kristalgrace.com Blog

Happy New Year! 

Warning: Long read.

As a whole, I have had a LOT of fun this year, and I’m very grateful for the opportunities I had. I deemed 2007 to be “The Year of Kristal,” meaning that if I wasn’t performing, I would still be doing things to better myself – and I think I did a pretty good job of that. It takes a lot to keep going after dreams, and it’s the work (and play!) you put into them that anchors them to the ground and makes them more accessible, essentially.

Kristal’s 2007 Review & Highlights

I was more selective with auditions this year, and ended up going to 34 auditions. Not bad! 4 callbacks and 8 gigs out of those (2 of which I turned down; 1 willingly, the other not so willingly. Boo for overlapping performance dates), meaning I landed 1 job out of every 4.25 auditions. Better than last year’s 1 out of 4.93 auditions.! Now, consider the 8 jobs I got sans auditioning (hurrah!!), and it’s 1 job from every 2.125 auditions. HELL-o! Add the 3 readings I got asked to be a part of, and that becomes an awesome 1.79. I love it. Compared to last year’s 3.63? Amazing.

Not that it’s all about how how many gigs out of how many auditions yadda yadda (okay, it kind of is), but it’s fun to know!

It took a while for things to get started, but once they did, there was no stopping it! I went through a good 5 or 6 months of back to back (and sometimes overlapping) projects – it was amazing. 

Getting my sketch team, Disoriental, together, was what got everything started for me. After being interviewed by Shaw, we won 3rd place the first night, and won the People’s Choy’s Award (this was with the VACT – the Vancouver Asian Canadian Theatre. Choy is cabbage in Chinese and – yes, it’s an awful play on words, but I have a soft spot in my heart for those. Haha.) the second night, we performed at Lucille’s Ball, were recommended to/performed at the Chinatown Festival, and were brought down to Seattle as special guests for their sketch shows there! It all snowballed fabulously. From there…

Other performing highlights:

• Dancing at the Jessie Awards.
• Getting back on Co-op Radio, doing a reading of a show I was doing with Theatre in the Raw.
• Performing in The Kenny Rogers Experience; my first being in the Vancouver Fringe Fest! That led to two CBC spots in terms of promo - one radio ad, and one tv interview.
• Getting to play a hooker (Shadow Aspect), and a Thai masseuse (Thwackers) all within the space of 2 weeks. Haha.

And not really a highlight, but a random fact: One day in the summer, I teched and performed with Disoriental in the morning, filmed The Year Without Hockey as Janet in the afternoon, then booted it to rehearsal for The Kenny Rogers Experience. It was an insane day, and it was fantastic! 

Going back to bettering myself. What exactly did I do, to do that? Let’s see:  

• Continued Clowning
• Started taking tap lessons at Harbour Dance (www.harbourdance.com) -incredible amounts of fun! My only regret is that I didn’t start sooner. I start more lessons on Tuesday.
• I parted ways with my agent. I have since found a new background agency, but haven’t had a chance to really look into other agencies yet. On one hand, I’ve been busy acting and that’s great! On the other…I need to get on that. But leaving my old agent? A great move.
• Continued going to the Cold Reading Series (www.coldreadingseries.com) as well as Final Draught (www.finaldraught.com) and Scripting Aloud (www.scriptingaloud.ca)
• Was the Publicist for The Kenny Rogers Experience.
• Learned how to make a balloon penguin!! Yes, I’m still at my day job, and it’s lovely how flexible they are with me.
• Took a Voice Over workshop with Bob Bergen, and a solo session with Deb Munro. As luck would have it, any time I’m free enough to have time to look at my voice scripts, I get sick and my voice is shot, but I’m still vowing to get this demo done! What timing.
• Went on a cruise. I was actually working (no, really!) as Youth Staff with Princess Cruises, but when I wasn’t with the kids, I had a great two weeks in the Mexican Riviera! I definitely want to go again, however, I’ve told myself that as long as I have acting gigs I won’t leave, so it’s a bit win-win. I’d love to take off for a week here or there, but I’ll take performances first, please and thanks! Tons of fun, though.
• More photo shoots! Some with Charles Stuart, and another shoot with the fabulous Reinier deSmit.
• Took Tracey Erin Smith’s Solo Show Boot Camp – very inspiring.
• Currently getting my new website underway – hopefully it’s done soon! It will be grand. Along with the new business cards I’m getting done. Hurrah!
• Lots of networking! 4 of the ’gigs’ I did this year (2 readings and 2 film festival entries) I got because of knowing someone who knows someone. I was at the Fringe Club after shows all the time to network, and I went to Martini Madness and the Women in Film Holiday Gala to do the same. That’s why I go to the WIFTV breakfast meetings and cold read nights, and it’s amazing the people you meet!

And I think that’s the jist of it.

2007 was another great year for meeting people. I’ve been lucky to have had the chance to meet and work with some amazing people, who I would love to work with again. And some of you I will! It’ll just happen, and it’ll be fantastic. I’m also always reminded of how small the world is – or at least the acting community! While working on Thwackers, I knew a girl from Sketchoff, a guy from Unsatiable, and another guy who I met randomly at the Fringe, who’s friends with a girl I danced at the Jessies with. It’s fun when you go somewhere industry related and you realise that the people you know outnumber the people you don’t!

I’m going to copy and paste a bit from an entry last year, because I really like it:

To all of you who I’ve had the pleasure of meeting and/or working with, thank you! We all have to learn from each other. It doesn’t matter whether or not the experience was a great one, or not so pleasant – we still learn. That helps us to be the best performers that we can be.

And thanks for 2007. It wasn’t a smooth ride the entire way through, but that would just make life far too easy. It’s been interesting, at the very least! And we learn. That’s the important part. We learn about ourselves, about how we deal with things, how we are. We learn about the people we surround ourselves with, how they deal with things, how they are, and you learn whether or not they are the kind of people you want in your life. If they are, great! If they’re not, ties get cut – well, that’s okay too. Just know why. Be curious!

I’m excited about 2008. I am! I’m feeling very pro-active about the year. (A proper sleep schedule would be a good thing to be pro-active about. As I write this, I realise it’s 3:11am.) I’ve started organizing my taxes (I bought myself the new edition of The Actor’s Survival Kit and I plan on reading that and Larry Moss’s The Intent to Live) and I’ve got a night shoot next week for Casino Life – first gig of the year! And I’m working on my game plan for the year. I’m gonna be moving up and moving ahead! 2008 is The Year of Kristal, Continued. Clever, yes?

Here’s to a happy, healthy, successful and fulfilling 2008 – time to follow dreams. All the best to you and yours!

Love, Kristal

Alright! If memory serves me (which it may not, actually. I’m a bit sick. More on that later.), my last entry was about Seattle. I did check, but I’ve forgotten. Clearly a sign of my approaching birthday – egads!!

I was pretty sure that the rest of my year would be fairly quiet, acting-wise. I thought I’d buckle down with Christmas and ICBC and the like. However, life has, once again, thwarted me – and that’s fantastic!

After Seattle was the first time since the spring that I hadn’t known what my next project was going to be. That lasted a few weeks. Less than.

I was cast in a BCIT student film  – as a prostitute, ooh! Who does drugs, obviously. And who, naturally, gets murdered. On camera death – fantastic! That was seriously why I was so excited about this role. I’ve always wanted to play a character who gets killed. And so I find myself cutting lines of icing sugar, gauging my hand (accidentally!) on a bar sticking out of the door, getting stabbed in the neck repeatedly with a knife (obviously retractable), and landing face first into a puddle of “my” blood. It got everywhere. And so I take a shower (blood everywhere!) and thank the crew, and head out on my merry little way. With wet hair. In November. In Vancouver.

Yes, that’s where the “I’m sick” thing comes from. Unintentional! …I didn’t see a hair dryer there. I wish there was one.

Moving along, now.

Friday I had a read through for a pilot I’ve been cast in! At the auditions, I’d asked when I could expect to hear back by, and was told that since shooting was commencing the first weekend of December, I’d know by the end of the week. Well, the end of the week came and went, and I hadn’t heard. Oh well. Never hold your breath about these things. And then…I get a phone call. Ooh. I’ve been cast as Thai Girl #2 – a massage therapist. (Thai Girl #1 and I joke that we should actually be referred to as Thai Girl Chinese and Thai Girl Phillipino) And I have to learn to speak Thai. By Sunday. AHH! (If you speak Thai and can translate for me, please send me an email! kristal@kristalgrace.com) I’m excited for this, though. Keep your eyes peeled for a pilot called Thwackers!

And I only have 3 more tap classes left! I’ve been taking Intro Tap at Harbour Dance, and it’s been phenomenal. I’ve had so much fun! Finally, those tap shoes I bought are getting some use…genuine triple threat, here I come!

We went, we performed, we were funny, we came home. Cole’s Notes version

The extended version:

Once we FINALLY got our car from the rental place, we headed towards the border. Got across with no problems, got gas (I stood there, mentally converting litres, gallons & gas prices…Brandon stood there, openly questioning the exchange rate over the prices of Cliff bars…haha) and headed south on the I-5. We stop at the Premium Outlets (Oh. My. Lord. The. Shopping!) (www.premiumoutlets.com – get a VIP coupon book!) and make a beeline for Starbucks. We shop until we remember that right, we have a show to do, and we head to the theatre. (The Pork Filled Players were terrific hosts, btw! Thanks to Maggie and Todd for letting us clutter up their living room…)

It’s a really fun show, even with jellybeans going everywhere and bananas being left on stage. And our lone music cue, because someone *cough* had a CD miscommunication. And the little mishap with the supposedly resealable bag of fuzzy peaches…(”…uh, guys? I may or may not have just f*cked up here…”). Although that was en route, and not part of the show at all, so technically I shouldn’t have listed that there! Haha. The point is, we had a good show!

It’s past 2am when we find ourselves at Maggie & Todd’s. (Our show, their show, then some fantastic chinese food at midnight…haha) I find street parking – free until 8am! Hurrah! And now is where I begin being convinced that Washington authorities are out to get me. At 7:50, I stumble outside and re-park the car in a paid lot. I put $6 in the old school you-don’t-even-get-a-ticket parking “meter” and stumble back to bed. Mmm, bed. Later on, after our wonderful 1pm breakfast where our server was dressed as Tigger and Eddy “accidentally” poured milk on her French toast, Brandon wanders around Seattle and Edwina and I get into the car to – yes, that’s right – go shopping! The parking attendant walks up and says I have to pay for parking. I say I did. He says I didn’t. I insist I did – if I wanted to get a ticket, why wouldn’t I have just stayed on the street? He says no, I say yes – it was very much like arguing with a child, minus the tantrum. He stalks off, supposedly to recheck if I was lying, and we drive off. Plot To Unfairly Ticket Kristal, Attempt One. Result: Unsuccessful.

Plot To Unfairly Ticket Kristal, Attempt Two. Result: Successful. Jerk.

So after another fruitful shopping expedition, we get back on the I-5, and we’re theatre bound. I distinctly remember looking at the speedometer and seeing that I’m going about 100k, which, doing an eyeball conversion, is roughtly 63mph. A glance in the rearview mirror shows me that wtf, there are lights flashing at me. I pull over. A cop eventually saunters over shines a flashlight back and forth (plus the lights on he cop car are still going nuts…lucky I don’t have epilepsy…) and rudely informs me that I was going 70 in a 60 zone. I insist that no, I wasn’t, and there were tons of cars going faster than me. He asks how I know. Erm… Anyway, long story slightly shorter, he refuses to listen to anything resembling reason, and writes me a USD $113 ticket. This leaves me to believe that A)he was falling under quota, B)he targetted me because I have out of town license plates, and really, I’m not about to go back for a court date and C) he’s mad because the Canadian dollar is better than the American dollar, and he’s taking it out on all Canadian plates he sees. He took his bloody sweet time writing the ticket and bringing it back, too. Power-hungry. Geez.

That was over a week ago, and I’m still mad about it.

Then we performed, had a great show, ate great food, and had a marvellous sleep that didn’t last nearly long enough. And then…lunch at the Space Needle! Thanks, John. It was fantastic! Apparently going to Seattle and not going to the Space Needle is taboo. So why not go, eh?! And then, we drove back home. (But not before buying cheap duty free at the border!)

All in all? Good, fun weekend. If not for the ticket, it would have been marvellously amazing! Thanks again to Maggie & Todd, to the PFP, & our wonderful audiences! It was fun. Hope you got a ping pong ball…

Well, kids, this is it. Tomorrow, we pack up a rental car full of props, scripts, and Canadians, and head south!

Tomorrow and Saturday, we open for the Pork Filled Players (www.porkfilled.com) at 10:30pm, playing at the Theatre Off Jackson. (409 7th Ave S, Seattle, WA 98104) (www.theatreoffjackson.org) Wheee!! We’ve written and rehearsed, rewritten, rerehearsed…and are out of time for more revisions. Haha. But we’re funny! Seriously. And if you’re in Seattle, near Seattle, or want to come to Seattle, you should definitely check us out!

I’ll tell you all about it when I get home. Keep your fingers crossed that we don’t get (too) lost!

-Love Kristal

After months of rehearsal, over a dozen new songs, flyering endless lineups and a hell of a lot of fun, Kenny Rogers at the Fringe has been over for 2 and a half weeks. That long already?! Wow.

We had a fantastic run. Thanks to those of you who managed to come out, and for those who didn’t – fear not, I’ve heard rumours circulating about a Christmas special! You shant be without Kenny for very long.

In the weeks since, I’ve been marvellously relaxed – I get at least 8 hours of sleep a night, my laundry and cleaning are all up to date, I’m eating healthy, exercising regularly, and my To-Do list is all finished!

…

I’m so telling untruths there. Haha. Time for point form! Hotchacha!

*Disoriental is performing in Seattle at the end of the month, so we’re back to writing, back to rehearsals, back to looking for a Stage Manager. It’ll be funnier than ever! (If, for some reason, you find yourself in Seattle on, say, October 26 & 27, and, perhaps, you have nothing to do at 10:30pm on those nights, and, maybe, you just want to see some sketch comedy, including a group from Canada?! Let me know and I can pass off the address to you info@kristalgrace.com)

*My ICBC claim has yet to be settled. I’m still in massage therapy, on pain meds, taking it easy at work (NO bouncy castles for me, thank you), and the proud housing arrangement of many lovely headaches that refuse to move. It’s rare if I go more than a day or so without one. Not so much fun.

*I saw “Company” at the Stanley on Tuesday -SUCH a good show! Go and see it. Seriously.

*I love networking. Last week was Martini Madness, a WIFTV breakfast and the last night of the Cold Reading Series, all within 30 hours. Amazing. That’s key – go out and meet people!  It’s so important.

Things are constantly being done, so…check here every once in a while, and I’ll keep you updated. Be good and keep as dry as you can! Oh, Vancouver rain…

Love, Kristal

2 shows down, 4 to go! Holy cow, has it been fun so far! We have had some fantastic audiences and great comments – thank you to everyone who’s come out to support us so far! You’re wonderful.

Our next show are Thursday – Sunday next week (times listed in my previous post, I believe) – come out and watch, if you haven’t already! If you have, come see it again (and sing along!) or just tell people about it, and make THEM see the show

What’s exciting is that twice this week I’ve had my photo in the paper because of Fringe! Love it. One was just promo, before we opened, and one was with a review.

Below I’ve copy and pasted the review that Peter Birnie of the Vancouver Sun wrote on our opening night. If you happen to sumble across this, Peter, thank you for the review, but you’ve spelled my name wrong!

(There were two reviews published under the same title, and we were the second…we don’t pay tribute to Victor Borge at all.)

That’s not the case at the Waterfront Theatre, where Kenny’s Fried Chicken: The Kenny Rogers Experience should come with what we used to refer to in my college days at Edmonton’s Strathcona Hotel as “two and a juice.”

No beer inside this theatre, please, but your host has something even better than booze. Jacques Lalonde, who looks and sounds sufficiently like Kenny Rogers, invites us to use our paper-bag Kenny dolls, provided free of charge, to join in the singing.

I’m amazed and, yes, a little appalled at how easily this crusty old musical snob fell into singing along with Lucille, Ruby, Reuben James, Coward of the County and, of course, The Gambler. Lalonde also reminds us that Rogers, who never let a marketing opportunity pass him by, cruised through hippie-dippiness with the First Edition and the acid-tinged Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition is In).

Krystal Yee (It’s an “i,” Peter ), Ashley Rutherford, Alexandra Staseson and Nadia Hovan are funny as Kenny’s ex-wives club, although they should have microphones to be heard properly in the sharp parody song When You’re Married to Kenny Rogers.

Otherwise they’re a great backup gang for many of Lalonde’s renditions, as are drummer Bryan Siver and guitarists Rex Rekker, Tony Rees and Kempton Dexter.

Our host describes his show as homage/fromage, and cheesiness is certainly Lalonde’s leitmotif as he leads us through Kenny’s kooky life.

I’m guessing that’s why brilliant singer Kat Wahamaa is introduced as ’50s pin-up icon Bettie Page, then sings the Sheena Easton side of the duet We’ve Got Tonight. Ashley Rutherford’s turn as Dolly Parton for Islands in the Stream was less successful on opening night. Like a lot of the little glitches in this singalong slapstick, the show should grow into itself quite nicely before closing on Sept. 16. (Earlier, if Kenny’s lawyers find out about it.)

pbirnie@png.canwest.com

Go to www.vancouversun.com to watch Peter Birnie’s guide to the Fringe.

While my agent (or rather, lack-of-agent) status hasn’t changed, I have done a number of auditions, and I’d like to think that I know a thing or two. Then again, there are some things that people know instinctively, right from the beginning.

Take apartment/house auditions. Not a fan. If you can’t hold auditions in a theatre or studio space, fine. But there are always common rooms or community buildings or someplace other than your living room. As soon as I find out that I’m going to be auditioning at someone’s house/apartment/basement suite, amidst their stacks of DVDs, piled-up dishes and free weights – well, I don’t get a very good feeling. The let’s-meet-at-a-coffee-shop-for-your-audition auditions don’t go so well, either. I did quite a few of them when I started auditioning, and every once in a while an house address slips under the radar, undetected, but…

Bluntly speaking, I don’t feel that auditions held in a space where someone lives are professional in the slightest. If they happen to live in a studio loft, or one of those apartments like The Arc where everyone is some sort of artist, that feels different. But when you’re auditioning, and you see their beanbag chair and recyclables on the counter…different again.

See, I booked an apartment audition gig, and almost immediately after I got started, I wanted it to be finished. That’s never a good sign. I’d also had a coffee-shop audition cast in my favour, and it’s a pity, because I’d have loved for the film I was playing the title character in to be wonderful! A house audition I was asked to be a part of, I turned down, because I just couldn’t do it again. That one, I didn’t realise was at a house. Note to self: familiarize self more with residential areas of Vancouver.

So maybe I’m being ridiculously general, but when it comes down to it, apartment auditions and the like have warning flags all over them. If you’re holding auditions, take a look at what other locations are available to you for casting! House auditions don’t feel professional. Not to me, anyway. Professionalism is big, and it’s hard to take you seriously when all I’m noticing are the slippers on the ground, and your friend on the computer 4 feet away from me.

Wowza. Is it ever busy! I love it. Luckily I love being busy acting more than I love sleep, or we’d have a problem.

*Rehearsing for Kenny Rogers. The fundraiser was fantastic! Less than 7 weeks until Fringe!

*I also get my film fix! Come mid-August, I’ll be Janet in QLP’s, “The Year Without Hockey” – no, it’s not a horror movie.

*Disoriental has another gig! On Sunday, August 12th, at 12:00 noon, we’ll be doing a 25-minute set at the Chinatown Festival (Corner of Keefer and Columbia, the Andy Livingstone Park). It’s free and will be fabulous, so come on down!

And I have another very exciting bit of news that I will not disclose quite yet, as it’s not ready to be unleashed…

I learned how to make a balloon bicycle!!

That wasn’t the news, but that’s pretty exciting anyway, isn’t it?