Birthday Week

Since my birthday fell on a weekday and it's not a 'milestone' year, I decided to be low key and just have a simple sailing excursion and dinner. My Mom and Sister came down, and after drinks at my apartment, we headed to the Embarcadero to start our adventure. We sailed with SF Sailing Company, which I sailed with for my 30th. It's such a great time and I wish I could do it once a week!

Katie and Mom taking the bus like a couple of locals!

Oysters and Cocktails at Hog Island. 

Nice view of Alcatraz from the Head (aka bathroom)

Sea Lion taking a late afternoon nap

Quine Ladies 

Mom's a happy camper

So is Cole!

That weekend, my girlfriends took me out to brunch, as we have done for everyone else in our group. It was such a marvelous way to celebrate JUNE 10th!

xoxo

Melissa

Catch Up: May

I participated in a staged reading of Waiting for Lefty at the Eugene O'Neill National Historic Site. Located in Danville, CA, it's where Mr, O'Neill lived for a short time and he wrote many of his most famous and memorable plays. The location is stunning and it's not hard to see why it allowed him the peace and inspiration to write.

 Xfinity commercial shoot

 Celebrating the +12 hour shoot and the overtime pay

 A sunny day with light fog

 I've never participated in Bay to Breakers, always just watched from the comfort of my apartment, but this year we ventured out to hang out in the sun and see the costumes. We packed a bag of mimosa supplies and trail mix, Urban Hiking at it's finest.

xoxo

Melissa

Catch Up: April

Jeepers crow! Let's get reacquainted here. The past few months have been crazy (good crazy, but crazy) and when I get really busy, I go into survival mode and focus on a few tasks at a time. Sadly, personal emails, phone calls, doctors appointments (oops), and blogging all fall away in favor of my sanity. But I'm back with a vengeance! This summer has a lot of fun adventures in store (Massachusetts visit! Another wedding! Mom and Dad in town!) so I'm looking forward to documenting it again. In the meantime, here's some of April:

I never know what I'm doing, and need my own cheat sheet.

Sleepover with my niece and nephew

Cole's Birthday

 

First Giant's game of the season

xoxo,

Melissa

Headshots

I graduated college 10 years ago! While it feels like maybe 2-3 years has past, I have years of photos on my Mac telling me otherwise. I recently had to get new headshots because I chopped my hair and it had been a few years since my last session. While I sometimes get frustrated by my picture hording,  it was fun to see all of my headshots from the past 10 years. How fitting for a #tbt!

My first session was with Lisa Keating, whom I found in the book Acting is Everything (a graduation present from my Mom). Lisa kindly guided me to what photos would be best for theater and agents (Fun Fact: Theater headshots have a different look than Commercial shots). Traditionally headshots are in black and white, but Lisa said she started to see a shift to colored pictures. I trusted her, and was one of the few actors at auditions with colored headshots. Not only did I stand out, but colored headshots are now the standard!

                                   

Five years later (2010) I went back to Lisa for new shots. No more baby face! Also, I'm smiling because by this time I had an agent and they need 'commercial' looking photos. Theater has slowly started shifting to smiling photos at this time as well*.

And now to 2015! Shorter hair and not as blonde. I went with Stuart Locklear this time around and I was equally pleased with his results. I kept a neutral one as a theater option, but 90% of the actors in the Bay Area are smiling*, so I'll go with the trend.

*I can only speak for the Bay Area and my personal experience. Every city has it's own market and what they are looking for. San Francisco is a small city with a mostly commercial/industrial market. The theater scene is small enough where everyone is acquainted and headshots can cross over from commercial to theater without an issue.

xoxo,

Melissa

Angela Lansbury

That's Dame Angela Lansbury to you! Angela Lansbury is one of my favorite performers. The woman has had quite the enviable career, spanning decades of Broadway and television work (I'm currently binge watching Murder, She Wrote as I write this). When I read that she was coming to San Francisco for the limited national tour of Blithe Spirit, I immediately bought Cole and I tickets. It was such a thrill to watch her on stage and let me tell you, she's still got it! 

Ready to go!

                                

Obviously thrilled

                 

I stumbled upon this a few weeks back while cruising the Internet and I'm desperate to get it!


xoxo,
Melissa