Self producing does not mean producing alone! But before I hire that team for my solo show, I have to finish rehearsal and development. For the past seven months I have been writing, rewriting, and developing my solo show  Off Off Broadway with Matt Hoverman. 
I am happy to announce that my show will be a part of One Woman Standing, a series in the New Works play festival curated by Emerging Artists.

It's called HaveYouSeenThisGirl and the date is March 6th, 2012. Advanced tickets are $10 and available here. This is the first showing of the material in its entirety, and I'd love to have you in the audience. It's a coming out story wrapped in an adoption mystery.

Our class is part of a documentary on solo shows by Shannon Romines and I'll post clips or trailers as soon as they are ready for the public.

I am so grateful for my classmates and my friends who showed up to one or all phases of the production and cheered me on or gave feedback. It's a slow but necessary process.

While it has been a challenging seven months, it has also been more fulfilling than my busiest year pursuing TV work. And yes, I'd like both, please!

In 2011 I graduated from UCB, made new friends I want to work with, and then started to develop my own work. I let my manager go, stopped commuting to L.A., and took 6 months to mark off 5 things on my Can Do List.

It's only February and I have four more months to go on my quest to focus on creating my solo show, short film, sketch, and feature script. I share my goals to share inspiration, and because most people don't! I want to hear your goals! 

Are you writing something that lights your fire? Just talking about my feature script makes me more excited than I have ever been about anyone else's script.

So tell me, what's your dream? Everybody comes to Hollywood with a dream! (And name that movie quote!)

I first read about natural consequences in a magazine wherein a woman allowed her daughter leave the house without a jacket on a chilly day, just to experience that choice. She never left without a jacket again.

Humans adapt their behavior by experiencing the natural consequences of that behavior, and who are we to rob them of that?  However, I am  very uncomfortable when I am aware that I am delivering those natural consequences in the form of a confrontation. Especially as actors, we have to pick our battles, and often I opt out. 

Case in point, I was at a holiday meal and there was some much needed hired help in the kitchen. It was sweltering in there and the sun beat down through the windows. I noticed that their sweat was dripping precariously close to the soup, so I closed the blinds. Not long after that, one of the workers sought me out with his wet face and a sweat-speckled black shirt. He asked could we please close the blinds, as someone had opened them. 

"No. I prefer them open," was the host's answer. As I relayed his preference, the caterers all leaned in to stare in disbelief as sweat rolled off their hairline, down their cheeks, and right into the soup. 

At what point do we say, "Hey stop being weird about the blinds. These people you hired are suffering and you have an obligation to stop it!" But there was a crowd and that seemed wrong. Also, he was being cruel and self entitled. So I just let the man eat the soup with droplets of funk and dander. Natural Consequences.

How many people are just letting you eat the soup? Are you really open to hearing honest talk about your own stuff? 

One way to find out where you stand on anything is to begin a collaboration; to self produce. As actors we no longer need to solely fit into someone else's vision/film/play/TV series. When we self produce, we evolve personally and professionally. And our professional work is only as great as our personal growth, so what are you self producing this year?