American Odyssey

Much like Odysseus (or Ulysses, if that is how you swing.) I have been cast out to a far flung land in order to reach my goal. here the similarity's differ (although you could be forgiven for suggesting Americans are no less monstrous then Circe or the cyclops). I have come by choice to do some acting courses with schools and teachers of relatively high note in The Groundlings school (comedy improv particularly big characters) and Howard Fine (Realism in the Hagen mould. read Fine on Acting for more) a fantastic mix I would say and extremely challenging to say the least. However I am in a bit of a hiatus at present with both courses yet to begin the only acting I have been involved in was in the audition for the groundlings course, which I was succesful in. but as they say acting is about life experience and I have certainly been getting a lot of that over here. I was flown to Las Vegas pretty much on my arrival to LA and caught a Limo to the four seasons from the airport. The room was incredible but the real wonder was in the view. straight ahead was the strip, to your right the airport and the left held wondrous snow capped mountains. It was a landscapers dream. from cruising down the strip in a Limo to eating 70 american dollar pieces of meat I was treated to what life is like for the richer side of this world. A trend that is continuing on my return to Los Angeles. But more then the varied wealth I have now been exposed to I have also begun to experience life in the town where our people pilgrim to. Not a meal can be eaten at a restaurant without overhearing a neighbouring conversation involving a person discussing their latest show, film or stage work. Be they discussing it from the point of view of a director , actor, writer or producer. This is the town to be in for my kind. but in my audition alone I was treated to some baddddd acting to say the least. this helped by our teacher telling people there is no rules in Improv. How wrong she was. I saw two actors who both (on stage mind) were playing the same character and trying to get the other actor to submit to being the character neither wanted to play. so the scene went no where and I can only hope the audition was as far as either went. For here is a town where there is just as many, if not more pretenders as contenders. I can only hope that I fall into the former category. While I'm here I want to not only do my courses but also try to do some work even if it's student films to get an idea of what goes on in this town. but for now I have not thrown caution to the wind. rather I have buried caution underground and decided to cast myself to the wind instead. Also if anyone has their own stories from Lala land as well as any other places in the US please share them. Tom Camp