproducer!

A few months ago, @westendproducer launched a competition on Twitter, to try and find exceptional talent and to award two people the glamorous title of West End Leading Man and West End Leading Lady. It was cleverly called 'Search for a Twitter Star' (which I will now shorten to sfats!) All you had to do was upload a video of yourself singing onto YouTube, and people could vote for you to go through to the next round, etc. I was debating whether to do it or not, and I was quite busy planning and doing other projects, and I missed the deadline.

Over 600 entries were submitted, and several rounds passed, but I pushed it to the back of my mind and forgot about it. Then a few weeks ago, I saw a tweet saing that the final would be performed live in a West End theatre. Gutted. I tried to forget about it again.

And then, on July 3rd, a magical magnificent tweet appeared on my shiny new phone's screen. There was to be a chance of performing in the show as part of the choir. All you had to do was tweet @westendproducer that you were interested and things would go from there. I went for it. A few minutes later I received an email saying that @westendproducer was following me back! I did a little shriek and eagerly sat watching my phone to see if anything else would happen.

Around half an hour later, I received a direct message from him asking for my email address. Oooooh! I sent it back in a flash. And then... nothing. Hmmmm.

Later that day I received an email from one of his team saying that the show was on the following Monday, and rehersals would take place the day before from 10am-4pm. Email back if you could make it, it was first come, first served.

I sat in utter wonderment staring at the email and thought about what I should do. I would already be in London on the Saturday for my Paralympics opening ceremony rehearsal, if I could just find someone to stay with then I could do it.

I replied yes anyway, and immediately expressed my delight through the medium of a Facebook status update with plenty of exclamation marks. To my delight, one of my fellow castmates from Christmas and my recent outdoor Shakespeare venture offered me somewhere to stay. This was it, I was going!!

Saturday rolled around, and after my Paralympics rehearsal, I dragged my life through London to meet my hostess at Victoria. I got lost. But thankfully with the marvellousness of mobile phones, we located each other, and I made my way to my home for the next two nights. I had already planned my route to rehearsala for the morning, but one quick glance from Hannah told me that I had to re-plan! I hate London travelling! Journey sorted, I went to bed, praying that I would wake up in time.

Thankfully, I decided to obey my alarm clock on Sunday morning, and crept around the house getting ready, and checking Twitter to see how many other people were on their way. It was all getting very exciting!

I made my way outside into the pouring rain and began my journey to Bermondsey. From the tube it wasn't a very long walk at all, but I had left my house in Kettering on Saturday in glorious sunshine so I didn't have a coat. I quickly realised that this was a big mistake. We had one soggy choir when we arrived.

Typically, I was the first person from the choir to arrive so parked myself in a corner and gazed around the room at the other performers. I could tell that the larger group of people to my left were the finalists of the competition, and there was another group in front of me with singing something I wasn't familiar with and talking in American accents. Intriguing.

A few more choir members arrived, all with names beginning with N which amused us all for about 5 seconds. We all seemed friendly enough, it looked like it was going to be fun! The director, Drew, introduced himself and ran us through what would happen at the show, and then we began!

We would be singing 'One Day More' from 'Les Miserables', an awesome song, and I was going to be singing it on a West End stage! Well, hopefully, we were told in an email that if we weren't up to standard we would be kicked out! I was terrified!

I sat myself with the altos and prayed that I wouldn't be found out!

We did some pretty funky warm-ups and then got to grips with the song. As soon as we started singing, it sounded epic! I grabbed my phone and recorded it an obscene amount of times!

We were then escorted through the streets to a church hall where we would be placed in relation to where we would be on stage. We also got to watch the other special guest performers rehearse which was nice. It turned out that the American accents were for a snippet of 'The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee', which was hilarious, and the cast were really nice. They're performing at Edinburgh this year if any of you are going up, go see it! Places spaced, we headed back and had a rehearsal with the band! We sounded great with just a piano, but it sounded so much better with the band, my phone came out again for more recording.

There was quite a lot to get through as they were rehearsing the whole show, but we got let go early, so I carefully retraced my route back to West Dulwich. I was getting good at this Tube stuff!

I got back to the house just for the last five minutes of the men's final at Wimbledon, just in time to see Andy Murray lose and do his big old speech, bless him. But I didn't care, I had harmonies to remember and shirts to iron for tomorrow! Aaaagh!

I sat around in a daze for the rest of the evening as my body wasn't used to waking up at ridiculous hours, but I felt bad about going to sleep early in someone else's house! I didn't want to make them creep around me, so I stuck it out.

I managed to get a few more hours sleep that night, as we weren't called until 1pm. I said goodbye to Hannah and thankfully made my way in the sunshine to my destination. We were all told to meet somewhere as a group before getting to the theatre, so we all congregated around the home of Les Miserables, naturally. Of course I was the first person there again, so I put my iPod on and listened to our song picturing myself actually in the show. I was getting a few strange looks from passers-by until I realised that I was singing out loud, the songs of Les Mis, outside the theatre where it's performed. Well done Natalie. Thankfully I wad saved by the arrival of several more choir members.

Everyone arrived, and we made our way a couple of theatres along to the Lyric Theatre, home of 'Thriller'. We signed in at the stage door and were shoved in the upper circle bar where we were to wait. For the whole day.

We got to go onto the stage for spacing purposes and sang a little snippet of the song which was awesome! But before we knew it, we were shoved back in the bar area.

Then began the tech run! We were brought down the stairs ready for our performance, when we spotted a strange looking man half way down the stairs. It was someone wearing a latex mask, it was @westendproducer!! We still had no idea who it was, he's a sneaky one!

We piled onto the set ready to sing, and then the special guests appeared! We were going to sing with Louise Dearman, Kerry Ellis, Tim Driesden and Jon Lee! We sang it through with them and it sounded beautiful. With the audience there, it was going to be an amazing atmosphere, I couldn't wait!

Back to the bar we went, to be faced with a make-up team. I had some sneaky rouge put on and a spot of trampy red lipstick, and then ran out for a cheeky McDonalds before the show started! Well, a girl's got to eat!

We came back into the theatre and I came face to face with Jon Lee by the stage door, he didn't seem as chirpy as I was expecting but hey ho. We walked through the wings to get back to the bar and I nearly walked head-on into Kerry Ellis too! I'm guessing it wouldn't have been my finest hour throwing a McChicken Sandwich in her face!

While the final checks were going on, and the host of the show, Mr Aled Jones was rehearsing his script, a few of us made our way into the auditorium to watch. And there he was, @westendproducer was in one of the boxes with his Jean Valjean teddy bear, Miss Saigon blow-up doll, bottle of Dom and laptop. We were almost in spitting distance, but we still didn't know who he was. One of the boys tweeted him something about his bottom in the box and he turned around and gave us a cheeky wave!

But then it was showtime! Tim Driesden would be singin Jean Valjeans part in the finale, but he was in the circle with us to watch the first half of the show. I seized the opportunity to sit next to him as no-one else dared! He smelled lovely! I wanted to nestle on his shoulder! But back to the show, the contestants gave it their all in Act One, they all sang a solo and nearly all were ripped to pices by at least one of the four judges. We were all shocked and were gasping in pain for them, but the judges were honest, and that's all you want. Then the audience got to vote! Via Twitter! It was so exciting! You had to vote for the one boy and one girl you wanted out of the competition. I knew exactly which female I was voting for as she had given me nothing but evil looks throughout rehearsal the previous day, ha! It was really hard to pick between the boys but I made my decision and stuck to it.

Act one over, interval time! I waved goodbye to the delectable-smelling Tim as he had to get changed, and we all sat in around chatting about how bitchy the judges had been and who we thought was going to win.

And then came act two! The losing 6 contestants were booted off leaving the final 4 to battke it out in a sing-off. Then it was all about winning votes. The guest performers did their things, and everyone was suitably impressed, but our time was edging ever closer!

Time seemed to fly past and just as they were announcing the winners, we were called down to side stage. We just saw the winners announced before we legged it downstairs. Kara was the winner for the girls, and Felipe was the winning boy (who I had voted out in ound one, oops!). While we were waiting, the winners got to sing a duet with Kerry Ellis and Jon Lee, which sounded amazing, but we couldn't watch :(

And then it was our turn! All of the performers took their bows and the finale was announced, we were on! We all raced into position, precariously balancing on the Thriller set steps and the twinkling of the music began!

The guest performers rocked their solo sections, the sfats winners were great singing theirs, and then we joined in to create the most beautiful sound! I had the biggest grin on my face the whole way through the song, completely forgot my harmony lines so made them up, but it was all over in a flash! Before I knew it I was taking my bow and walking off the stage! I wanted to get back on and do it again! It was absolutely buzzing, it was definitely worth the wait!

We grabbed our stuff and began to go our separate ways, I couldn't believe it was over! An usher walked past us with a big pile of programmes and I managed to get one thanks to the kindness of fellow choirgirl Nicole, I was so excited to see my name in it! Eek! We ended up getting lost trying to find out way out of the theatre, and when we eventually found the stage door to get out of, I nearly took Kerry Ellis out with my giant bag! I don't think we're destined to work together somehow! Haha!

I went for a drink with Nicole and choir boy Nathan across the road, before running for my train home. It was an amazing experience but I was just so tired.

I managed to stay awake for the whole journey home, and read the programme to find out that the winning boy Felipe lives just down the road from me, and to think I voted him out when I should have been supporting my own, oops!

As for sfats, will it happen again? Will I be brave enough to enter next year? Who knows, but I'm proud to say that I was there performing at the very first one!

Thank you director Drew, and of course, thank you @westendproducer, whoever you are...! x

 

Ps, here’s a link to one of the recordings  made xxx