Past and Future Me

I’m not quite sure where life is going these days. I’m being confronted by a lot of things: my upcoming trip to New York, my love of life in Berlin, and mostly, how long I want that life in Berlin to continue.

On the one hand,  my life is hugely successful here. I live in an apartment I love, I work from home, I get to sleep. My acting career is fairly successful here: I have a manager, I was cast in a play within my first two weeks here, and I was just hired to join an improv troupe in Berlin- a regular theatre gig.

I’m also doing things I’ve wanted to do but never had the guts or the time to do in New York, mainly, teaching acting. I also have a good gig teaching English and presentation skills at a graphic design company. I get to work on my art every single day, and I do.

Yet there’s a huge part of me that feels a certain longing to return to New York. I miss having consistent auditions. I keep feeling like I’m sacrificing something by coming here, which is not true at all. To have Berlin on my resume when I come back is going to be a huge boon for me, and I feel like my career is going to be so much stronger when I return.

For one thing, I’m going to make sure that I dedicate more time to it. No more working all the time. I want my life in New York to be closer to my life here, where I can create opportunities for myself. That will be more difficult in New York, because New York is lots more expensive, and I’m going to have to make more to cover my rent.

For me, it’s all a question of opportunities these days. My boyfriend has some huge career opportunities in his job here that he wants to take advantage of, which would mean a long term commitment here that I’m not sure I can make.

So then the question becomes my heart versus my head. Which do I want to be happy? And is it possible to have both satisfied at once?

I don’t want to return to the past. I don’t want to be constantly exhausted, and working on my acting but not working enough. I can be better than I was. I can do better than I did, and I’m aware of that. And I want to come back to New York and fight for the career that I want.

These are choices that I never thought I would have in life. I thought I was on a straight path, struggling in New York for the rest of my life. Suddenly, in this move, the world has been opened up to me and I feel like I no longer know what path I’m on or what I want, because I want everything. Life, love, travel, an acting career.

Is there a way to have it all?

Madrid

I just returned from a trip to Madrid, which was my first time going to Spain. Madrid was a city that I liked but didn’t quite love. I think there were a few reasons for that. First, it looked exactly as I thought it would look. Second, a lot of the time was spent in more tourist-y areas, and I think if I had gotten to know neighborhoods a little more I would have enjoyed it more. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We went to Toledo for an afternoon, and that was a town that I just loved. The city itself is just beautiful, and I loved the train ride, and seeing the mountains everywhere. It was gorgeous. 

One night, we went to a bullfight. This was something I wanted to do, just for the cultural experience, not for the animal cruelty aspect of it. That part was almost impossible for me to watch. 

The crowd at the bullfight was all natives, except us, so people laughed as we recoiled in shock from the violence being done to these animals. Now, I know not everyone in Spain likes bullfighting, but it was quite a shock to see. We saw three bulls die and two live before we couldn’t watch anymore and left. 

The costumes and movement were beautiful, as I thought they would be. That was the performance aspect. The movements were so specific. There were so many times when the matador would stand with the utmost confidence, taunting the bull with his masculinity and power. It was fascinating to watch. 

The not-so-fascinating part was watching a confused bull walking around bleeding. The violent aspects of the fight were so hard to watch. It was unbelievable that this could still go on in this time period. 

The food was great there, though at the end of the trip I was happy to not eat more Spanish food. Everyone eats their meals late there, so we all adjusted our eating times accordingly. One night, we ate dinner at around 9:30 at night, and that was practically impossible for me to do. 

Some of the best things we ate: paella, lots of ham fritters, potatoes, sangria, and pocket sandwiches, the closest to egg and cheese on a roll I’ve had since I left New York. Egg, potato, and chorizo, all mixed together for ultimate deliciousness in a roll. 

Three Months…

And I’m thinking what I’m sure some of you are thinking: already??? I know, I can’t believe it either. So now that I’ve spent a quarter of a year living in Berlin (THAT thought really put it in perspective), I’d like to summarize my feelings on the city:

Likes:

• The transportation system is just amazing! I’ve never been late or stuck on a train. 
• I live in an incredible apartment with a balcony next to a major transportation hub that costs a fraction of what I paid to live in Queens. 
• The efficiency of everything. 
• Buying bread from bakeries… especially walking down the street with a bag of fresh bread and the bag is warm.
• The food is incredibly cheap. 
• The history of this city blows my mind every time I walk throught it. The fact that this city went through a major transformation during my lifetime is amazing for me to think about. 
• The people here are really interesting. 
• It’s also a very green city, which I support. (As in, environmentally friendly). 
• There are parks everywhere! I live within walking distance of two. 

Dislikes:

• People don’t clean up after their dogs, so there are little “presents” all over the street.
• There tends to be a lot of broken glass on the ground, too. 

What is my life here compared to my life in New York? I work less, that’s for sure. I work more on acting and art. I live in a beautiful apartment. I don’t have much of a social life, due to lots of time spent working and having lots of guests. I’m spending more time outside, and getting lots more sleep, catching up on the sleep I haven’t been getting for years. I’m eating better and feeling less stressed. I am getting lonely and homesick sometimes, but I’m enjoying the time away from home and the new life I’m living. 

Things I Miss About New York:

• THE FOOD. As good and fresh as the food can be here, nothing can top NewYork in terms of restaurants and variety. 
• Sometimes I miss the hustle and bustle. Other times, I don’t. 
• My acting class. It’s nice to have an artistic community of people that special. 
• The theatre! I feel kind of sad to be missing some shows over there. 
• Having a social life, what little I did have while I was there. 

It’s definitely been a crazy three months for sure, but I am so happy for the experience that I’m having. I know that I will remember this for the rest of my life. I’m starting to feel like I never want to leave, because if I did, I would miss here, just like I miss New York now. Berlin is becoming a different kind of home for me.

Lange Nacht Der Theater Und Opern

This is my account of the first Lange Nacht Der Theater Und Opern festival which took place in Berlin on April 25th, 2009. All types of theatres from all over the city showed 30 minute previews of their shows from 7pm until 1am, including my show, “Prophecy of a Nameless Eskimo,” at the English Theatre Berlin.

9:23 pm

En route to the theatre. Have been seeing green pamphlets with information about the festival everywhere, along with special busses running especially for the festival, while eating dinner outside on Oranienburger Strasse. Had a huge meal along with some caffeine, so I think I’m ready for the first show. Tried to hand someone a flyer for my show on the U-Bahn and they looked at me like I was insane. 

9:30 pm

Just arrived at the theatre. It’s like a party outside! Everyone is hanging around the courtyard by my theatre and people even have a fire going. Shows are playing to packed houses-it’s amazing. I approached some people with a green booklet on the train, asked them if they spoke English and gave them a flyer for my show. They were seeing the show before mine, so I walked them to the theatre. They had already seen about three shows so far, and seemed to be enjoying trekking around the city.

9:52 pm

I’m in costume and makeup. The show before ours is on and is going to finish in 8 minutes. Then we have half an hour to quickly review and prepare before our show goes up. We’ve been running lines backstage since it’s already been two weeks since the first run. I’m a little nervous, but more nervous that I ate too much at dinner. I feel really energetic, and the momentum of the night is really making me feel great about how the performance is going to go. Before I know it we’ll be on, and before I know it the festival will be over. 

11:15 pm

The 10:30 show went well. We were all a little jumpy because of nervous energy, especially because it was a bigger crowd than we expected. It was literally standing room only, with two extra rows added. The party continues in the courtyard outside. Gunther, the artistic director of the theatre, reqested that we do another show at 11:30, so we decided to do it, and then our regularly scheduled 12:30 performance. The transition into the show was very rushed, between cleaning up forom the show before and setup for ours. 

11:20 pm

Almost time for the second show already. This feels like a marathon. My adrenaline is definitely keeping me going. 

12:10 am

Backstage before the last run and I’m definitely feeling tired. I don’t know how I’m going to have the energy to do our 15 minute scene one more time and then go out after. It’s been a good night, though. We’ve been getting lots of laughs, sometimes more than we get in the show. These were the scenes we wanted to be more rehearsed on, so it’s almost like an invited rehearsal. It’s a good opportunity for us. 

12:35 am

Doing this so many times in a row reminds me of what it felt like doing birthday parties. 

12:55 am

All done and I am officially exhausted. The last run felt a little tired to me, though still fine. We noticed that the audience and the applause got a little smaller as the night went on, and could definitely feel how tired the audience was during that last performance. All in all, an amazing experience that I would love to repeat.

I am offically an artist.

Yesterday, I officially declared myself an artist to the German government.

After much back and forth regarding the Visa situation, it became clear that the best and easiest way for me to stay here was to stay here under a freelancer/artist Visa. I brought them my headshot, a program, a letter from the theatre, etc. 

It was so liberating to me to be able to make that declaration. For the first time in my life, I am doing what I have dreamed about for years: acting. Officially. I have no other solid commitments except for my acting work. 

In college, and after college, I worked myself to the bone trying to make enough money for rent, etc, claiming that the money I saved would be for “someday in the future” when I would be able to be a starving artist. When the decision to move to Europe came up, I realized that this is what I had been saving my whole life for. I just didn’t realize how much of my dream would come true while I was here. 

Right now, I am not doing anything outside of artistic work. I am rehearsing for my play, working on a  screenplay, and starting a career as an acting coach. I’m teaching a four day acting workshop for children in a few weeks. I could not ask for anything better out of life. 

For a comparison: in New York, I worked essentially seven days a week between my two “survival” jobs and auditioning. I woke up at seven every morning, and would often fall asleep on the couch from exhaustion. On weekends, my job was so physical that my body would hurt, espcially on the days that we didn’t have breaks, which were often. 

I am so happy and relieved that my life has gotten to this point where I have more freedom. This is the reason I came here. I just didn’t realize the extent to which my lifestyle would change.