Whats a Girl Gotta Do To Get An Agent In This Town?

Apart from the obvious of course, which I considered and decided isn't tempting.

I mean seriously, what does it take? Apart from being an elderly Korean man, or any man frankly.

I know I should be looking at myself and thinking, “Yes Frothy Mocha, you are unique! You are the only actress out there that’s like you.”

But it’s very difficult when you look at agent’s websites and trawl through pages of girls in the 25-35 bracket who look exactly like me.

From what I’ve seen in the year and a half I’ve been writing to agents, it’s virtually impossible to get any decent quality paid work without one. Most higher profile establishments, and especially commercials, are closed shops to any outside the comfy confines of the inner circle.

I’ve had two different sets of headshots, I’ve done several bits of (unpaid) theatre which they could have come and see including most recently in a really convenient respected fringe venue.

And do they come? Do they, my arse.

I’m in the most heavily populated bracket possible and I have very little that marks me down as seriously different.

I’m slightly mixed-race but not specific enough.

I can’t tap-dance, ride a motorbike, tight-rope walk, speak seventeen languages, play the accordion or drive an HGV. I’m not a tennis-pro, Mariah-impersonator, I’m not quirky, edgy, hip or whatever you kids call it these days.

And I’m not over 40. Although I’m starting to wish I were.

I’m a regular, Caucasian-ish actress, slightly over thirty, and I can sing. Solid, reliable, talented, trained and professional.

That, apparently, isn’t enough.

Answers on a postcard. Or comment box.

Frothy Mocha x

Zzzz, Yay!, Zzzzz, Yay!, Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

That’s pretty much been the pattern of my life for the last 6 weeks or so.

For that blessed period I have been able to call myself a working actor in a decent run of a good show on the fringe.

And like most jobbing actors, this period involves working the day job at the same time, where I must confess to working pretty much on auto-pilot whilst my body deals with burning the candle at both ends, and in the middle.

Rehearsal period busy but not too bad despite the boss’s irritation at my change in shift patterns. Then the run which mostly went thus:

Urgh

Tube

Work

Tube

Shower

Change

Tube

Show

Tube

Sleep

Urgh

Wash, Rinse, Repeat.

I have given up any hope of having a home and decided to live permanently on the Tube.

An old actor once said to me that most actors put the same amount of effort into a two hour performance as most people do into an eight hour day. So when you’re doing both, it pretty much renders you incapable of functioning as a human being.

But now that it’s all over, and I am exhausted, run down, badly-nourished and under-sexed, I already miss it.

Finally I can do laundry, catch up with long-neglected friends, clean stuff and do something about the spots that rose to the surface under the constant bombardment of stage make up.  And tomorrow I get to go back to the day job, without the “distraction” of my actual career.

I’m whooping with joy. Blink and you’ll miss it.

Frothy Mocha x