Drawing to a close

Hi friends,

You know, I always intend to update more often than I’m able, but I usually find I’m kept busy with work and acting and personal projects, so I neglect to take the time to sit down and blog about my accomplishments. I figure being busy isn’t too bad a thing, but I always want to be sure those of you that check up here have an idea of what in the world is keeping me so busy!

Earlier this month, I performed some excerpts from the shows I’ve been in with Deviated Theatre at their first annual Storyteller’s GALA at the American Dance Institute in Rockville. On the second night of the GALA, we had our first snow of the [fall] season, which may have affected our audiences, but we still had a good amount of attendees who were very responsive! My friends Dean and Sutisa Storm showed up, as well as Mary and Regan Garcia. They drove all the way from Baltimore in the hazardous weather, which I appreciated tremendously!! The two-night GALA was great fun, with catered food from the Ambrosia Grille Restaurant and Whole Foods, a wine ring-toss, and silent auction, everyone seemed to enjoy themselves and got to go home with some awesome prizes and presents.

Since then, I’ve been working a lot before winter break- and just recently I’ve worked a few events with Carbone Entertainment. It seems there’s a lot going on this time of year with the holidays, so already I’ve had quite a few gigs in the past three weeks! I’m definitely looking forward to doing more work with her company as it’s really creative and engaging, which two things I enjoy about this business.

I’m still auditioning for shows around the area and I just accepted a role in a staged reading by Miriam Gonzales of Young Playwrights’ Theater that’s going to be happening in January at Sidwell Friends school. I can run more information on that once I’ve had more time to take in the script, but check back here for further details.

On the visual arts side, I’m working on illustrating a children’s book for Joann McKinney of the Greater Homewood Community Corporation in Baltimore. I’m still in the early stages, working on a storyboard of sorts for the book, but perhaps I’ll post some work in progress here later on down the line.

For now though, I think I’ll actually take a break from all this busy-ness and enjoy my [SNOW!] day off with a little bit of retro gaming. 🙂

-Vaness.
http://www.vanessastrickland.net

October Already?!

Where did September go?

I suppose it’s a good thing to say I’ve been busy this past month, hence the lack of updates. But now that I have a moment, I can divulge what I’ve been up to!

I attended several auditions throughout September and began teaching my Shakespeare class on Thursdays. The students in class are really sharp and are completely diving into the Shakespearean language.

Last month I also attended the 3rd annual Actor’s Center Expo. I love going to these as I feel I get a lot out of them and meet new people every year. This time around I focused on taking voice-over and on-camera workshop panels and suffice to say, I learned a lot.

That following Sunday, I was did a shoot with Brillhart Media for a viral commercial for the Adventist Reader Magazine. The crew was really delightful and sought to keep us all very comfortable and entertained, even!

Just this week I filmed another how-to video for MonkeySee.com. It was another makeup video with local artist Roger Riggle, specially filmed for halloween. I figure it ought to be up on the site within the coming weeks. I feel I did a much better job this time around as I’ve gained so much more film experience since this time last year.

I’ve got a shoot coming up next week as well as a wedding– so I’ll be signing off for now and hopefully will update a bit sooner next time (or is later better?)

-Vaness.
www.vanessastrickland.net

Oz review & Stonehenge audition video

My current show, the Wizard of Oz at the Puppet Co., was reviewed in the Montgomery Sentinel this past week. The article can be found in the June 26th issue of the Sentinel and is currently only available online if you are a Sentinel subscriber.

In other news, Team Jabberwocky has uploaded their audition videos from the most recent Stonehenge auditions on 5/18/08. My audition video can be found here. The piece is from the play “Independence” by Lee Blessing.

-Vaness.
www.vanessastrickland.net