In early 2009, Dylan Collins and Kristy Plotkin (aka "Tregatry") announced a new acting competition on the VAA and VAC, inspired by Sing It!, a long-running singing competition run by Dylan. This one was called "Act It!" I am currently part of this competition.
Audition
We were required to submit a monologue as an audition piece. I used one that I had adapted from Neil Simon's Come Blow Your Horn:
Round 2: television shows
Forty-two contestants passed the audition process, out of 70 auditions submitted. The first challenge was to perform a scene from a television show. I was assigned to Kristy's "team" and was given the role of "Emerson" in a scene taken from the Pushing Daisies episode, "Frescorts." The scene, which Kristy called I Need a Hug also featured Sunshine McDuff, suddenlysey, WorseThanChase, davyinatoga, and SaxyGirl08.
Round 3: movie scenes
Ten contestants were eliminated in round 2, leaving thirty-two for the next round. This week's challenge was a scene from a movie. Kristy assigned Eden (aka Mr. Kitty) and me to do a scene from Some Like it Hot:
Round 4: original scenes
Twenty-two contestants made it into the fourth round and received original scripts written by the judges. Gale and I were assigned a scene from Dylan's When Allison Fell, based on Alice in Wonderland
Round 5: characters
Round five featured fifteen contestants assigned to create three different characters in three minutes. We could do a scene with multiple characters, three monologues, or a combination. I chose to do three monologues:
one from Danny Boy,
one I adapted from Herb Gardner's A Thousand Clowns,
and one from Jet Lag that I chopped and chopped to fit into the time limit.
Round 6: more original scenes
Round 6 featured ten surviving contestants, and once again we were doing scenes the judges had written. Ducky Patterson and I did a scene from a show Dylan wrote called (I think), The Adventures of Zeke and Roland:
Round 7: demo reels
At this point, the judges were now eliminating only one person per round, so nine of us remained to take on the next challenge: demo reels. We were given sixteen lines and instructed to select eight.
Round 8: dubs
Eight of us made it to this round. We were divided into pairs to dub an animated clip. Sasuya and I dubbed two scenes from Finding Nemo. She played Dory and Nemo, while I voiced Marlin.
Round 9: monologues
The difficulty of mixing the previous episode, combined with some schedule conflicts experienced by the judges, delayed round 8 for a week. In the meantime, the eight of us were assigned to do a pair of monologues - one dramatic, and one comedic. I chose to do
Hamlet's "To be or not to be" soliloquy and
a stand-alone monologue called Fat Temple written by Jason Vaughn.
Round 10: live cold readings
Six of us remained for this one. Darkwolf and I were paired and met with the judges and various Act-It participants and others, were handed a script and had to read it, cold over Skype. The judges then critiqued us and we went off to a separate voice chat to rehearse for half an hour before returning to do another reading. We then sent in individual recordings of our readings, as did the other pairs; unfortunately, most of the recordings were not usable for mixing, so it appears that we will not have a permanent record of the effort. DW and I were declared the top pair, with him beating me out for top honors, since I apparently rushed some lines.
Round 11: narration
We are down to five for the narration challenge, which they had threatened us with weeks ago... only this one has a twist. The judges felt that each of us would have no problems with a simple narration, so they assigned us to read bad fanfic found on the internet! I was given a story which is clearly intended to be a sort of Harry Potter / High School Musical crossover fanfic:
Round 12: commercials
Four of us recorded commercials. We were each given scripts for 15-second, a 30-second, and a 60-second commercial:
for an upcoming radioplay called "Dragonfly" (15 seconds),
for Staples (30 seconds), and
for Dunkin' Donuts (60 seconds)
Round 13: finale
Three of us - Darkwolf, SonicMega, and I made it to the finale, where we each performed a monologue and participated in an original radioplay written by the judges. I thus performed:
a monologue taken from a scene in The Owl and the Pussycat, and
the role of Professor Polygamy in The Red Scare
In the end, Darkwolf edged me for the championship, apparently by one point as the judges kept score. It was a great experience, and I look forward to season 2!