I would usually consider myself someone who loves to be around people – I thrive off the energy of others and my experiences are made more real when I share them with someone else. But today was one of those days when all I wanted to do was shut everyone out. There is only so much you can take of being around people before your rope begins to fray and you start to lose your grip. Sometimes you need to be alone, and after a very busy weekend of being in a bus with 30 people, a bedroom with 8, a train with a 100, doing some crowd control and allowing myself to disengage and reconnect was on the top of my to do list. But that is difficult in a flat of seven and a city of seven million.
I woke up this morning tired, sore throat (still fighting a cold that has come in and out for two weeks now), and overwhelmed by the week ahead – four days to get ready for our ten day fall break trip to Italy – four days that are inconveniently packed with other things to do and four girls who have no idea how to speak a word of Italian – that trip will be a blog to hold your breath for J. There is a lot to do to get ready, and a lot of question marks because it is simply impossible to plan everything. I am going to go with the flow. I am going to be patient. I am going to make peace with unplanned events. Everything is going to be okay – right? Yes….
So luckily, in keeping with my solitary mood, the office was uncharacteristically quiet today. Mondays are usually very busy with the phone at a constant ring, but today it was pretty uneventful. Robert said that because of the economy being so bad, castings are being cut in half, and projects are being delayed, which obviously affects the business a great deal. Because Kelly Management is still a young company, slumps like this really hit hard. One can only hope that the market will improve and the industry will pick up speed sooner rather than later.
Because of the slow pace, my day was more laid back than usual. One of our biggest clients, Leanne Jones, who is currently headlining Hairspray is going to New York City in December, so I went through the Who's Where USA Casting Agency contacts book and researched every contact in the book from A to Z in relation to their projects. This required me going to IMDB Pro and doing a search for every company. Some of them did not show because they only cast theater, which IMDB does not cover, and others did not have any worthwhile credits. However, I was able to narrow down a list of the top three or four casting directors and we will go about setting up meetings for her visit.
At 11:30am, we had a client who we saw at the Mount View Showcase production of Merrily we Roll Along on Tuesday night come in and interview. It was really interesting to interview someone I had seen in the actual production. This was a first for me. I loved seeing the actress face to face and hearing about her aspirations - basically getting a feel for the real and off stage personality of the talent.
After searching those contacts and taking my lunch break – which consisted of eating a peanut butter sandwich at my desk - I called the main producer of Holby City - a BBC television series. We were calling so I could push one of our clients and a friend of the producers to keep in mind for future castings for the series. It was a bit of a struggle to find his contact information - it is usually quite the search, and unfortunately, he was not available, but I will follow-up with a call on Wednesday.
I finally finished updating all of the CV's for the youth clients. They look great and Robert and I both are very pleased that it is finally finished. After, I continued to do some administrative tasks around the office as usual - made phones calls when they asked me to, and simply picked up the office odds and ends. We also found out today that the Polish client we interviewed on Wednesday has chosen another more well-known agency for television, which was a slight disappointment, but it is the nature of the industry and did not seem to bother Rob very much at all.
The late afternoon was consumed with making calls to a list of prominent casting directors to introduce myself as a new member of the Kelly Management team, and inquire if they had any castings coming up. I also had five clients I had to call to arrange castings with, so it was certainly an afternoon of not so much me, myself and I, but me myself and every casting director in London. I did not mind at all though because it signifies the trust that Rob has in me to let me speak with these big names in the casting industry.
After work, I ran across the street to Subway to grab a sandwich for dinner before heading on the tube by myself and making my way to the huge and museum like Barbican Arts Centre off the circle line to see A Disappearing Number with my theatre class. It was nice to read on the tube and find my way there on my own without anyone yelling at me to go this way or that. I found it just fine and it was a relief to not have a group following behind me. I was early so I walked around, sat outside by these beautiful fountains, and then sat and saw the show which was brilliant – no I am not using British terminology for good – the writing was incredibly sophisticated and the plot was so thought through.
The story was based around the idea of mathematics portrayed through the life of an ancient Indian mathematician, which paralleled the life of a modern math teacher and her Indian husband. The whole show focused on connecting the continuum of time and space, life and death, what is real and what is an illusion, with the theories of math. It was so complicated and complex but so intellectual and thought provoking. The theatre itself was astounding – seemed almost brand new, with gorgeous covered seats and a clean and polished décor. It was hard to go from a long internship day straight to a show that had such a unique energy, but I came away from it feeling moved. I came back and am now sitting quietly alone in my room, ready for a good night sleep – maybe when I wake up well- rested I will be a people person once more.
But just so you know, even though I want to be alone right now, there will always be a part of me that wishes you were here – because I am not sick of you J feel special!
Love and hugs,
Jenny
No comments:
Post a Comment