Are you chasing the wrong goal?

Years of running weekly accountability groups have taught me many things. 

One of them is that a lot of people THINK they want something. They think they want to get an agent, or think they want to go to grad school, or they think they want to be a voice actor. 

Oftentimes, they only see these goals through the benefits they’ve brought others. 

• An agent means audition opportunities. 

• Grad school means a degree which means greater work opportunities and connections. 

• Being a voice actor means making a lot of money working from home in your pajamas. 

Most of the time, they’re not seeing the full picture. 

Don’t base your decisions on an incomplete picture

Having an agent means: 

• Knowing your type (Young mom, hipster, grandma, blue collar, upscale, etc)

• Making yourself as marketable as possible (meaning you can’t just dye your hair green on a whim)

• Investing in the right tools—headshots, demo reels, etc. so that your agent can market you (No whining about having to spend money on new headshots because you decided you felt like getting a pixie cut)

• Communicating well with others so that you remind them you exist without being needy

• Still working all of the time to be competitive (taking classes), book your own work, and show your agents that you are proactive

• Doing work you may not want to do…this ain’t the thea-tuh! You’re here to bring your amazing skills to even the most silly of commercial scripts or inane of TV shows

• Being a professional even in the face of work that you feel is beneath you. Have you seen the supercut of Bryan Cranston’s decades of commercials? The man didn’t start with Breaking Bad…

Going to grad school means: 

• Knowing WHY you are going to grad school (is it for the connections? for the degree? do you want to teach? increase your skills?)

• Potentially moving across the country

• Spending a LOT of money

• Giving up 2-4 years of your life (or more if you’re getting a PhD)

Being a voice actor means: 

• Spending a lot of time learning the craft (it’s NOT just talking, no matter what those internet ads say).

• Investing a lot of money on equipment and coaching (don’t quit your day job…you’re going to need it for a while).

• Learning to run your own business and do the uncomfortable work of marketing yourself.

• Motivating yourself to keep going when you haven’t booked anything in a long time 

• Being a self-starter…when you don’t have a boss, it’s your responsibility to make yourself do the grunt work that leads to the fun voice work

• Doing the NOT FUN voice work. Personally, I think it’s all pretty fun, but some people only want to do animation, or video games, or high-paid commercials, when there is a great need for people who can inject life into explainer videos, corporate training, e-learning, and medical narration. 

No, no, no, no, NO! Definitely ask WHY!

Maybe your dream is none of these things, but whatever your dream or goal is, ask yourself WHY? 

Why do I want this thing? 

In fact, I would say that none of the above examples are really the ultimate goal or dream of that person. 

The underlying “why” of any of these three things could be:

• “I want to make a living from my acting” 

• “I want to be rich” (misguided, but some people think this way)

• “I want to be a super talented TV/Stage/Voice actor” or

• “I want to be a famous TV/Stage/Voice actor”

There are so many ways to have the bard in your life

A friend of mine wanted to go to grad school for theatre, and I asked why.

“So I can do Shakespeare.” 

I asked “Aren’t you doing Shakespeare right now?”

“Yes, but I want to get paid to do it.” 

“Okay, so if you were to go to grad school in another state, would you want to stay out there? Or use the connections you make at school to go do Shakespeare elsewhere?”

My friend replied, “No, I’d like to come back here.”  (Here meaning Minneapolis, where there are two companies who could pay a reasonable wage to do Shakespeare)

“So, you want to take four years, and spend a lot of money to go to school so you can come right back here for the same opportunities you already have access to, and maybe STILL not have any greater access to them than before?” 

There were other FASTER, MORE DIRECT, and CHEAPER paths to my friend’s goal. 

The direct path isn’t always better, but if you know where you want to go, why waste time?

Whatever your goal or dream is, make sure you’re REALLY clear on it. 

I read somewhere (don’t recall where) about a guy who figured out what he wanted his life to look like down to the smallest detail and THEN figured out what job would get him that. Where he wanted to live, what he wanted his days to look like, family, pets, material belongings, etc. 

The job he ultimately chose wasn’t glamorous, but it got him the life he wanted. 

I think more of us would do well to consider what we want our life to look like, and then do some informational interviewing of people already doing that thing. Ask them questions about their life…their schedule…what they love and hate about their job, and see if that’s what we really want. 

Here are the six questions you should ask yourself to figure out if you’re chasing the wrong dream:

1. What is my dream/goal?

2. WHY do I want that thing? (this is how you find out if there is a bigger underlying goal)

3. Is my dream/goal just one path to a bigger underlying dream?

4. Is that the ONLY path to that dream? Or are there other routes that I’m missing?

5. What does the life of a person who has that thing really look like? Is there someone I can ask or some way I can dip my toes in the water before committing to something time-consuming or expensive?

6. Do I want that life?

Now…where do you want to go?

Shhhh...Betty Isn't Very Smart

Two weeks ago, I spent a day shooting a dance hall scene for the upcoming WWII feature film titled The Adventures of Ben Keller and Christoph Schulz, about two German POWs who get into hijinks in Minnesota. I play the role of Betty, a friend of the main female character, who meets Ben and Christoph and is completely oblivious to the fact that they are poorly disguising their German-ness (German-ity?)

It was only a slight change from the usual…I get cast in lots of period pieces, and frequently I’m playing a German. See: Jarnsaxa Rising (where I played Himmler’s mistress), the play Hauptmann (Anna Hauptmann), short film The Pardon List (Eva Braun), and doing entertainment for the Saint Paul Saints German Night, where I played a dirndl-wearing fraulein and interacted with the crowds.

It was a fun day of shooting with a great group of people, including my close friend Adri Mehra, who plays Christoph in the film, and the other two main actors in the scene, Colleen Thul and Trevor Simmons.

From Left: Colleen, Trevor, Adri, me

Thanks to Benjamin Drietz and director Bryan Steenerson for the opportunity to work on such a fun project! Can’t wait to see how it turns out!

We had a band!

And swing dancers!

Why isn’t the payphone working?

April Come She Will

I’m sure, if you, like me, live in Minnesota, you’re probably frozen solid about now.  

That’s not ice on the windows...it’s scratches from Jack Frost trying to claw his way through the glass... 

But, because you live in Minnesota, you won’t let on. You’ll just go about your business, driving on the ice-skating rink that is 35W...going out in negative windchills without a hat or gloves...popping Vitamin D tablets like they’re TicTacs...RUNNING. OUTSIDE. FOR FUN. 

​Okay, I don’t do that last one. I’m not crazy. Otherwise, I just named everything I did today. 

Minnesota is so flat, we have to build our own mountains out of the massive amounts of snow that fall from our cold, gray skies

But Spring is coming! The sales displays at Target and Michaels say so!! With pastel eggs and bunnies, and FLOWERS, and little chicks (whose fluffy cuteness would never survive the 5 inches of fluffy white crap that fell on us yesterday) and bunnies, and all the other things that signify the end of winter’s icy grasp. 

Spring will be here before you know it (shhhh...just let me soothingly reassure myself that I’m not trapped in some ungodly frigid version of Russian Doll, reliving the same snow emergency over and over again), and April brings the premiere of Christopher Mihm’s next feature film, Queen of Snakes, at the Heights Theater in Columbia Heights on April 24th!

The official poster was just released, and the artwork is *AMAZING.*   It looks just about like any film on MST3K. 

HISSSSSSSSS!!!! 🐍

I am definitely planning on buying a poster when they are available!

And remember:  you can still watch all of Christopher Mihm‘s films for free on Amazon Prime, including the other one that I’m in, The Giant Spider. 

I mean, what else are you gonna do until you can safely leave your house again?

Silver Medal Film!

Last night at the awards program for the 100 Hour Film Race, our film "Sign Here, Please" took home second place! (If we were Olympic skiers, we'd all be sporting silver medals)

Great work, everyone! It was so much fun working on this film with Urban Mountain Media. If you want to see the other fun stuff they do, check out their Instagram (@urban_mountain) or Facebook page.

And now that the judging is finally over, I can share the film! Watch and enjoy!

In Which Adri and I Do Not Sing Karaoke

My friend Adri and I have been singing karaoke together for about the past three years.  We have our favorite songs, and we have our karaoke group, and we have our favorite places.  But we also both sing professionally, he with his band Cabs, and I in the occasional musical theatre production or singing telegram.

Recently, a few people in the theater community have been singing cabaret nights at the Troubadour Wine Bar in Minneapolis.  I attended one for my friend Bethany a while back, and chatted with Adrian (different human being altogether) who runs the programming, and ended up booking an evening! (What?!)

For our theme, we've chosen "Songs We Can't Sing at Karaoke"...meaning songs we can never find in anyone's book, or songs we know we just can't get away with there. 

So...my first cabaret night (where I'm not just singing a song or two) will be Monday, October 23rd. Show starts at 8pm, free to the public. Come on down! But make sure to get there early to get a beverage and claim your seat, cuz the place is tiny!

See you on the 23rd for Cab Cabaret at the Troubadour! 

A Photo Shoot a Year in the Making

I met producer Mark Riddle almost two years ago, on a super fun 1970s commercial shoot for Medica. Since then, we have also worked together on the big radio/tv campaign I did for HealthPartners. In addition to being a freelance broadcast producer, he is also a photographer, so when he asked me if I'd be interested in working with him on an editorial shoot for his portfolio, of course I agreed.  

We started talking about this about a year ago, but both being busy people our schedules didn't mesh until everything finally came together last week. I saw the raw images yesterday and got to help narrow down the final images, and I am so excited! They look absolutely amazing!

And credits for the shoot: 

Photographer: Mark Riddle  

Makeup Artist: Mary K. Flaa

Hair stylist: Erianne Malchow  

Wardrobe Assistant: Abby Schoonover

Photo Assistants: Matt Porter, Scott McClure

Wardrobe Stylists: Jane Williams, Madeline Moon

Actor/Extra: Rod Kasai

Photos coming soon...in the meantime, here are some candid shots from my pre-shoot prep and a couple from the set!

Erianne prepping my hair

And styling it on set

Our gorgeous location, The Commodore Bar and Restaurant in St. Paul

Gorgeous eye makeup by Mary Flaa! 

Erianne, me and Mary

Post-shoot selfie! God, that makeup looks good!