Month 1 of Year of Action!

Earlier this spring, I happened upon an article in my alma mater's Smith Alumnae Quarterly, featuring a remarkable woman named Erin Moran McCormick.

Erin Moran McCormick has written a book called Year of Action in which she recalls the triumph of trying things she always hoped to accomplish.  Clicking through to her Year of Action website, I was enticed to answer a call to women looking to take part in a pilot program, The Girlfriend MBA, that inspires women to have their own year of action.  Lo and behold, I was selected!

Starting in late April, Erin (as I now know her!) sent us copies of the book, which I read with gusto and promptly bought for friends.  Erin took bold steps to improve her life and it's a compelling read.

After reading the book, Erin granted the pilot-eers access to her website.  Over five weeks, Erin nudged us through a series of challenges to refine our goals, product, pitch, online presence, and marketing.  The website has worksheets (I love worksheets!), instructional videos, resources, and a forum on which we post our progress. 

Erin is a natural teacher who loves technology and inspiring people.  She pushes people in the right measure in weekly calls and personal e-mails with in-depth analysis on things like website updates.

A month doesn't seem very long at all (and maybe that's the point), but here's what I accomplished:

• Set my goal: book a speaking role on TV this summer!
• Completely re-organized my home office, making it a space I love being in
• Set a daily time, every morning, to work on my goals
• Clarified my brand on my website, www.JakeLipman.com
• Researched and inquired with fellow actors about their favorite classes and marketing strategies
• Launched Season 2 of my webseries
• Created a refined marketing list of industry contacts
• Enrolled in 3 workshops to meet casting directors on my list
• Set up an 8-week cycle of marketing to my list, having now sent out 4 of the 8 weeks of materials
• Educated myself on QR codes and added them to my marketing
• Enrolled in Improv 101 at UCB
• Put myself on tape for a TV pilot audition!

This week, the pilot program will be winding down, and I am vowing here and now to continue my year of action.  Stay tuned!

Girls Named Jake (In Commercials)

I am part of a small group of people with names that suggest the opposite gender.

Having this name is sometimes a cross to bear.  People ask a lot of questions, sometimes unkindly.  "Did your parents want a boy?"
"Where you born female?"

Sometimes it's good, of course.  People remember me at auditions, or parties, or say cute things like, "My name is boring!"  And that makes me feel better, more feminine, and sort of special.

A few years ago, I felt something else: proprietary about my name!  I ran into a girl I knew in college who has 2 first names that began with the letters J and K.  We ran into each other at Urban Outfitters, and she announced that she now goes by Jake.  She smiled knowingly at me, "Because J-K sounds like Jake!"

For the first time ever, someone calling themselves Jake sort of made me feel jealous.  About my own name.  Weird, I know.  And I know I'm never going to change it.  I'm fully grown and in my 30s, for Christ's sake.  I didn't even take my husband's last name when I got married.  This is my name.

One side benefit of the masculine, hard sound of my first name is that it makes the perfect punchline to a joke about gender.

There are two commercials that immediately come to mind:

It's 3 am and a man is talking furtively on the phone to Jake from State Farm.  The man's wife comes downstairs and asks who he is talking to, and he says, "Jake, from State Farm."  She grabs the phone and asks Jake what he's wearing and Jake replies, "Khakis."  And the wife says to her husband, "Well, she sounds hideous."

A mom and dad are driving their nervous teenage daughter to college and she is reading a piece of paper with her roommate assignment on it, "My roommate's name is Jake?"  Her dad cheerfully replies, "She sounds great."

So, in closing, I am still a tiny bit annoyed that people ask rude questions about my name.  But I'm also just a tiny bit proud that it makes for good humor.

Brilliant Lessons Learned from Smash and Bunheads

I am sometimes stunned at the lessons imparted in seemingly light television.  On the surface, neither NBC's Smash nor ABC Family's Bunheads appealed to me, and yet over the last year, I have routinely tuned in and learned a lot.

When last week's network upfronts announced Smash is going off the air, I felt compelled to explain why I will miss this show.

Smash gives glimpses into my life as an actress in NYC: auditioning at Telsey + Co., rehearsals in various rooms around the city, and acting in shows on Fourth Street in the East Village.  I totally geeked out at that cameo from Frank Dilella of NY1's Onstage (a show deserving of an entire blog post in and of itself, if not a FringeNYC play in which I play Donna Karger)!

Last week's Smash episode about book writer Kyle's death truly touched me.  In flashback, he tells Debra Messing's character that he remembers when Wendy Wasserstein died and the lights dimmed on Broadway for her.  Later in that same episode, Christian Borle serrenades Kyle with Billy Joel's "Vienna" and thus captures a moment of a sage veteran warily encouraging a newcomer.

Then I had to Google Christian Borle.  I knew he won a Tony in 2012 for Peter and the Starcatcher, but I had no idea he was once married to the feisty Sutton Foster, who won the Tony in 2002 for Thoroughly Modern Millie.

If I hadn't seen Sutton Foster interviewed on NY1's Onstage or grinning on the Anything Goes marquee on 43rd Street, I doubt I would have bothered to watch her ABC Family sitcom about dancer's life in show business: Bunheads.

I am by no means a dancer, but my liberal arts education and its requisite dance classes have given me an appreciation for the dedication it takes to be a decent dancer, let alone a working one.  Indeed, this fresh-scrubbed tween comedy emphasizes how hard a life in show business can be.  Foster's character still has nightmares about auditioning!

The most shockingly smart moment of all in Bunhead's first season was when Foster re-choreographs the rat scene in The Nutcracker to reference Kurt Jooss' dance The Green Table.  Way to go!

So for all the doubters out there, I want to say: bravo to these theater-loving writers and performers.

In the words of Billy Joel's "Vienna":

You've got your passion, you've got your pride 
but don't you know that only fools are satisfied?  
Dream on, but don't imagine they'll all come true 
When will you realize, Vienna waits for you?

Let's Go to the Movies

I live in the West 90s and there is a dearth of great movie theaters in my neighborhood.

Of course, if I want to see the latest foreign film, I can go down to Lincoln Plaza Cinemas (which I refer to as The Rugelach because they serve a lot of home-y grandma food there, including rugelach).

Or I can see a mainstream blockbuster at the AMC at 72nd and Broadway (it's pretty down-at-the-heel, however -- my heels literally stick to the floor of this place).  There's also a B-movie AMC at 84th Street, but there has never been a single movie that made it there that I wanted to see.

The nicest option is The Film Society at Lincoln Center, which has soft seats, an erudite crowd, and eclectic programming.  But not everything I want to see is going to pass through there, either.

Keep in mind that all three of the above options are a good 30 blocks from home.

Last weekend, I was walking along Broadway at 100th Street and saw this abandoned old movie theater had been bought, and I dared to hope.

Sure enough, The NYTimes Arts Blog reports that The Alamo Drafthouse Cinema, a food/movie experience courtesy of a cool mini chain from Texas, has bought the space.

The Alamo Drafthouse, as the name would suggest, does indeed serve craft beer, and according to their website, amazing food, great films and programming... and they have a strict policy of no texting, no talking during their movies.  Really, Texas?  I'm impressed.

And, now for your amusement, an article and link to a video/recording of an irate customer who was thrown out for texting in the theater.  I dare say this is mighty good entertainment in and of itself.