Happy to report that The Last Cyclist has won two more awards at NYC's Chain Film Festival: Best Ensemble (woo hoo!) and an Original Ideas Award for our writer Naomi Patz! I am so glad that this film/play is receiving some of the attention it deserves and I am so proud to have been a part of this ensemble! We had a Zoom reunion the other week; it was great fun. 

My monologue was one of 25 chosen out of about 200 submitted for the PGE's 2nd Annual Faces of America Monologue Festival. Inspired by Julia Butterfly Hill and the novel The Overstory by Richard Powers, my monologue is called "Tree Sitter" and was absolutely beautifully & movingly performed by actor Mackie Raymond. You can watch it here. All the monologues are great! But mine is at approximately the 39 minute mark. 
I presented the next 15ish minutes of my Honeybees play at PGE's Volume 130, being blessed with terrific actors once again. I need to keep working on this play so I can give all these actors a full through-line with their characters! You can watch this work-in-progress here. My scene is around the 54 minute mark. 
And finally, The Last Cyclist will be streaming as part of Chain Film Festival Dec 4-10, (virtual tickets here) and The Jewish Renaissance gave us a sweet review here! 
​Good stuff!! 

Last night I had the great honor to perform in an online reading of Wallace Shawn's The Designated Mourner. That reading can still be seen on New Ambassador's YouTube page here. It's a very dark play of course (and has sadly never been more relevant in this country than now), but it was an absolute joy to rehearse & perform. We only had four hours total of rehearsal which can't even really scrape the surface when it comes to the writing of Wallace Shawn, but it was enough to remind me how very much I love to act, to work on a script, to delve into great writing & just play within the structure of the words. Ironically perhaps, this dystopian play reminded me to take time for joy. Because acting is the thing that brings me the most joy in all the world and too often I shove it aside for things I think are more important. Well, arguably, they are more important (like volunteering to get out the Blue vote, so that what happens to the country in The Designated Mourner doesn't happen here, or just doing the things I need to do to pay the bills)...but. But. Joy. Joy makes life worth living, right? I love Congresswoman Ayana Pressley's quote, "Joy is a necessary act of resistance." I am so grateful to Paul Pakler for inviting me to play and to New Ambassadors for producing the evening, and that I chose to take a little  time to do the thing that brings me the most joy. 

Thrilled to have some good news during these anxiety-ridden times. The Last Cyclist continues to play the film festival circuit and recently won "Best Cast Performance" at the Melech Film Festival in Tel Aviv! See the announcement here. And look who's prominently featured in the image for their announcement (spoiler alert, it's me):

And much more about The Last Cyclist here. 

In other news, I recently wrote and presented the next 15-ish minutes of my in-process honeybees play at PGE's Volume 124. You can watch that scene here! My scene starts at about the 42 minute mark, a auspicious number if ever there was one! (And actually, one of the characters in the play is called "Worker 42".) It's the answer to life, the universe, and everything. Anyway, very grateful for the PGE community for their support and my lovely cast of actors for this particular scene! And I have a feeling I probably won't finish writing the play until I've signed up to present at another Volume because external deadlines are extremely helpful! 

Take care, everyone. These are scary, sad times. But I do think some good will come out of it. I think some good is already coming out of it. All the consciousness-awakening. Meanwhile, I am working to Get Out the VOTE!!!! Please vote and vote blue, even if that blue is not as blue as you want it to be. And encourage others to vote. And tell your senators to extend the PUA. Artists and others are literally going hungry right now when our government could so easily help out. And tell your governors to CANCEL RENT.

Love, Peace, Understanding, and All That Jazz, 
​Kirsten

I've been acting in a web series called "Remote Teaching During COVID-19" by playwright and public school teacher Erin Moughon! The episodes are under the umbrella of New Ambassadors' "The Corona Chronicles". You can watch the first episode here: https://newambassadorstheatre.com/corona-chronicles. We just filmed the third episode yesterday (over Zoom, of course), in which my character has just drunk an entire bottle of wine. That was a lot of fun. Did you know turmeric kombucha looks very much like white wine on camera? And did you know it is very easy to feel drunk when it's 90 degrees in your apartment? It's true. 
And I'm also continuing to occasionally appear in PGE events. I co-hosted the most recent Volume 121, which was a lot of fun. A lot of good writing appeared that Volume & some fantastic and hilarious Zoom acting. And I'm busy procrastinating, uh, writing more of my honeybees play, currently titled...Honeybees. (Shrug. You can't tell me you don't know what it's about, with that title.) If you want to watch the first 10 minutes of that play, that was presented at the PGE's last Drop & Give Me 10, you can watch on the PGE's YouTube channel here. My scene starts around the 22:40 mark! I'm proud of the lovely actors who read my script over the challenging medium of Zoom! 
Meanwhile, the pandemic continues...As Samuel Beckett said, "I can't go on. I'll go on." Be well, loves.

It's taken a while to adjust to the world of acting in plays over Zoom, but it's happened. Obviously the past couple of months of the pandemic have been frightening and the world has been turned upside down in a way none of us have really experienced before, but I am extremely fortunate to be able to continue doing some acting projects in the virtual realm. (Nothing paid, of course, but that's often the life of an actor anyway!)
Last weekend I acted in a Zoom reading of Rachael Carnes's play, "Practice House" with several of the same actors that I read with when we did a reading of it here in NYC back in August 2019. The reading this Saturday was for the Great Plains Theatre Conference. "Practice House" was one of 20 plays accepted out of more than 800! I felt honored to be asked back to play the same role I played in the August NYC reading (an advantage of having the reading over Zoom, actors and auditors from three different time zones could participate together!), and it was really great to see how Rachael had tinkered with the play over the past year, and I loved getting to give feedback afterwards. I really love when I can give feedback to writers about how the play was from my perspective as an actor playing a character--"I loved the clarification of her character here, but then in the middle I wasn't sure what I was doing, was I really drawn into the brainwashing of this world here or was I just play-acting for survival...why did the character act like this here but not here?" etc. I should clarify, I love giving feedback when I feel like it is received and helpful and welcomed by the playwright, which with Rachael it definitely was. 

Speaking of writing, I myself am trying my hand at playwriting again with this Sunday's Drop and Give Me 10 at PGE. I have written the first 10 minutes of a new play and it will be read over Zoom and YouTube Live this Sunday evening. I'm excited about this play, I think it might ultimately be the companion piece to my one act play Florence the Firefly. But of course I have only written the first 10 minutes, so I'm not sure where it will end up! I'm hoping it's funny. Listen in and let me know what you think! More info here!
Be well everyone. Please stay as safe as you can for all of our sakes. Wear masks and stay at least six feet away from people whenever you can, even if you live in a state that is relaxing its restrictions. Our country does not yet have the adequate testing or medical resources to re-open. And sadly it will probably be many more months (years? Eep.) before we are able to safely gather again. Performing live in front of people, and singing with people are the two things I do for my livelihood and my life, and those are put on pause right now. Thank Science for the technology that allows us to keep doing at least some of that art together/apart online. It feeds our souls. And keep singing at home, even if you're by yourself. It's good for you. xoxo.

Once again I have been neglectful of my website! I forgot to note here about performing in The PlayGround Experiment's inaugural Faces of America Monologue Festival at the Kraine Theater on November 18, 2019. I had the honor of speaking Erin Moughon's words once again, this time, in a monologue, as a teacher dealing with the looming possibility of school shootings. The monologues that were presented this evening were published in a book, and you can find my name inside, as the proud first performer of Erin's monologue. You can buy this book at Shakespeare & Co in NYC or at any PGE event! (If you're not in NYC, I can always procure a copy for you & send it to you!) I think it will be available to purchase on the PGE website soon. 

Speaking of being mentioned as a performer in published books, you can also find my name in the casts mentioned in the published script of An Actor's Carol! Buy one here: https://www.anactorscarol.com/ 
And speaking of An Actor's Carol, our ensemble of actors was nominated back in November for Best Ensemble of a Play in the 2019 Broadway World New Jersey Regional Theatre Awards. How nice is that! 

Last week we closed Erin Moughan's Ghosts and Gaslighting, which we had performed three times for the Broadway Bound Theatre Festival at Theatre Row. It was a gas! <--Old saying, appropriately used, given the title and also the fact that there are several old sayings in the play...
I knew all the main players involved (the playwright, director and fellow cast members) through PGE, and New Ambassadors was the theatre company that put up the money to make the show an Equity Showcase so that I, Equity member, could be in it! Very grateful to David Adam Gill, New Ambassadors, and of course Erin for the opportunity. 
And Emily Hewitt took these AMAZING photos of us! Thank you, Emily!

Last week I had the pleasure of performing in two short plays that were a part of New Ambassadors Theatre Company's Blurring Boundaries: 6 Short Plays Challenging Societal Perception. I was in "Prairie Fire" written and directed by Mandy Murphy (a fantastic young playwright who has been described as a "female Sam Shepard" and "David Mamet without the misogyny") and "Guns and Ammunition" by Janet Bentley and directed by David Adam Gill. They were both such strongly written plays and so very different from each other and it was so much fun to play both of those roles. "Prairie Fire" is about two old friends that are seeing each other for the first time in 15 years at a high school reunion. (And I did have to learn how to properly do shots for this play that is named after hot-sauce-laden-tequila shots!) "Guns and Ammunition" is a spoof on and a sort of love letter to the film noir genre, and all the main players, besides being noir archetypes, also happen to be lesbians. But one of them is "broadening her horizons" by seeing outside gender divisions and falling in love with someone who might be male and gets flak from her cohorts about it...
A picture from "Prairie Fire" is above on the left and I'm the hysterical blonde in the picture from "Guns and Ammunition" above right. (The actors seen here, from left to right, are: Sevrin Anne Mason, me, then me again (as a blonde!), Marie Elena O'Brien, and Elizabeth Jasicki. Sevrin is hidden by Marie Elena, but her shoulder's in that picture too!)
It was a blast performing these two plays and working with this group of people. 

...involves auditioning. A lot. And this is the time of year when regional theatres are casting their seasons and there are just a TON of EPAs (Equity Principal Audtions, which are basically open auditions for Equity members) in NYC right now. I think I've been to 11 so far this year. That's not that many compared to many of my actor friends but I try to target myself to auditions that actually are casting roles that I'd be right for and that I have appropriate material for (meaning the right cut of a song or a role-appropriate monologue), and of course I try to strike a work-life balance that will keep me alive, getting enough sleep, eating well and not hating myself. So maybe I don't go to as many auditions as I could/should, but I have my own personal goals that I work toward. And I am finding I need more downtime for my own personal health and sanity as the years go by. 
Anyway, auditioning is usually fun! And you get to run into actor friends! Today for example I ran into my buddy John Little who was in An Actor's Carol with me (and drove me each week back and forth between NYC and Cape May while we were doing that show), and my pal Nikki Ferry, who I met just going to these EPAs together so many times over the years. And there were many other familiar faces in the holding room today, too. We get to know the faces of our fellow auditioners over the years. And it's pleasant to chat with them. Someone asked me about my purty pink shoes and I started saying how well I got them at Nordstrom Rack so they were a little easier to afford and also that The Shoe Fund helped me out and someone else said, "Oh, I didn't know the Shoe Fund was still around" and I got to tell them that yes, thankfully, it is! The Shoe Fund, for those who don't know, is this wonderful fund wherein actors can get $40 back when they buy a pair of shoes that are under $100 once every two years. (It used to be every year, but I think they're running low on funds!) It was started in 1945 when an actor named Conrad Cantzen bequeathed his estate to the Actors Fund in order to help unemployed actors pay for shoes so they can look good at auditions! Thank you, Conrad. When you are just scraping by, as I am right now, and you desperately need new shoes, $40 is a big help. Learn more about the amazing Shoe Fund here! 
And yeah, an actor's job is really to AUDITION. And you don't expect to get most of the things you go out for. If you get a callback or book something, that's GREAT but that's not the usual! One of my favorite acting teachers used a baseball analogy. (And that teacher is David Nathan Schwartz! Who I just saw playing a dentist with halitosis on an episode of the hilarious I'm Sorry! If you're in LA and you want to take a great improv/acting class, you should definitely check to see if he's teaching one at the moment.) Anyway, the baseball analogy was this: Babe Ruth had the best batting average of all time at .342. But that means that out of 10 times up at bat, he only hit the ball a little over 3 times. And he was the best! So if we're getting 3 callbacks out of every 10 auditions, that's AMAZING! And if you get considerably less than that, even THAT can be considered really good too! Ugh, I think I'm phrasing this all wrong. Schwartzie put it much more succinctly I think. But anyway, that's one way to think positively about auditions. 
So anyhoo, the last few months have been busy with auditions for me, and I've also been challenging myself to write a play again. This time it's for a 10-minute play festival. I was sort of dry on ideas but this particular festival had very particular parameters that sounded like a juicy challenge to me. I think I'm just about done writing the play and am going to submit it soon! Yay me! Being all creative and stuff. Speaking of being creative, if you need inspiration, I cannot recommend Elizabeth Gilbert's Big Magic enough. It was actually one of the things that inspired me to write Florence the Firefly. Speaking of which, I just submitted Florence to her first play festival! I know I need to do that more (submit it to more places to be considered being produced)...so I will try to get on that! 
Meanwhile I am paying the bills with teaching Music Together classes and babysitting and occasional random odd jobs. (Tomorrow I'm doing a focus group! Fun! I hope.) 
And I'm trying to stay politically informed as much as possible for my health and sanity. I find local politics much easier to swallow and also much easier to make a difference in. NYC just had a special election for Public Advocate--At first I barely knew what that position was, let alone the 17 candidates on the ballot, but I spent HOURS doing research and it was a FASCINATING education in how our city works. And only a few hundred thousand of us New Yorkers turned out to vote. No one can say that our votes didn't make a difference in THAT election. 
Besides the focus group, I'm also teaching a class tomorrow and doing a "Teacher Takeover" day on Instagram. Before today I had only ever posted one thing on Instagram so I am pretty Insta-illiterate. We'll see how that goes! I may not be great at the social meeds but what I lack in technical know-how I hopefully make up for with PASSION. I am PASSIONATE about THE POWER OF PLAY and the POWER OF MUSIC. You can check out my day of Instagram tomorrow on ​https://www.instagram.com/eswsmusictogether/ Hopefully I can make something of it. Please follow ESWS Music Together! Especially if you have young children on the UWS or UES! Or if you know people who do! Or if you just want to see the kinds of things I do for a living. Ok, that was the Life of an Actor for today. Peace!