McDonalds? OK!

With the showcase over and pilot season in full-swing, I've been particularly anxious about my lack of auditions. It's my first pilot season in LA, but this period of time feels like perhaps the best chance to make career strides this year. While I'm working hard to submit and network, and am as prepared as I can be for opportunities that do come up, I was beginning to feel discouraged.

Along comes a commercial audition, for McDonald's no less. I had already booked some work for the day, but decided it was worth canceling. This audition is one of the first my commercial agent has sent me out on, and with an office that has seen me once before (perhaps I am now on their radar?!). As with many commercial auds, it was all improv-based and the description of what to do was vague (pretend you are sitting on a crane, enjoying lunch, peaceful, etc.)

I invested in a private session with Killian McHugh of Killian's workshop (http://www.killiansworkshop.com/), voted best commercial workshop by BackStageWest. It was an awesome 60-minute one-on-one that reviewed some nuts and bolts of commercial auditioning and presented some new ideas to me as well. The biggest concepts I took away from our work together were to go after the overall feel of the spot and find a way to make it your own.

So I took the vague suggestions given by the McDonald's casting associate and tried to let myself be my quirky wonderful self. I left feeling ho-hum, not really knowing how I did, and tried, as I always do, to let the audition go and move on with my day.

The audition was on Wednesday. By Friday afternoon, I had all but forgotten about it, entertained throughout the day by out-of-town friends. Then the message came from my agent at just before 5 pm. I was on avail! While this doesn't mean that I've booked it yet, it does mean I'm under consideration and that I did my job.

I'm liking this "just be myself" tone of things these days. It's been a process getting back to this point, and I aim to stay and enjoy it for a bit.