Puma on Broadway!

Puma came w the belief that Opera singers do not act. Oh by they do, they act in many languages, the styles maybe different but the truth & connection on the inside is the same. My dear Puma, never stop sharing your gifts with the world we need your passion and your humor and your music,

Assiatou makes a scary debut!

 

I was lucky to have the incomparable Roz coach me while shooting my first starring role in a thriller film produced by Spike Lee! She listened, saw where I was and took me further than I had imagined I would go. Working with Roz on YOU"RE NOBODY TIL SOMEBODY KILLS YOU provided me with the foundation to explore the work more authentically. Roz, the movie just got released by Lionsgate on  DVD, just in time for Halloween, boooooo! If you believe in justice as well as to be scared, download from amazon with one click here: http://www.amazon.com/Youre-Nobody-til-Somebody-Kills/dp/B008JFSQBI

or get it on DVD while it lasts!

 

ASSIATOU 

Vanessa Got The Job!

When Vanessa called to tell me she got the job, my face hurt from smiling so hard, I was so happy for her. As an acting coach I am always getting these phone calls, texts, and emails from my clients who have booked the job and are sharing their joy with me. I always feel high with happiness when someone's hard work pays off in the way that they want. At some point the emails get deleted, the texts are covered over with new mundane, phone calls end and feelings evaporate. This time I wanted it to be different.


I asked Vanessa to put the feelings into words so that I could remember it and share it with you guys. Thank you Vanessa for allowing me into your creative process and for sharing your experience with us all. Now I have to get a plane ticket for Pasadena.


How ROZ COLEMAN helped me book Intimate Apparel- Pasadena Playhouse fall 2012
I went to Roz because she's my dear friend, an amazing director coach and awesome actress!
I was particularly interested in her insight on Esther because I had seen her do a kick butt job in the role at a theater in Philadelphia.
I came to her with all my actor angst and a litany of questions.What does this scene mean,
what's the secret to Esther, what emotional place I should be in for the particular audition scene I had been given? I figured Roz would know all the answers she'd played the role (magnificently I might add) she knows exactly what's going on. She got to discover on her feet what was going on in the play!
Roz took a breath calmly said "Vanessa have an authentic experience of material."
"Oh!" I said to myself "Oh ok...I know how to do that. This is beautifully written material I understand it, I know what's going on, I'm having an emotional response to the material already."
Roz continued "...have an authentic experience and don't focus on the result!" In other words trust yourself, trust your instrument Vanessa ...you can't get it wrong.
I was relieved and went on to have a fantastic audition armed with this sage advice and another gem of wisdom Roz had already given me in a prior coaching session which was "This is your job until otherwise notified!"
These words I carry all the time to every audition I have. These words completely and totally take me off the hook and allow me to relax into the present moment and the present joy of doing the work that I so love to do. And isn't that the truth of the matter anyway? Don't we as actors spend so much of our lives more than anything else we do trying to "get"the job?
So why not go ahead and enjoy this process, fully embody it and enjoy HAVING the job for as long as we can or ....until otherwise notified!
I spent more time going over the scenes, rehearsing, discovering, but now without all the worry. I was doing the part I was "in rehearsal."At the call back I was calm rehearsing with the director with the other actors who were also "in rehearsal."
I saw the other actresses who were also up for Esther, beautiful, fine looking actresses whose work I'm sure was fabulous, all the while I had a calm sense of whatever happens it's all good I'm already doing it, already doing the work.
I left feeling exhilarated inspired accomplished and detached from the outcome... I couldn't lose.
My agent called me three days later...I booked it! Thank you Roz!

Sent from Vanessa's iPad