A Midsummer Night's Dream

Holy crow! Nothing since tax day!?

Hiii. I've been living some life. You?

I'm currently playing Helena in VanguardRep's production of A Midsummer Night's Dream at the La Canada Flintridge Shakespeare Festival. It is a great show and I'm having a blast. The adaptation is solid and the actors are fantastic. We've gotten some great reviews:

"Director Sam R. Ross and his brilliant actors bring this adapted, updated, and shortened romantic comedy to life with side-splitting results... The four lovers have excellent chemistry with each other, as well as demonstrating phenomenal physical comedy skills... Webb is awkwardly sweet as the homely Helena..." - Peter A. Balaskas, LA Splash Magazine

"It takes a good deal of chutzpah to chop an hour off the running time of William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and a great deal of talent to pull it off, a feat which Vanguard Rep has performed to perfection—and to gales of laughter—in an open-air production certain to delight audiences of all ages, and that includes Shakespearephiles-and-phobes alike...The mismatched lovers couldn’t be in better hands... these are four absolutely delightful performances with plenty of physical comedy thrown in for good measure." - Steven Stanley, StageSceneLA

We have four more performances - Thursday, 7/21; Sunday, 7/24; Thursday, 7/28; and Friday, 7/29. Join us! Tix and info here. I'd love to see you there!

United States of Improv Tournament

Tomorrow night, myself and 6 fellow Georgians will revisit the War of Northern Aggression against New York, as team Freaknik. If you're in the LA area, come on down to iO West and give us a vote.

Good times.

Daily dose of celery torture

Do you ever type a sentence and wonder if it is the first time those words have ever been strung together in that particular order?

I had a great time shooting several episodes of RandomCreepyGuy.com The Series. Here is one that dispels my good girl image...


Ep. 12 - Bacon Torture - RandomCreepyGuy... by randomcreepyguy

Hey, comedy is fun!

I had a great time shooting this fun spot at Union Station:

New episodes of the comedy webseries I worked on, RandomCreepyGuy.com, are out every Tuesday on Dailymotion. Here is the trailer:


RandomCreepyGuy.com - The Series Trailer
Uploaded by randomcreepyguy. - Sitcom, sketch, and standup comedy videos.

I've been busy being silly. :)

Hey, I fell off the earth!

Not really. But I've been AWOL...sorry.

Brief recap - In December we had a great Christmas Family Traditions improv show at iO West and the ProFlowers spot I was in aired. Here is me looking amazed:

And here is me looking REALLY amazed:

Those faces are why you send people flowers, right?

In January I shot spots for SDCCU and Big Lots, and was cast in a show that will go up this summer. More info soon...ooh, secrets!

Happy Valentine's Day!

LDW = slow-moving zombie and mean nurse

I've got two new clips for you, which are pretty much on the opposite ends of my range -

Here I am as a slow-moving zombie in a spot for CapCom:


and as a surly nurse in the Secret Millionaires trailer:


Last weekend's performances of (Ovation recommended!) Skeleton Stories and Haunted House of Improvised Horror were fantastic. Great audiences and good times.

Happy Friday!

Inundating Hollywood

I love fall, which is a season we don't often get to experience here in Los Angeles. It has been raining almost non-stop for a week and I LOVE it. Makes me want to break out my sweaters, bake, and drink anything with "pumpkin" in the title. 

I'm excited for my four performances at two different theatres within a four-block radius in Hollywood on Halloween weekend. I'll be performing in Haunted House of Improvised Horror at Improv Olympic on 10/29 and 10/30, and going on with the alternate cast of Skeleton Stories at Theatre of NOTE on 10/28 and 10/31. Please come check us out if you're in the area. Or make a special trip. Both shows are that good. My fellow improvisers with Haunted House are brilliant and Skeleton Stories has been getting consistently amazing reviews and is a beautiful and spooky show.

A few weekends ago I spent three days shooting a webseries with the folks at RandomCreepyGuy.com. We had a blast - over the course of the shoot I got to protest the killing of pigs, throw a guy into the ocean, attack him with vegetables, and shove him into the back of a kidnapper van. I love being an actor.

An interview I did with Shanna Micko and Steve Yager of Leaving Bliss just went live on the website Brains of Minerva. The interview is very informative about creating your own webseries, and these two are comic geniuses, good friends, and generally swell people whom I was lucky enough to watch tie the knot last week. Congratulations, you two! 

My acting class with Stephen Book continues to blow my mind, because of the content and what I'm learning, but also because of the talent of my classmates. Last night we celebrated many successes in class, including TWO Ovation nominations for Anna Khaja for her one-woman show Shaheed and one for Lisa Canning for Something Happened at Pacific Stages. Classmate and friend Kevin Ashworth was on last night's episode of "Law & Order: Los Angeles." So fun to be surrounded by so much awesome.

Speaking of awesome, I saw two short films at the Lady Filmmakers Festival that really touched my heart - Worth and The Butterfly Circus, which is available to watch on YouTube. See both of them, you won't regret it. They are stunning and poignant films.

Thanks for making it through a link-laden update. I'm on avail for a commercial, so fingers crossed. Come see shows Halloween weekend! Happy Autumn!

Web distribution article! LDW Update!

Long time no post, I know, I'm sorry. I've been truly remiss. Forgive me. Please? Thank you.

I'm excited to link to an article I wrote about web distribution for the awesome actor website Brains of Minerva. Please check it out on their site!

Feel the surl.

So what else is new? I had a great time shooting two days on the new webseries Secret Millionaires. I played a surly nurse and was inexplicably bitchy. This is obviously a huge deviation from my normal character, but it was very fun.

I'm currently in rehearsal with a new improv team for the annual Haunted House of Improvised Horror show. Look for us at the end of October at Improv Olympic. It's gonna be spooky.

Yikes.

Speaking of spooky, yesterday I played a zombie waitress in a spot for a video game. The spot is hilarious and I was pretty terrifying. Nothing like zombie make-up to make a girl feel pretty.

Oh! And I won my first award! I am very flattered to be included in StageSceneLA's Best of 2009-2010 awards category of "Outstanding Performance by a Lead Actress in a Drama" for All My Sons. Many thanks to Steven Stanley!

Thursday I'm shooting a spot for Matthews International, which I'm very excited about. I'm also attending rehearsals for Skeleton Stories, the upcoming show at my theatre company, Theatre of NOTE.  I'll be understudying the role of Annie.

That's the update for now. Thanks for stopping by!

August LA Actor's Tweetup!

We took a bit of a summer break, but we're back on August 9th for another  LA Actor's Tweetup - Bring a Buddy Edition!

LA Actor's Tweetup: noun. 1. Networking event for actors/industry professionals who use twitter and happen to be in Los Angeles at this exact moment. 2. Excuse to put a face with a handle and converse using more than 140 characters. 3. Ridiculously good time with amazingly kind and stunningly beautiful people. And free ping pong.

When  - Monday, August 9th. We'll be there from 6pm until the bar shuts us out. Happy hour goes until 7.

Where - Busby's, 5364 Wilshire Blvd. Los Angeles, CA 90036 (google map) Free parking behind the bar/restaurant. Stay tuned to see if we'll be in the private room again.

Theme - Bring a buddy. Whether they're on twitter or not, if you like them, bring them.

Hosts - @TheJudalina @TiffanyAPrice @BenWhitehair @laurendwebb

Bring your pretty - event photographer Nicholas Sayaan will be snapping away all night.

New to the August edition of the tweetup:

Raffle of Awesomeness - We'll be having a free raffle for the following fabulous prizes:

Free Demo Cutting Reel Deal - Basic Package from Cut My Reel, a $300 value! @cutmyreel 

Winner! Eme Ikwuakor @emeikwuakor

3-Look Headshot Session from Pro Headshots - 3 prizes, a $400 value each! @ProHeadshots
Winners! Woody Schultz @UGottaWoody, Mike B. Nelson @MikeBNelson, and Jen Levin @TheJenLevin

Makeup for one of the Pro Headshots sessions by Makeup Your Mind @makeup_yourmind
Winner and Birthday Girl! Jen Levin @TheJenLevin

Custom actor website design from Webixel - a $200 value! @RominaEspinosa
Winner! Kelsey Link @KelseyLink

A copy of Dallas Travers' The Tao of Show Business 
Winner! Amanda Robins @amandar213


and her Audition Accelerator CD! @dallastravers
Winner! Sheila Daley @shedaley

Please follow our awesome contributors! More prizes to come - please contact me if you'd like to donate!

Promo Table - In a show? Have an actor-friendly side business? We'll have a table for you to place your postcards/promo materials. 

RSVP - If you would like to join us, please leave a comment below so we can have a head count. And leave your twitter handle (e.g. @JohnDoe) so we can start following you. Hope to see you on the 9th!

Sincerely, Your LA Actors Tweetup Hosts

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.