SWEENEY TODD!

UPDATE:

Nathan and I both just got cast as leads in 'The Theatre Company' show of SWEENEY TODD in New Jersey!

We auditioned this week and then both got callbacks for the two love interests, Johanna and Anthony.
(If you have seen the movie, Johanna is the blonde who sings 'Green Finch and Linnet Bird' and Anthony is the boy who wants to save her and sings 'Johanna')

During our callback we had to sing in front of the entire group of people who had a callback. This means, that everyone was sitting in the audience that was called back and then all of the Johanna's were called up to the stage to sing one at a time, and so forth! It was pretty intense.

We just got the news that I got the role of Johanna and Nathan got the role of Anthony!!!!!!
HOORAY!
This show will only run for 2 weeks, but we are SO happy to be performing again! :)

(this is a non-equity show, but with 2 guest appearance equity actors)

We feel so blessed to be doing a great show, a Sonheim musical and performing opposite eachother as LOVE INTERESTS!!! yay!!

__________________

Other news:

I have gotten to the final callbacks of the non-equity national tour of LEGALLY BLONDE! (It is with the same company who did the reality tv show "Finding the new Elle Woods".
I had an appointment on Monday for a dance audition and it went very well! (They told us to wear form fitting clothes, no leotards and no tights...so of course everyone showed up in their pink sports bras and pink shorts! not intimidating at all....)
So, I got thru the dance call and they called me back to sing! Then after I sang, they called me back to read for one of the sorority girls in the show. After that, they asked me to come back the next day to do a jump roping dance routine that they do in the show.
I did the jump roping audition today and I think that it went really well.

Also...Nathan just got a call from Telsey and Company (a major Broadway casting agency) for an audition appointment to audition for the first BROADWAY national tour of NEXT TO NORMAL. They gave him the material for both of the lead roles. (Gabe and Henry) We are super excited for this because this is his dream role and the casting agency called him to come and audition for it, which means they think he is right for it!! AH!!!


Thank you everyone for your prayers! Things have really started to look up for us lately. God is so good and we have definitely learned that everything is on HIS timing and not ours! :)

Only in New York

Whitney's Post:

I have seen some very interesting things here in the city. I've recently decided to try to take a picture of the things that I see on a day to day basis.
Enjoy!

The lady checking me out at Party City had a very interesting "wedding ring". She said that it wasn't pierced through the bone, but it definitely hurt very badly. Ow!

This guy is dressed in a full suit with a diamond studded skull belt to top it off!

This man, I guess, hiking through New York, had a companion with him riding on the top of his backpack! :)

I'm sure you've heard of the Naked Cowboy in New York, but here is a female and older version for ya!

This lady doesn't mind wearing her moo-moo out on the town!

Last but not least, we call this the Pink Tarantula hair style!

There ya have it. 

Only in New York!

Kate Winslet

Nathan's Post:

Don't get mad at us for not blogging - we have sure tried! Whitney was writing a post the other night about all of her most recent auditions and right when she went to post it - there was some kind of error and she lost everything. The annoying thing about it is that this blogger has an auto save but it only saved the first couple of sentences. That was not a good day for Whit - she had a terrible day at work and then that happened when she came home. So, we have abandoned our blog for quite some time to teach it a lesson:)

I still haven't updated ya'll on my experience with Mildred Pierce with Kate Winslet.
2 weeks ago I went to Long Island. I got on a charter bus in Manhattan and it took a little over 2 hours to get to the set. It was because the traffic was terrible. We got there around 4:00pm.

 

the bottom green line is Long Island

They had food already there for us to eat. We all got in our costume which was 1930's attire. They did my hair and I waited around for a couple of hours and then finally got to go on set.
There she was... Kate... sitting down in the restaurant where we were filming. I couldn't believe it. KATE WINSLET!!! We were at a gorgeous location - right off of the water. The weather was perfect and they had me sit down on the patio in a chair with 2 others.
We were there till 5:30am!!!!!!!!!! Nope - no nap - and what did I do the whole time? Sit in the same chair doing absolutely nothing - I'm pretty positive I wasn't even in the shot! We filmed the same scene for 13 hours!!!! They fed us very well though - but ya'll, it was the worst. At around midnight the temperature started to drop and we were freezing. I mean 5:30am ???

All the timing was on Kate, she got to take as much time as she needed to be emotionally ready for the scene. It was insane. We broke for dinner at around 1:00am - and they called it lunch. "Go break for lunch" they told us... I just laughed! I couldn't believe that everyone was still there! The scene was of Mildred Pierce at her restaurant and they asked for the radio to be brought to them because her daughter was going to sing some aria. The scene that they did over and over again was of Kate Winslet staring at the radio listening to her daughter sing - and then she left and stared at the water. She smoked a cigarette in between takes. She looked very sleep deprived and thin. One time after she did her scene and walked to the water - they said cut and she went to her knees and sobbed crying. I was very impressed by her work, duh.
However... If she's needing to take some time in between each take to get where she needs to be emotionally - than to me, that's not the most impressive. I respect her work ethic and I'm sure the director was being very demanding and specific but still, 12 hours for a 1 minute scene??

Again - got this off the internet... didn't take this.

Whitney's Headshots

I took Whitney's headshot this past Sunday and they went extremely well! The weather was PERFECT and we had an amazing time! Shirley's camera is amazing - and she touched them up for us as well:)
Here are some of our favorites - let us know what you think. The reason why we took new shots of her were because she had gotten feedback from casting directors that her current headshot didn't represent her well enough.

So Close

Nathan's Post:
Last night Whitney and I were talking about how hard it is to get performing gigs in New York City. We were feeling very confused and lost. Right after our conversation I checked my email and got this message from the production staff of Split Ends. If you remember I had an audition for this show on Tuesday / details are on "Successful Tuesday" post.

Nathan:

Thank you for auditioning for Split Ends.  I wanted you to know that you were one of our top contenders, even though we ultimately went with someone else.

Your singing was terrific and you took direction very well.  Your drive and commitment shone.

We wish you all the best in your future endeavors.

Now, this kind of email NEVER happens. I was sooo thrilled to get this message. I figured that I hadn't gotten the job because it had been a couple of days. (We have found out that if they're interested in you, they will call you within 48 hours of your audition -which has been very helpful finding out.) So I wasn't surprised that they went with someone else but it is so great to know that they were seriously considering me. I did feel really really awesome about my audition with them especially since they were primarily only seeing equity actors. 

I am still very hopeful and I know that it is only a matter of time before something exciting happens for us. 

In a couple of hours I will be on my way to go on set for Mildred Pierce. I'm really hoping that I won't be there all night - I'm pretty sure that the shoot is outside meaning maybe it will get cancelled? It's supposed to thunderstorm later.

Successful Tuesday

Nathan's post:
Whitney and I had a successful Tuesday. She worked all day while I had a day off. I get every Tuesday and Thursday off except for this week I get Friday off because I'm doing that Mildred Pierce thingy. I slept in till 10:00am which was amazing and I got ready for the Next to Normal audition. I auditioned for Next to Normal a month ago for the Broadway production and last week they were holding auditions for the first National Tour. Well this week they are holding auditions for the tour this Tuesday and Thursday. I got there and they were seeing non equity again ... yay. I put my name on the list and was told to go break for lunch. Usually when casting directors are holding auditions the times are from 10am - 6pm with an hour break for lunch. I had a voice lesson scheduled today at 2:30pm for a half an hour so I had a little time to kill. I headed over to Pearl Studios where they were holding auditions for a new show called "Splint Ends." They're doing a production of it in New Jersey for one week and it would pay. No-one was around so I slowly crept in the room and asked if I could audition. They too were on break and said they would give me an appointment to come back at 4:30pm. PERFECT! I went to my voice lesson and then went back to Telsey Company for Next to Normal and got seen:) The guy said "very good job" in a genuine tone and I then headed over to my appointment for Splint Ends. They got me right in and gave me a scene to read. Everything went really well. They laughed at my choices (in a good way) and directed me, gave me great feedback. It was crazy, there were like 10 people in the room. They were all nodding there heads and smiling. It went really great.

Whitney got out of work at 5pm and went to the Next to Normal audition and literally walked right in. She did well. Then she went to Splint Ends and the same thing happened. It was soo amazing! Actually - when she got there for Splint Ends - they were done with everyone and the monitor said they were getting ready to leave but he asked and they said sure why not. However, Whitney didn't have anymore headshots with her and they STILL let her audition. I mean, that is unheard of. They seemed to really like her as well. They directed her and took their time letting her do her thing. The director of the show told her to give the monitor her contact information.

YAY! Tomorrow, Radio City is holding open auditions for the Radio City Music Hall Christmas Spectacular, but I have to be at work at 8:30am but Whitney is going to go and try to get seen before she works at 10am.

Sorry there are no pictures. Speaking of pictures though, Whitney has been getting negative feedback from her new headshots - which clearly stinks - so Shirley is sending her very expensive camera to us in the mail and we're going to take our own:) Thanks Shirley!

May Day

Nathan's post:
I'm running out of titles. I keep forgetting people read our blog - so we need to update ya'll more often.
I'm supposed to be grocery shopping right now but I haven't made a list yet and I just got home from work so I'm tired. I don't feel like writing a lot right now - so here is a quick update.

My boss Rachael got fired this past week. It's great news because I didn't like her. I didn't like her because all she did was talk, she knew how to talk, but she didn't how to manage our company well. Rachael was Make's area manager - so she was kind of in charge of all three locations. So she wasn't my manager at my store but she delegated .... things... I guess... well that's why she got fired because no one really knew what she did. Many people have asked me if they think I'll be promoted into a management position. The answer is no, because in my store we are set. We have a manager, an assistant manager, and key holders, and then sales representatives. I'm happy at where I'm at right now - I have flexible hours and not many responsibilities, although I do much more work than required because my own manager is kind of mentally slow as well. We think she might get the boot here real quick - but who knows.

The Samsung commercial was terrible - there were 100 of us background actors for the shoot and they had us all wear white and walk up and down the streets of Manhattan. I was there for 13 hours - luckily the weather was perfect. At least they payed well. I don't think I was in any shot. No famous people were in it that I could see.

This week I am working, auditioning, and background acting in the HBO mini series called "Mildred Pierce" with Kate Winslet. I don't know when it's airing. I don't have HBO so I probably won't get to see it. It's this Friday and it is set in the 1930's. I went in last week for a costume fitting and they cut my hair to make it look like that time period. It's really short on the lower sides. I really really hope I get to meet Kate Winslet - that would be fantastic.

Whitney has been super busy with work. She is kind of the assistant to the event coordinator at Make. The girl who used to be the assistant quit and the event coordinator is getting surgery this week because she has thyroid cancer, so Whitney has been running around like a chicken with her head cut off:)

Lots of auditions this week - we'll keep you posted.

I realize this wasn't the quickest update - it turned out rather long... or perhaps I just have too much space in between each thought. 

Major bummer - Whitney's girlfriends are going to a beach house in I think South Carolina and she can't go because of work - she's completely bummed and stressed out. I wish the timing was better for her. Maybe I'll go..... hehe just kidding.