TRANSCRIPT:

Alright this is gonna be so far from perfect or what I wanted it to be and that’s cool. So this is mostly for myself because I used to keep a diary when I was young and it’s been so valuable to have those. Anyway I decided to just try to force myself to make these videos because other things that I’m posting are things that we’ve planned, and really thought a lot about – and so I want to force myself to also try storytelling in this way as well.

So anyway I want to talk about this incredible journey that I have been on, where I’m finally actually getting paid to be an actor, which is amazing, like I can say that I am a professional actor and after so many years of working towards that, that’s just incredible. So anyway here’s what I did this week: 

First of all I spent a lot of time especially today doing social media posts. I posted throughout the year once a month or once every couple of months the new Q&A video that we just posted which is “Tell your own damn story.” Then I also posted about the Mesa show which is next month, which is really cool because the last time we were in Mesa there were probably three people in the audience from the afternoon or morning show, and that included people who work for the theater. And it was a blow to the ego for sure. I was heartbroken by that and I just was thinking, “Gosh maybe this show isn’t good”…and, and they brought us back! And so I’m really excited – so that’s coming up so I posted about that.

Also we have all these great videos and so one of them that’s coming out is this brilliant idea by Chandra Crudup, my Production Manager, who you’ll meet – you’ll hear about her a lot – and she suggested that we do Team One Drop videos to introduce people to all the freaking amazing people behind the show – because I don’t do it alone by any means. I have an incredible amount of help. So I’ve been working with Alex Regalado who was one of the editors of the long version of the film and we’ve been working together – she’s been cutting these Team One Drop videos together and sending me notes and I give her notes and I’m really excited about that.

Okay I had an audition this week – a commercial audition – for – and this is really good for me – that the age was 40, and I was like,  “Cool.” It’s crazy to me because I know that would make most women in Hollywood freak out and I feel such a sense of relief that I’m actually going out for things that are close to my age. I would just always get so stressed when I was going up for something a lot younger and I didn’t book. But I love this. I wanted to read to you the description so, “Matilda (it’s a commercial for a bank) Matilda is beautiful, casual, curious about the world, little makeup (YES I was like, YES! when I read that!), interesting faces. It’s me – ‘interesting faces.’ I’m cool with that, I feel like I can do that – I can do all of those things.

So I have to get my flights for Mesa that is exciting and coming up and it’s time to get the flights for that and I’ma do that this week.

I applied to the United Solo Theatre Festival. I got an email that they extended their deadline and I was like, “I just have to do this!” It takes place on theatre row in New York City, so why not? Why the freak not? So I applied to that.

We did two shows at the Museum of Tolerance with Heather Oliver as my Production Manager and they were both amazing. Monday’s show there were definitely more Black folks in the audience and the reason I know that is because they were doing call-and-response with me, which I really appreciate and when I wrote the show I had that in my head, and so it was just really nice. It’s always nice to have an audience that actually interacts during the show. On Wednesday they didn’t necessarily interact, but it’s so interesting to me too because I play this – do you do this? I’ll bet you do this, like I play this awful mind game with myself during the show where I’m like, “Oh they hate it” and I know, I know, a better actor would not do that, but it’s part of what’s going through my head – and I hope to evolve in it and not be so anymore – but yeah I was thinking that, and then afterwards there was an outpouring of love and support and so they really enjoyed it; they just took it in very differently than that Black group and for all I know the Black folks might have hated it! And shout out to those teachers in Sacramento who then went on the Facebook page and gave us a whole bunch of new ‘likes’ and it was really lovely – just a great time at the Museum of Tolerance; I’m so grateful to have that gig and hope I’ll be there are a lot more.

My husband and I – Diego and I – watched “Making a Murderer” on Netflix and it’s freaking amazing if you haven’t seen it – although it will also make you infuriated because I’ve listened to all of “Serial” about Adnan Sayed – the first one – and “Undisclosed Podcast” and this will just continue to make you so frustrated about the criminal justice system. We have to do better. But it’s important to see these because you have an understanding of the ways police departments and lawyers and judges manipulate the system. So watch that if you haven’t seen it, it is freaking amazing.

Ok: I introduced some women to this incredible filmmaking group that I’m in.

I returned some emails about an exhibit in LA that I hopefully will be a part of.

I got cast in a reading of a play called “Luck of the Irish” that I’m doing next week, so I’ll take some video about that.

I got tickets for my mom to come to LA and she’s coming in an hour and I gotta go pick her up from the airport.

And finally I’m so excited because my best friend is studying philosophy – which is just amazing in and of itself – and she’s a Black woman and she is looking at race within philosophy and so she sent me…can I…I’ll just say she sent me a paper to read and I, like, the little bit that I understood was so on point with what I believe in and just the representation of her as a Black woman doing philosophy – a PhD is what she’s gonna be going for – is just so exciting to me. It was a beautiful way to end this week of artivism.

So thanks for watching and thanks Mama Trudy for watching, because I know you are. And I’ll see you (Mama Trudy) in an hour and I’ll see you all next week. I’ll try to add one of these once a week.

Ok. Bye!