Necessary Roughness
I’ll be appearing on “Necessary Roughness” on the USA Channel. The episode is “Forget Me Not” and airs at 10pm EST on August 24. I play the role of a hotel concierge.
This booking was a bit of an emotional roller coaster for me. Enjoying the ocean breeze from a deck on the beaches of Hilton Head, I received the email from my agent, “Audition for you on Tuesday”. Well, I had promised Susan before leaving for vacation that I absolutely would drive back to Atlanta for a big audition. So despite the strong pull of the surf, sand, and sun, I hitched a ride back with a fellow actress (who also was on vacation and had to drive back for an audition), and we cruised for five hours back to the ATL. Tuesday afternoon I did my thing for the very friendly casting director, Mark Fincannon, then high tailed it back to Hilton Head on Thursday morning.
Friday I get the call. Booked it! Huzzah!
Now the script revisions start coming through my email every evening about 11:30pm. The first two have minor wording changes for my character. My excitement begins to build. Then I get Monday night’s revision. Huh, the role of “Concierge” seems to have disappeared from the script. Cue sinking feeling in the stomach. The confirmation comes from Susan the next morning – my role has been written out. Sigh.
Trying to find any silver lining to this dark cloud, I realized that I would no longer have to make another day trip back to Atlanta on Wednesday for wardrobe. So, I had that going for me.
Thursday morning rolls around, and I notice a funny looking email header in my inbox. Says it’s from the wardrobe department. Hmm… Opening it up, I read the first sentence and my heart leaps around a bit: “You’ve probably already been notified that your role has been written back into the script”. Well, no, but you are suddenly my favorite person for being the bearer of such awesome news.
Secretly, I wouldn’t let myself believe it until I was on set and the director yelled “Action”.
So in the end, I had a superb day on set with director Kevin Hooks, and series star Mehcad Brooks. Thanks guys!
We Are All Ice Cream
Today I had the please of working with Eric Simmons, of Diamond Dust Productions. He’s written a children’s book titled “We’re All Ice Cream – I’m Just a Different Flavor”. Eric asked me to be the voice of the narrator, so today we laid down some tracks.
Eric has a beautiful story about the motivation for this book:
It all started before I was married and before I had any children of my own. I was in a predominately white neighborhood buying some food in a grocery store. A little boy in front of me in the line with his mom looked up at me and said, “You’re black!, You’re black!” You should have seen the look on his mother’s face. I got down on one knee and asked the little boy if he liked ice cream. He smiled and said yes. I asked him what his favorite was and he said orange sherbet. I told him mine was French Vanilla with Hot Fudge and crushed Almonds. He smiled and licked his lips. I said to him, “You and I are Ice Cream. I’m just a different flavor!” He laughed and said, “I get it, your chocolate. I’m vanilla.” We both laughed and that was the start of my journey in writing this book.
Southern New Hampshire University
Here’s a commercial I shot for the Southern New Hapmshire University, produced by the wonderful Kelly Makes.
Zombie Tag
This past week I spent a few days up in Ellijay, GA, working on the feature film “Zombie Tag”. This is an independent production being put together by the amazingly energetic Bentley family.
I play “Chase Taylor”, the main bad guy in the film, which surprisingly is about the game of Zombie Tag. Filming took place in and around two cabins nestled deep in the woods of the North Georgia mountains.
Committed to Murder
“Committed to Murder” is a comedic murder mystery for dinner theater. I wrote this a couple of years ago for my theater company, RedruM Mystery Theater. After producing it to great applause (and even a small profit!), I decided to release it to the public domain under the Creative Commons licensing system.
Through the beauty of the internet and just-in-time publishing, I can now claim to be a published playwright. You can preview it and purchase an electronic or paper copy at Lulu.com.
Here’s the quick description:
James Wiltshire, head psychiatrist and administrator of “Colonel Wiltshire’s Asylum for the Mentally Diminished and Old Women”, knows the pressures of running a four-generation family business. With rumors swirling that his board of directors may be questioning the Asylum’s profitability, Dr. Wiltshire has decided to hold a fund-raiser to offset some of the more difficult to explain “expenses” he’s incurred. But he has more than just the board to contend with — a resentful head nurse, a patient multi-layered in psychosis, an overly ambitious PR man, twin executive assistants, and a conniving board member, all have their reasons to hope Dr. Wiltshire takes an early “retirement”.
Minus Cowboy
Here it is — the final product from the fun and crazy team of Wicker-Hu. Our entry in the 2010 48 Hour Film Project for Atlanta screened at the Plaza Theater on Sunday, June 27. We were in Group D, along with about a dozen other teams, some of whom produced great films.
48 Hour Film Project, 2010 – “Minus Cowboy”
From the 48HFP website:
The 48 Hour Film Project is a wild and sleepless weekend in which you and a team make a movie—write, shoot, edit and score it—in just 48 hours. On Friday night, you get a character, a prop, a line of dialogue and a genre, all to include in your movie. 48 hours later, the movie must be complete. Then it will show at a local theater, usually in the next week.
Jack’s Restaurant
“Chicken Fingers” spot for Jack’s Restaurant. This humorous commercial was directed by Peter Siaggas of Spots Films.
Blood Raven, On Set Day 1
“Blood Raven”, a short film written by Rose Barron and Lee Eddie, began principal photography Sunday evening. Following the tempestuous relationship between Frank, a 50-something writer, and Raven, a fiery gal half Frank’s age, the film stars Sarah Wallace and Jon Hayden. I’m portraying Julian, Frank’s roommate.
Forget Me Not – New Website
Matt Heacock, director of “Forget Me Not”, a short film I was recently in, has put together a website for the production.
A short, faux noir, the film also stars Stacy Sheets and Mindy Hylton.
