Author: Susie Taylor

Kitchen

Goodbye…agent..and cat

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Yesterday I spent some time on Backstage. I had started my membership again and in the three days since this little tingle from deep within me started to awaken… an excitement about acting that had tried to return but I wasn’t ready…yet.

So I began to submit myself for auditions and even learned that a theater company I’ve worked with is holding auditions and in just a text, a click, I began to remember…

I Am An Actress

Acting seems to have been revealed in the past few years as the business it really is. In that I feel free to renter without this veil of BS I was having to play. Pretending to NOT NOTICE and then when I did take offense when my agent didn’t respond the way i wanted her to ..defend who I felt needed her protection.

Now I can audition for work I want to do and for the price I want to get paid and all becasue I removed my REPRESENTATION in my online profile from agent to NONE>
Becasue in the end I desire to represent myself and I have no need for middle people –

Also It asked me on my profile if I still have a calico cat. I had forgotten that backstage and casting network asks these questions in case the piece you are auditioning for needs one.

My cat Kito died in December and so I erased the information and replaced it with a DOG…which at that very moment ended up getting out our back fence and when I left my desk to retrieve him he was poking his head under my house…

He found four baby kittens..

Funny how letting go really often means saying hello.

I am currently talking directly to casting directors, producers and writers about auditions and parts and I have to tell you… I love it..

Being my own agent, manager and publicist is going to be a joy becasue the only thing I have learned I can control is how I HANDLE myself.

My son has begun taking care of the kittens…he is a sweet boy and it is amazing that out of all the houses in the block…the momma cat chose ours.

Kitchen

Hello …crow to headstand to backbend

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This vacation I had a vision of myself dancing in the grass. Doing many things I at this moment have never done. I. Was inspired to create a combination of movement and practice it over my travels these past two weeks.

It was a cartwheel on the right then on the left a body roll then roll down into a crow then head stand hold then into back bend and GET UP.

I have not yet gotten up but through videoing myself and watching it back I was able to adjust my movement from the external eye and and I completed all the others..

I am able to get up from a mid height…like a ottoman or bed but not the floor exactly…

But this inspired me and kept my mind fluid….and gave it something to PLAY with.

I am thinking this is what the new movement work I will be studying will continue to do.

Monotony is the death of me! SKT

S

Kitchen

Hello….Republic of Movement.

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Miami treats me like Alice in WOnderland…the moment I decide to look for a KEY is the moment the entire city seems to split open and reveal itself yet again.

I was lead to a place two blocks away from the school my son attended for three years. This means I drove near it often and yet…never SAW it.

I went to my first class a few weeks ago and then the next day my second and the approach to movement aligns with my internal philosophy of kindness and I am intrhalled..

I can see how one can become a groupie but I like being a groupie..I was that with POLE and Bikram and so why not and this…it includes outside and travel and fluidity and connection which is what I want to train in.

I have no clue why or what will become of this for me but as a student of movement I want to know how to play in this extended mindset with peaople in MY city that already are in this conversation.

I feel my body was a peace here…not punching or climbing or lifting…it is all flow and fluid and form follows function…so if I am to stay in this beautiful state of flow that I have found within myself I much protect it with a training that honors that approach..

I look forward to seeing what a year with Ido Portal Trainers takes me and my work..
I am going to consider it my next schooling-higher education… and treat it with the same respect —-

I hope to travel with it and perhaps meet Ido and then bring my actors to it or teach the other students the game to create stories from love…through these bodies of movers.

Exciting thoughts are ticking my ears but I am ahead of myself….

Xoxoxo SUSIE

Kitchen

Hello …Susanne?

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A scene between 40 and 44

A- Hey snooze

B- It is Susanne now

A- Really?

B_ Well..yeah..I guess

A- Getting older Susanne

B_Trying to

A- Why

B- Because I want to accept it before the inevitable

A- Youth is still on your side

B- It was..

A- Are you giving up?

B- I am undoing my fakeness

A- Your what

B- My bullshit ness

A- Why

B- I want to experience MY life…not a version of it.

A- Why

B- TO know I was present…here..living …not just adjusting my reality to what I want wish convinced it should be

A- Sounds heavy

B- It is actually really light

A- Easy?

B-Getting there …just have to let go of my lies- reset them

A-Did you return to them?

B-Some- NY- London- Reviewing them through my eyes now and through my body now..

A-Speaking of your body- what the hell did you do

B-Oh, you mean my breasts

A-Yeah- our boobs—what the fuck!!!

B-I took them out

A- Why? They were so fun and sexy and amazing

B- Because they were also Bullshit… you can’t evolve with bullshit in you or on you or else you just make MORE bull shit

A- So you are cleaning yourself out of bullshit

B- Of anger and I think the boobs gave me that and protected me at times too but regardless…I need to handle our Bullshit…and that means being REAL first with myself

A- You look very different…

B- I don’t do Botox either

A- Are you fucking kidding me….you are a train-wreck- you’re ruing ME.

B-I’ll find an alternative..i promise …i am concerned about freezing movement…which I believe is aligned with health

A- Shut up- Your husband is hot- he’ll leave you

B-He could- he won’t – or he would have..besides…it is a journey.

A- Your crazy

B- I am

A- My throat is closing…

B- I know

A- Are you doing this on purpose…bringing me here to see you murder me piece by piece— you are a wicked person..

B- I need to do this so you won’t try and come back- I need to burn our bridge so I can move into whatever this new version of susie

A- Susie again

B-I can’t shake it…is going to be and with YOU always trying to sneak in with that Acting shit is not helping.

A-Oh- so now you don’t want to act

B-I am sick of acting…I have only been acting …I built on the side line a great family and home and friends and I want to LIVE that life…not just hang out there till the REAL thing happens

A- You think you can be happy in mediocrity

B- Maybe you were always mediocre…especially when you started building a platform..

A- You can build from a platform

B- Nothing dramatic or exciting or new

A- No- nothing like that… but you can build something stable and steady and calm and I need that in my life

B- Where are all your friends?

A- I said goodbye

B- Why?

A- I only want to be with people taking this trip with me….the others hurt me too much..I am not kind enough to not hit back and this fight is almost done..i hope

B- Are you alone then

A- I have a few solids…wiser calmer less drama people to be around

B- You sound super dooper boring

A- I am – I put out all the HOT FIRES and I am back at the beginning…with my two sticks and my tinder leaves and I am just waiting to see how to make this OTHER fire work…

B- Without me?

A- You were amazing…you did a great JOB played the best role and now I have to stop using you…find ME ME Because you are not me NOW…see that over there……I am heading over that hill and I want to be graceful and kind about it…I am done struggling and fighting and resisting and forcing… I am better with the people I have around me…and being in their currents and just laying back and floating….I only get upset when I pull my head up and question…but see. This is not my normal and I have to relax and see where they take me…as I am…in peace and detachment from most of my past and also my future

B- So you have no clue If this is going to work?

A- No but I have faith it will be good- whatever IT is

B- I am worried

A- I’ll write…I promise…

Kitchen

YOU NEVER LET ME GO…THANK GOODNESS

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I WROTE this diddy the other day…part of a song someone should write

You never let me go
You never let me go
You never let me go
No matter how I try to say good-

I never let you go
I never let you go
I never let you go
I matter how you tried to say good-

And here is the scene…it is about NOT being angry or unhappy or discontent.. and how strange that feels to me

A couple sitting on a rocking wooden bench looking over the mountains…sipping kambucha..

You: Now what

Me: no idea

You: I don’t know how to move from here

ME; you want to go back

You: Back there

Me: yes

You: because newness is hard

Me: I suppose

You: All this for nothin

Me: I guess

You: Gags and tittels

Me: entertainment with blood stains

You: Marriage is boring when we aren’t fighting

Me: That’s your issue

You: Fuck you!

Me: Your welcome.

You : I feel better now…thanks… ( Kisses)

Kitchen

HEY OLD SELF.

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I finally got around to watching Tully. IT reminded me of a sketch I wrote and filmed about four years ago. It was such a special moment in my life and I worked with such a special women. Unforntualy I wasn’t able to keep her close and we have since separated but maybe that is the truth…you can’t keep all of you when you are evolving…
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=YDqZljVP86sA ROOM OF MY OWN.

Here is the full script…FULL SCRIPT READ ALONGI loved this time of my life- right before I entered back into acting and now…as I exit…the process begins again…I think IT IS TIME I write a new skit…where the older susie in this story meets up with me.

I MISS MY OLDER SUSIE——

Kitchen

Hello …Hoʻoponopono

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The prayer of Ho’oponopono is as I learned it to let go of the TIDES the generational pain you carry so as to not transfer them to the next one. IT is based on the idea of the lineage of emotional pain.

You say the name of the person that you have an “issue with” ( past or present
Then say
Please forgive me
I am sorry
I love you
Thank you

You will find that it is difficult for you to do for certain people and those are the people you need to keep saying this to until you don’t have difficulty doing it.

For me it was like I was slowly releasing  myself from a rope that was tied around my neck and with each repetition over time it was a thread that broke until I was free and so was the person I did the prayer for…

THe prayer is Hawaiian and it was given to me by a Reike teacher who told me to say it for the people I claim have hurt me. At the time the list was long. I was late 30ths and I had a colorful life and in it there were missteps but the thing about this prayer, for lack of a better word is that it changed the villain from them to me…it gave me a sense of responsibility in the relationship because for one reason or another I was still holding onto it in a negative way. IT needed a correction if I wanted to be set free and who better to set yourself free than your own self.

It was about ME asking for forgiveness of the “people who wronged me” and in that I slowly began to realize that I had created extended pain and stress in my body by holding others in their characters—-their roles in my life. My negative thoughts had warm homes becasue I gave them that place in my body. I allowed them there..THis was a wonderful key that unlocked my own ability to negotiate my thought process and since then…I try to immediately release negative thoughts and then use that grace toward my own desires or destiny…

This energy we have is strong and when you speak ill of someone you can indeed maintain the “pull” that story you are telling yourself has on you.

The wild thing i learned from this experience was that I am NOT my stories or my experiences…I can let them go through forgiveness and movement and in the end I find that I am what I think about…who I see and how I do what I do.

My stories are justification…beliefs that only mean as much as we lean on them

Look at your life, your daily habits- you are all those thoughts and those things…

if you are thinking nastly thoughts about others and yourself…then you are  dare I say nasty person… becasue I have come to learn that being kind means… you can address those thoughts in your own head..and heart…and spend time trying to see the situation from as many angles as possible so that YOUR point of view is just ONE of them and not the only one.

Then you begin to dilute your Nasty thoughts and ask them kindly to leave because as long as you have them… you are them…

I know this because I have spent the last 5 years walking though my life and although I am not friends with everyone in my life..i hold no ill will to anyone…no matter what happened between us and I have asked forgiveness if not personally then spiritually as often as I can until I feel I let them go or vis a versa… because Karma is a boomerang and unless you let people go from what they “did” to you” you will hurt them …maybe more that they ever hurt you and then WHO is the VIllain?

Be sweet because you can…and the world needs that now…don’t be nasty or mean or sarcastic…because it is overplayed…

Be the one that is ok and if you can’t be OK then go and work on trying to be…one relationship at a time.

Xo
S

Kitchen

Hello…. Webber Douglass

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I remember being at a coffee shop in Penn State’s Happy Valley no doubt sprinkling cinnamon on my 15th refill of dark blended coffee …cozy…and their phone rang.

My roommates at the time called the coffee shop! We didn’t have cell phones so romatinic things like this could easily happen. THey called my name and I was like- huh? I think the coffee shop waiter walked over to me and said are you Susie? I was like yeah? Well, you had a call and something about a letter is waiting for you! I remember the feeling of running back to my apartment up the stairs like my heart was leading me and I saw an odd shaped THIN..very THIN….small yellowish envelope. – rectangle shape.

It was sealed with one of thoe bunny ear metal closures and I slowly opened it all it read on one paper. We are happy to …..

It was Ana amazing idea! GOIng to London to study acting!!!!!! I had trained in acting since 5th grade os this was huge becasue I really wanted to do classical Shakespeare theater for my life…never really thought logistics or how that woudl work but something about learning classical theater in LONDON well….

So- being in London was a major adjustment to my approach o acting. It basically was the opposite approach as it had an external process of developing an actor. Voice, Movement and make-up all slowly creating a character…and this tapping into your own emotional at the first step was NOT what we did.

Kitchen

London vs American Acting

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Pretending to be a role is very different than being the role. It gets really messy when you discuss this with the acting community… because the style of off shoots of METHOD acting Have become integrated in our teachings. The teachers of today were among the first or second generation of this approach. It is imbedded and systemic…it can’t be undone…like the vine that a German guy brought to NC and it now covers all the trees and looks like a forest but it is a vine killing the forest itself…looks can be deceptive.
I went to London in 1995/6 and worked with the best teachers from RADA that we now working at Webber Douglas I was kind of like the vine…going there to learn what they were doing but in a way…starting to expose the alternative American training to these classical teachers…perhaps they saw the future…a. Bunch of emotionally unstable artists…just waiting to happen.
Here is a perfect example of how my American approach to acting was received.
I was the ONLY American actor there and they accepted me into a class of post graduate students. I was beyond thrilled and thankful.
we had midterm performances and I did a monologue that I thought was amazing. I mean I broke down on stage crying and opening up my heart. I was amazed how OPEN i way, how connected to my true self…and what happened after that was that the school threatened to kick me out.
They were very confused by what I was doing and said…”why are YOU crying? That’s not your job! That is the job of the audience!”
It was such a wakeup call. I was sitting across from an acting instructor and she was holding a tissue box and I was just crying again. Now from her critique of my amazing breakthrough movement…and she was like..
“what the hell are you doing?” That was ugly and sloppy and not professional at all”
all I see in my memory bank is a constant flow of tissues.
I am not sure I ever fully adapted their approach as my first language but it gave me structure to my work in many ways.
After they suggested I consider leaving the school I cut my emotional connections off and started making fun of the teachers ( this this was s suggestion of one of the teachers themselves) in My final showcase monologue of a high strung woman…..pretending to Steward Pierce our high strong voice teacher.
This time I was greeted with accolades…. They were fully impressed with my IMPRESSION of a character- my ability to ACT…not become…
I remember this one teacher was like do you want to know who we were all most surprised by? I was feeling like such the pathetic student I was like…no…
She smiled and said. YOU.
It was such a huge shock and wake up call.
However. I rarely see classical teaching anymore and even London theater…in their contemporary theatre seemed so become so American- talk about the tail wagging the dog.

Kitchen

Letting go of …Drama

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NOT being in charge is like softly being ticked on my arm…It isn’t something I like at the start…it is actually a little annoying and boring and I can watch my child like self start to feel uncomfortable in the calm but I have begun to hold ground…transmute the irritation and let the wave pass over me.

Funny how being OK is something i have to get used to!

Truth is, I am much more comfortable in DRAMA…I can function well in it and high emotions are more normal than copesetic situations.

I can trace this back and I have but the point is at the end of the day when you understand that a calm relating feeling eventually get boring and yet…I know it is the healthier way..unless something has actually HAPPENED…but for the most part…

Life can be VERY VERY calm and chill and flowing and my new approach is to allow those around me …the ones I am physically connected to to guide me.. I hold my own disposition but I take action as in where and when though those that have more…hmmm more need to control

WHat this does is that it alleviates me from the position of pretending I am someone who wants to control…and it allows the person who is great at controlling and leading…ie- my husband…a place to do it without resistance.

I am sure this is due to the fact that I am NOT dying to be anywhere else. I think a great deal of disatisfaction is when there is somewhere else you’d rather be than where you are..this —-for me taps into the feeling that —-something else would make me more content/happy/satisfied/ etc

But the understanding I am in right now is that the ability to keep a society unsatisfied in ever are is the ability to create turmoil, purchasing, hate and aggression.

SOmeone has to be OK and content…There has to be an anchor in the world…people who are thankful for who they are, what they have, what they look like, what they can and can’t do…someone has to be like that…

In a family as well. I am becoming more and more aware that the more OK i am with being a mom and a wife and taking care of the family ( I don’t do everthing…my kids and husband cook and food shop and are very self sufficient ) but the vibe…the energy or the person that is THERE…that is important and I have the opportunity to be that…so I am going to take it and enjoy it..and stop complaining that I am not something OTHER than me..

It feels like…a rambling river…

I am entertaining myself my challenging myself in kind physical challenges…( I’ll explain soon)