That’s the first line of George Carlin’s “Hair Poem”. It applies to every on camera actor, because a big part of casting is appearance. You don’t have to be beautiful, but your look must suit that role and the casting director’s and/or client’s vision.

My hair very curly and very thick. Wile I often get compliments about my hair, and women with thin or straight hair comment wistfully, there are times when straight hair is preferred for actors. Knowing when those times are is a challenge. On the one hand, you’re supposed to look like your headshots. On the other, you want to suit the character specs as much as possible so auditioners don’t have to stretch to see you in that role.

For example, a national TV commercial sought 3 nuns of varying ages and asked that auditionees look the part. A few were in actual nun’s habits, but most, like me, wore something conservative in black or black and white. Many had short hair. I’d decided on a low ponytail. At the last minute, I took out my contacts and put on glasses. And booked the job. At the shoot, they had me wear the youngest nun’s glasses instead. View the end result here.

A scan of TV channels, whether local or national, shows that no news reporter or anchor has curly hair. (Very few women in commercials do, either…and if they do, chances are they’re young.) So I know that if I’m a reporter in a movie to straighten my hair, which is a time consuming task. It takes around 45 minutes to blow dry straight, then another chunk of time to flatiron it. Even when I do, for a couple of the Batman movies and just this month for Episode 6 of the upcoming Fox TV series Ride Along, the hair stylists either turn my ponytail into a smooth bun and hide my bangs, or they re-flatiron my hair.

I’m one of the only curly-haired women I see at on camera narrator auditions. Would I book more if I went straight? Several years ago one of my talent agents wouldn’t even submit me with curly hair. So I had separate straight hair headshots for her.

Perhaps curly hair looks too wild or messy onscreen, or comes across as unprofessional or too youthful. Yet sometimes they’re looking for “something different.” So for each audition, I have to think about which way to go.

I’m always on the lookout for products that work best to enhance curly hair and help straighten it. Many sites (naturallycurly.com) and books (http://www.amazon.com/Curly-Girl-Lorraine-Massey/dp/0761123008) offer advice for making the most of curly hair.

Freelancers usually work on our own, so we lack the camaraderie of an office environment and the opportunity to bounce ideas off or share tasks with co-workers. We get out and about to meet with clients, but often there’s a sense of being a guest rather than belonging.

We also have the freedom of not having to show up every day from 9 to 5. On the other hand, that freedom can lead some of us to distraction and/or lack of discipline and motivation. So sometimes freelancers and those who aspire to produce projects outside of their day jobs pair up to keep each other on track instead of spending hours trolling the Internet.

The challenge is to find someone whose style and approach meshes with yours, yet with whom there’s synergy. For example, I’m a morning person and so don’t feel as productive working at night. I like keeping to a schedule. I tend to work quickly and on one thing at a time.

I’m writing a non-fiction book with a friend. Neither of us could have done this particular project alone. I need her knowledge and training; she needs my writing, editing and life experience. But until recently, this was a side project for both of us. Since we didn’t have a corporate deadline, it’s been a long time in the making. We’d work in fits and spurts, then set it aside for a variety of reasons.

We work very well together, are great at figuring out who does what when and then (usually) meeting our goals. We’re good at expressing our thoughts on next steps, what stays in and what needs to go. There’s no boss who has the authority to give all the orders or underling obligated to do what she’s told. The only frustration has been keeping track of the various drafts, which on occasion has resulted in me spending extra time re-editing and comparing documents to make sure I’ve caught all of the updates and changes.

Lately we’ve stepped up our efforts individually and as a team. Now we’re 75% done and can see the finish line. Others are involved and have spent their time and effort to help us, and we do have a deadline for completion. So the pressure is on…this “side project” is now (and finally) real.

Stay tuned…

Whether you’ve applied for a job, sent a requested writing submission, had an audition, entered a writing contest, or completed a job and want to know about feedback/revisions, you have to wait for a response. You’ve done all you can do. Now it’s up to the employer, editor/agent/casting person/judges, etc.

I find that waiting can be difficult and stressful. Why? Mabye because I have no control over what the response will be, or even when I’ll get one. There’s no work left for that particular task, no obligation or pressure on my part, yet sometimes I have to make an effort to stop wondering when or if I’ll find out. I need to let any thoughts of that thing go so I can focus on current projects. So I can live in the present moment, and not think about all the possible “what if” futures. Many advise that life is about the journey, not the outcome. Hmmm.

I may never have closure on some irons I put in the fire; some agents/editors, for example, say they won’t respond unless they’re interested. And I don’t know when they’ll even get to my submission to make that determination. Usually the only ways I find out I didn’t book an acting gig is if I happen to hear through the grapevine that a friend got it or when the shoot date passes.

When there’s a promised time frame for a reply, letting go of waiting can be even harder. Because the closer the deadline gets without a response, the more you know one is on its way. I’m currently waiting to hear about something pretty big. Every time my phone makes the incoming email sound, I wonder if it’s the news. Yet I check with a bit of trepidation, wanting the answer to be in my inbox, yet at the same time not wanting to know…to keep the dream alive, the door open? Hope is definitely better than rejection. And it can be easier than good news, which in this case will require a lot of work and a lot of change–fun, exciting and scary at the same time.

Lo and behold, last night during a rehearsal break I saw an email from the person I’ve been waiting on bated breath to hear from. I steeled myself to read it…and found not an answer but a question. Whew. The waiting begins…again.

As they say, a watched pot never boils…good things come to those who wait…
Waiting is not mere empty hoping. It has the inner certainty of reaching the goal.
– I Ching

Faithful readers know I’m a planner. I prefer to be prepared and finish projects ahead of schedule, and don’t like feeling rushed or pressured. Others choose to wait until the last minute to get their work done, frittering away what could have been productive hours, managing to meet deadlines only in the nick of time and often not getting as much other stuff done as they wanted to.

However, even for the organized and (usually) disciplined, there are those “when it rains, it pours” days when not only are anticipated projects due, others come in that are due at the same time. Of course I’m very happy to have additional opportunities, but for me cramming everything in at once is a challenge.

For example, I had a gig as an eccentric character in a corporate role playing game. Most of it was improv, so there wasn’t much to prepare. The info arrived after 7PM the night before, when I was singing at Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens’ retirement gala (attended by appx. 600, including many legal luminaries). I also had an on camera TV commercial audition. That script also arrived after 5PM, and was long enough to require the use of an ear prompter. Laying down the copy is much easier than memorizing, but getting it right and getting comfortable with it takes some practice. The same day I was also filming a law firm video, which fortunately provided a teleprompter. I still had to review that script and prepare my character. Not to mention compile assorted wardrobe and show up on time to all events.

That morning I woke up to an email about a very interesting development with a co-authored non-fiction project. (Yea!) Which needed to be addressed ASAP…. Multi-tasking and being pulled in so many directions stresses me out, makes me think I won’t get everything done or if I do won’t get it done well. I decided I needed to stop for a minute, take several deep breaths and focus on appreciating all the fun and exciting developments.

Sometimes something very great happens to friends, yet they instantly think of possible negative outcomes instead of staying in the good news moment. For example, when they learn they’re a finalist in a major writing contest or on hold for a big acting project, instead of being happy they got that far, they’ll say they won’t win or get the job. I’ve done that, too. Maybe we’re just protecting ourselves from being hurt if we don’t get whatever that thing is.

I want to savor good news for as long as I can. Even if there are times when one exciting door opens, another possibility closes, or when opportunities don’t pan out.

Freelancers set their own rates, constantly balancing the need to make money and get paid what we’re worth (see: What are you worth ) against the need to be competitive. Clients then decide if they wish to pay from the quote or negotiate.

Sometimes I (and friends) choose to take less than we think a job should pay. Perhaps it’s outside our wheelhouse, and we want the experience or something for our reel/portfolio. We may want to work for certain clients or industry professionals in the hope of getting future work. And if we don’t take that low paying job, someone else will.

On the other hand, clients should trust that we’re billing fairly and appropriately. I recently did an hourly VO job from home via an agent. When I sent in my voucher, they had to be confident I wasn’t padding my time…like in olden days, when a butcher might be accused of putting his thumb on the scale to add weight. Building a reputation for trustworthiness takes time.

We may offer volume rates for multiple projects or repeat business, or special rates for friends/acqaintances. An attorney I’ve known for years inquired about my freelance writing rates. I offered a lower rate based on our long acquaintance. He asked more billing questions than any client I’ve had thus far (so both of us were spending unpaid time responding), and wanted to know if I used a time tracking program (like attorneys do). I don’t. Agents and other clients trust me, I assumed a friend would, too.

Employers can’t know what an employee is doing every minute of every day. Is the person working diligently and to capacity, or getting the bare minumum done and frittering away hours taking long breaks or trolling the Internet? Unless clients/employers set up surveillance cameras (and then spend an awful lot of their time monitoring), how can they be sure if their time use expectations are being met? Trust. Professionalism.

But some people just aren’t as trustworthy as others…which comes to light eventually (see: Liar, liar). If a reputation for trustworthiness has been tarnished or broken, if clients/employers have doubts because a worker turns in projects late or at the last minute, for example, there are always more freelancers in the sea.

There are too many choices for consumers and yet not enough…the specific options each of us wants may not be available. Cereal aisles, for example, offer dozens of varieties. Even so, often the particular iteration I want isn’t there. (Jewel doesn’t have Frosted Mini-Wheats Cinnamon Streusel, but I happened to find it in a Treasure Island.)

We don’t have the time to shop every store to seek exactly what we’re looking for. And sometimes, it doesn’t even exist. So we compromise.

I wanted a new smart phone. With all the fees and contract fine points, changing providers can be a pain and costly. And I’ve been happy with U.S. Cellular’s service…often more reliable than friends’ AT&T iPhones (one of their compromises). I’d hoped for a slide out keyboard, but the phones with that lacked other important features. I chose the brand new HTC Desire Android because of its large (3.7”) touch screen, lightning fast Internet, Flash (!), and number of and ease of downloading apps.

Scrolling through long Yahoo! Digest e-mails, checking in with Facebook and browsing websites is a breeze, both because of the touch screen and the pinch feature to resize text. There are 7 home screens, which offer a lot of customizing, and an easy way to access all apps. I have small fingers, so the touchscreen keyboard, when horizontal, is ok for typing.

However, I gave up what were, IMO, essential BlackBerry benefits: different notification sounds for each e-mail address, the ability to view all emails from all addresses at once, and instant delivery of messages. Apparently the vast majority of phones only offer one notification sound for texts and e-mails. Only calls can have different ring tones.

I’m surprised more people don’t want to know, for example, if they just got a text or a voicemail message. I can’t be the only person who has different e-mail addresses serving different purposes, so some are more important to check frequently than others, like my work vs. my shopping address. Maybe most people are so phone obsessed they check no matter what’s incoming.

The Desire can check for new messages every 5 minutes, which I guess will be fast enough even for those “respond ASAP” auditions I often get. Also, the Desire is a little heavier, 4.76 ounces vs. 3.70, the battery drains much faster, and some tasks I perform frequently take an extra tap or two. The user manual, like many these days, isn’t all that helpful, so there may be features I’d like but can’t find or figure out. For example, the Desire screen is so sensitive, I sometimes tap things I didn’t want. If there’s a way to adjust that, like you can a mouse, I can’t find it.

In other areas of life, from jobs to relationships, we usually compromise. Sometimes, though, it’s nice to get exactly what you want.

Our society favors youthful appearances. If we didn’t care how young we looked, there wouldn’t be a proliferation of medispas featuring Botox/other non-surgical proceduresor or such a rapid rise in plastic surgeries. The vast majority of fashion models wouldn’t be in their teens. We wouldn’t buy trendy garments much less makeup, creams, lotions or potions. There wouldn’t be so many articles about cougars or men who prefer much younger women.

As an actress, I have to consider how age affects my bookings. Certainly there are roles for everyone from infants to septuagenarians. But since I look and sound much younger than I actually am, sometimes age is just a number— meaning clients go by what they see and hear. Sometimes they go by actual age. Since many opportunities seem to be for younger or older women, I can find myself in a gray (pun intended) area—too chronologically old to be the typical mom with kids, too young to be a senior.

Examples:
–At a national commercial audition for women 20-70, seeking a young, medium and older nun, I was placed in the middle, or medium, chair. I booked it as the oldest nun…which could have been for age-related or any number of other reasons. Maybe the clients just liked my look or how I did the bite and smile. But when age is so much a factor in the initial specs, it’s hard not to wonder. Check it out, here.
–Chicago improv is a very young community, with many players half my age. So I was to be a grandmother for a live project in Las Vegas. When they decided to book me, they changed the character to an aunt.
–I just did a billboard shoot as a mom. My “kids” were 9 and 13.

So do I try to keep looking like I’m in my thirties and skew younger as long as I can…and if so, to what extent? Via anti-aging/wrinkle creams; coloring my hair, keeping my longer, curly hair vs. going with a shorter cut; wearing no-line bifocals and bifocal contacts so I don’t need reading glasses? Do I embark upon more costly measures that yield more obvious results, such as laser treatments or eye surgery, and if so, when?

Or do I embrace each wrinkle, crow’s foot, line around my mouth, gray hair…the realities of getting older?

Time will tell.

The techniques of and experience doing improv can benefit almost everyone, from actors (enhances skills plus it’s a resume credit agents and clients appreciate and/or expect in Chicago), writers (helps spark plot and character ideas) and business people (learn to think on your feet, gain confidence during presentations, work on team building, etc.). I’ve completed several improv training programs and have performed with a variety of groups in assorted venues.

Lately I prefer performing improv over theatre because:
-when improve works, IMO it’s funnier than almost any play or sketch comedy, because the humor is being created in the moment and hasn’t been tweaked and rewritten, with each move and line rehearsed. When it falls flat, audiences tend to be a little more forgiving for the same reasons. (Some audience members have said they’re impressed that we can even stand up there and create characters and scenes on the fly.)
-though improv teams rehearse (to help members work together better, grow as improvisers and learn that venue’s approach), it’s usually only once a week instead of several times a week. There’s nothing to memorize, and you don’t go over the same scenes time and again. You’re always coming up with something new, creating your own scripts.

So many elements go into each scene: individual abilities, knowledge and frame of mind; team synergy; audience mood and knowledge, and the combination of a team’s or venue’s approach and the suggestions received. Add in the usual performance elements of timing, character development, blocking, etc. Suggestions, players and audience need to click.

It’s challenging enough to get that click during a show. Add the pressure of auditioning, knowing you’re being judged, and the stakes ratchet higher. Usually you only get to do one two-person scene and a couple of short montage scenes in an audition. So an improviser can be derailed by a suggestion that doesn’t resonate, a scene partner he or she has never met, or one of those moments where you get stuck in your head and lack ideas. When you audition for a play, commercial or any scripted thing, you should benefit from knowing what you’ll say and rehearsing how.

Most major Chicago improv venues are holding their annual auditions now. There are so many hopefuls that even getting an audition time can be difficult, much less getting cast. iO’s and the Playground’s slots filled way in advance. Another venue said it had 135 auditionees and added nine improvisers to the roster; only three were women.

As with any audition, if you don’t get cast, it’s hard to know if you’re just not good enough that day or in general, or just not what they’re looking for…

Technology is amazing and frustrating at the same time. Of course computers, the Internet, e-mail, etc. make our lives easier in many respects. I remember writing college papers using carbon paper and Wite-Out because my typewriter didn’t have a correct key (at least I had an electric, not a manual), and actually cutting my first drafts into pieces and taping them together for typing because word processing wasn’t readily available; there was no cut and paste. If we weren’t at home when someone called, they’d have to call back. I won my first answering machine senior year in college when I represented the University of Michigan on The Joker’s Wild’s College Tournament. (Other prizes included some cash for me and the U of M, a case of Golden Grain Macaroni & Cheese, WD-40 and a reel to reel tape player.)

On the other hand, technology also can result in de-personalizing business and personal relationships. There’s the pressure to always be connected; I don’t want to miss something requiring a response ASAP. I have my phone set to make different sounds for different e-mail addresses so I know which messages to read right away.

Figuring out how to do a new task often takes far longer than it should. We spend time registering for various sites, keeping track of passwords/changing them, backing up. For every dollar we save in postage by paying bills on line or emailing work product such as submissions to editors/agents, we spend another in software or hardware. Do we spend as much time talking to actual people as we do catching up with e-mails, texts, Twitter and Facebook?

As a voice talent, most of my auditions are now self-recorded. Many are due ASAP, others with less than 24 hours turnaround time. Though obviously recording at home saves travel time to the agent and back, it’s hard to get the best reads when directing yourself. And you don’t get any feedback as to whether your audition is in the ballpark or if you could have talked faster, slower or with more of whatever emotion. “Friendly and educational,” for example, means different things to different people. So sometimes for big auditions, I seek coaching and production assistance from people I’ve worked with, which takes travel time and/or money. Instead of getting the opinion of the agent who has actually communicated with and is familiar with the client, whoever helps is another step removed from knowing what the client really wants.

So many people communicate mostly via e-mail or text to save time, but in the process some elements of communication are lost. You don’t get to hear the other person’s tone of voice or share reactions to conversation. Many now work at home, spending all day staring at their computers and not interacting with co-workers. We miss out on camaraderie and exchange of useful information.

Sometimes we leap into new technology because it seems fun, or maybe even because everyone else is doing it. We may not realize how many hours we spend a day with it, or how often we pull out our phones when out with family/friends. Maybe every so often we should step back for a minute and consider the opportunity costs of investing in and spending so much time with technology. Maybe there are times when our time could be better spent elsewhere.

I sometimes get asked what I do all day…given that I don’t have certain common obligations that require a major time commitment, such as full time job or kids. So here’s yesterday, a sample day in the life:

–Promised to deliver a VO job for a social networking site by 9AM. Had received the script @ 5:30PM the night before when not only were they pounding on the new house being built behind me, I was getting ready for an improv show. When I sat down to record Wednesday morning at 6:30AM, the loading dock I live near was in full, noisy swing. Then came driving rain loud enough to hear over my mic, and a thunderstorm. Then, of course, the house construction started. In between periods of hammering and running engines I was able to record the appx. 3 minute script. Did not hear if revisions were needed.

–While at the Romance Writers of America conference in Orlando last week, I met with several literary agents/editors. Worked on fine tuning one of my manuscripts to submit.

–Completed variety of email correspondence for work and play, including some with co-author of non-fiction project and possible freelance writing client.

–Examined potential new headshots; a friend is photoshopping my black shirt to a better color, apparently not an easy task.

–A talent agent called about a print looksee for a pharmaceutical company that afternoon. Chatted with him about the frustrations of the new online casting site Chicago casting agents are using.

–Printed a headshot. Primped for (aka tried to tame my curly hair in this humidity) and drove to print looksee appx. 20 minutes away. Fortunately there was no wait. Posed for 3 different pictures in about two minutes. “Smized” as Tyra advises. Photographer kept saying, “Perfect.”

–Returned home around 2PM to find an ASAP VO audition, which I managed to record between more bouts of hammering.

–Got a call from and talked for almost an hour to a friend who’d won a RITA (RWA’s Oscar, awarded at a fancy ceremony attended by appx. 2000 people) in FL.

–Worked more on my ms.

–Just after 5PM, got an email for another VO audition due this morning by 10AM.

–Went to ComedySportz for my team’s REC League show. We’re down a couple of players, so our coach and a guest coach we had (both CSz ensemble members) joined us.

–Stopped by a friend’s for a short visit.