Humbled by Kindness

We have two more weekends of All My Sons, and I have been absolutely blown away by the kindness of the audience members and reviewers. My friends and family who have come have been awesome and so supportive, but the response from people I had never met has been unexpected and overwhelming. It means so much when people go out of their way to say a kind word, send an email, or "friend" me with a message on facebook. Thank you all.

LA Weekly gave us a "GO!," which was very exciting. Paul Birchall had a fantastic review for the whole show, and had the following specific quote about yours truly: "Webb's sweet, then fierce turn as Annie becomes surprisingly complex as she ultimately wields a weapon that puts the final nail in the villain's coffin..." 

Paul Stroili of LA Talk Radio saw the show and gave a glowing on-air review on "State of the Arts." Here is the link to the June 28th show if you care to listen - the review of All My Sons starts at 24 minutes.

Tony Frankel of StageandCinema.com titled his review "All My Praise" and was so kind to us that I have to share two quotes in their entirety:

"Kudos to Miss Johnson’s Kate and Miss Webb’s Ann: you can sense the weight-bearing pressure on Kate, who is still not reconciled with ghosts of the past, and the nervous reservations of Ann, who is ready to move into the future. You may want to hold them, comfort them, or shake them out of complacency, but you will be too riveted to turn your gaze from them."

 and

"It is Nicholas S. Williams as Chris who astounds with his authentic vulnerability – it is the performance that dreams are made of: his listening, reacting, internalizing, and discovery should be studied by acting students near and far.  There isn’t a second of falsehood. If you ask why you should seek out small, legitimate theatre in Los Angeles, Mr. Williams is the reason. Watch an actor at the top of his game close up."

The whole review is wonderful and specific and worth a read, and I couldn't agree more about all the other performances - I have a better-than-front-row seat and I am inspired by them every single night. My favorite line from the review: "Certainly, Miller’s ghost tapped director Kiff Scholl on the shoulder during the casting session and said, 'Them.'" Mr. Frankel's review was runner-up for Critique of the Week on Bitter Lemons, where we are also "100% Sweet."

I am so grateful to you all. Thank you. 

There are two more weekends to catch the show! Visit Plays411, Goldstar, or LA Stage Alliance for tickets.

Aaaand we're open!

All My Sons opened last weekend to almost sold-out houses. I was lucky enough to have several friends in the audience opening night (which was also my birthday - great way to celebrate!) and they really enjoyed the show. I love my castmates and everyone did a great job. I'm very excited for our run!

This morning I received my first legit review ever, and I was floored by how kind it was:

"From Webb’s first entrance as Ann, the lovely young actress is perfection, embodying every young man’s girl-next-door ideal and capturing the precise look and sound of the era."
- Steven Stanley, Stage Scene LA (Read full review on StageSceneLA)

I can't wait to meet Mr. Stanley, and give him a hug or buy him a drink. Or both.

Backstage also posted their review today, with kind words about my phenomenal castmates and this:

"Webb portrays Ann as a strong, independent woman who is near the breaking point."
- Jeff Favre, Backstage (Read full review on Backstage)

Needless to say I'm very excited. I'll post more reviews as they come.We have a very long run, so hopefully folks will be able to make it.

Tickets and more info here: http://tiny.cc/plays411
And half-price tickets on Goldstar: http://tiny.cc/allmysonsgoldstar
And for those who like do their social planning via Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=131471123536831

If any industry folks are reading this, thank you! and let me know if you would like me to reserve you some comps!

Here are some of our press shots:

with Nicholas S. Williams (as Chris Keller)

with Mary Carrig (as Sue Bayliss) (My face in this one cracks. me. up.)

 squeezing Nicholas S. Williams (as Chris Keller) and yelling at CaroleAnne Johnson (as Kate Keller)

Come see the good times in person! And as always, thanks for visiting!

Resources for taking the plunge

I have a fellow actor friend from college who is very talented and is starting the journey of pursuing acting in LA. We had lunch this week and I compiled the following links of resources that I find valuable. I thought this might be a good list for anyone else embarking on an acting career in Los Angeles.

As ever, take these with a grain of salt. I think they are great, but what speaks to me might not be right for you. This list is not comprehensive by any means. If you have a great site that we should all know about it, please add it in the comments!

From my email to my friend:

"There is an unending wealth of information on the internet, which is a mixed bag. These are my go-to sites and a good starting point. Feel free to direct any specific questions back to me and I'll do my best to answer them.

Bonnie Gillespie's book Self Management for Actors, is the book I recommend everyone read first. Her column, The Actor's Voice, comes out every Monday and her archives are a treasure trove. Have fun.

actor's access is a casting/self-submission site where it is free to create a profile. You can peruse the breakdowns and pay $2 when you want to submit, or pay $68 for a year of unlimited submissions.

I believe you can also set up a free profile on Now Casting but have to subscribe to submit. This is one of the newer casting sites, but I have booked work on it and have seen some big shows (24, Criminal Minds) that exclusively post here when they open it up for self-submitting actors.

LA Casting is the other main self-submission site. It seems to be more for commercials, and is more of an investment to create an account. They have an informative newsletter that you can read on their site and also offer free information workshops with casting directors.

Brains of Minerva is an actor's career and lifestyle resource. They frequently post interviews that are so good that I feel an explosive burst of inspiration and feel the need to share the article with everyone I know.

http://playbillsvspayingbills.com/ is a great blog that I've been reading recently. I know one of the contributors, Ben Whitehair, from twitter, and actually met him in person last night.

I have some lists of industry people on twitter, if you're interested in jumping on that bandwagon - www.twitter.com/laurendwebb I have gotten a couple of auditions from casting directors posting jobs on twitter, and learn something fabulous from a post by another actor every single day.

I have heard rave reviews about The Actor's Network from more people than I can count. I'm a little fuzzy on what it is exactly that they do, but it seems to be a great resource, and a large number of the people I know who have been affiliated with them are working consistently.

There is a lot of controversy over casting director workshops, where you pay for the opportunity to read for a casting director, but I have had good experiences at The Actor's Key in Burbank. You get to choose and prep your own sides, you do your scene with a reader, and many of the CDs will give you a written evaluation. (I've also gotten called in for a show after meeting someone here, so there's that. However, the only guarantee is the opportunity, and you should always research whether or not that particular CD is known for calling people in from workshops.)

Hollywood Happy Hour is a really useful yahoo group. Members ask for advice on various things and also sometimes post casting notices.

A similar useful yahoo group is Big Cheap Theatre. People do more show promotion on that one, but also sometimes post theatre auditions.

Alex's Info is a daily email for actors with all sorts of info - who's casting what, movie premieres, industry events, gas prices, side jobs... I look forward to reading it every morning.

The LA Stage Alliance is the group that puts on the Ovation awards, among other things. They are a good resource for half-price tix and info, and I like to check there to see what theatres are doing work that is consistently nominated. Same with the LA Weekly Theatre Awards - here is the list of nominees from this year: http://blogs.laweekly.com/stylecouncil/stage-news/stage-raw-31st-annual-la-weekl/

Dallas Travers is a great resource who focuses more on the business of the biz and career planning.

Backstage.com has great message board - http://bbs.backstage.com/groupee. The message boards are also a great resource when you want specifics on a name you think might have something shady going on. :)

Showfax message board as well - great resources there since some of those posters don't post on the Backstage board. (Thanks AmbitiousB!)

I hope this helps. I'm so glad you're considering the adventure - I say do it for as long as it makes you happy!"

So there you have it. I've already included a few things I forgot to put in my email. I'll edit as I have "I can't believe I forgot that site!" moments.

Theatre in LA makes me say GAH!!!!

I should clarify.

"Directors" in Los Angeles who think they can just put up a show without having any expertise in or knowledge of directing make me SCREAM.

Saw yet another show that was in desperate need of a director. The "director," to his credit, had some idea of how to cast the show, as I thought 60% of the cast was actually pretty good. But that was where it ended. My friend in the cast said that he never gave them any blocking or direction, they just ran through it. She became the ersatz production coordinator because she made a schedule for rehearsals because she felt bad for the people sitting around every night. Oh, also, this "director" was in the show as well.

I learned some things last night. (Ha! I'm talking about learning again!) This may seem like a conceited statement, and I don't mean it that way - it's more of a confidence thing - but here it is: I no longer doubt that I'm good enough to be an Equity actor. I have oodles of stuff to learn about acting and life and everything else, but I realized that darn it, I am actually good enough. Now I just have to polish myself enough to convince other people of that.

I also realized why I get so upset by unprofessional productions. I love theatre so much that it's physically difficult for me to watch when I feel like it's being bastardized. I am incredibly judgmental and opinionated and stubborn and none of those are necessarily good qualities, but I yam what I yam, and to compound it all, I have pretty high theatrical standards. That isn't to say that I can't pick out the good in a production, but it gave me a little insight into why I walk away feeling bad and then feel incredibly bitchy later when discussing the show with other people who saw it. Bitchy is sort of harsh - let's say nit-picky.

I'm also not a director. It's not my passion nor my area of expertise, and I get frustrated when I see a show that I know I could have directed better. My Directing I class in college wasn't fantastic, but I did learn something.

So there's my rant for today. I know there is good theatre in Los Angeles. I keep reading about good shows and I keep hearing people say how much the theatre here has improved in the last few years. At this point, not only is it a matter of knowing where to go, but having the funds to do so...but hey, it's a tax write off. For me, anyway.

And I'm friends with a lot of good actors. But even good actors need direction. Myself included.

Also, I'm going to steal an idea I saw on another blog - I'm going to post every audition I go on. Should be interesting. Here is today's:

Non-Union Feature - Stephanie in "Skyler"