Tag: susie k taylor

Kitchen

INtegration of character

By


I found this word today by asking my husband what he felt the opposite of segregation was. 

I had been segregated my life these past years to dissect them. It had began with the death of my father the several years of therapy and the hitting of a brick wall with my ability to see Myself. It them moved into performances based on self awareness, kindness, the female journey and relationships. The final aspect was work. That was not so much a performance process but one that stemmed from being in quarantine these past few months.

I have found my work. My creative self and my family did not conflict but rather coincided. The space of my house became the backdrop to my work, my creative expression , my impression and all without having to leave the heart strings I so desperately love, my family.

I have always thought acting and family were oxymorons. I had been taught from a young age and although I peeled away the belief through action I had not uprooted the original programing – till now. To be home creating, not needed to venture out, not having to run from the disturbances of my home as they clash with my creative SUSIE- 

The idea of letting a SPACE i had always and desperately wanted to go, to send a text perhaps to say thank you and that it served its purpose…I am integrated.

I am integrated. I have kindly placed all my pieces back together and I have been able to flow and function at such high speeds. No breaks in emotion or energy having to exit and reenter my realisties. I am in one reality and have from here branched into others I have sold myself on. I am in one place and the creative juices flow around me. I am grounded and open minded and secure.

I was watching a show on Netflix as they discussed that a marijuana overdose reveals your holes and insecurities. I remember being concerned that no one could see me and that Steve would sometimes not be next to me even though he was driving the car. My fear was not being seen or heard and perhaps because I knew I wasn’t anywhere too long and thus I was nowhere..in my movement and in my work..I hadn’t tethered them in because it is not the pole it is myself – i have become the pole…centered, clear, understood more and more as I step forward with my work.

Integration. A woman’s work, apron strings and creative juices and the concostions I shall make.

And I I make breakfast, here the sizzle of the bacon the laughter of the boys the grains of sand beneath my feet from the outdoor project I am working on with the family as a 46th Birthday project for me……I am typing

my thoughts in real time on this keyboard on my kitchen counter which will serve as my backdrop for my upcoming interview show I am hosting as my favorite Character Mrs. Keith Wade from Miami Motel Stories…it is called unplugged

Which is what we all needed to do inorder to reset and integrate…

Kitchen

Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2019- and Jewbana

By

I arrived here with my family on the 5th of August. we picked up Nedra at the hotel she stayed the night in ( she arrived a day early) and we then drove on the opposite side of the road to our home..away from home and yet…it feels so much like home so quickly.

We rented an air b and b in Tranent…about a 25 min ride outside of Edinburgh. it is a home it is comfy it has a great kitchen and lots of rooms and bathrooms and the town is adorable and not too old town…very modern and hip.

We rehearsed int the house on the 6th and the 7th…about 10 hours in total. getting Nedra and I up to speed on where the show was. Nedra grabbed what we had done in Miami and with the song addition of IF YOU KNEW SUSIE and added in the burlesque moves for the transitions which was where the show kept falling flat.

I found my lines ( mostly;) We have changed the script so many times and I have added in so many that it was a bit hard to add int he new parts for heather and JIM. ( not his real name)

then on the 8th we had a tech rehearsal but we had to get the theater s few copies of the script. We had a little bit of an issue with this and I was getting on edge and then Nedra asked for coffee while we were late and that kind of book ethe camels back and we got into a fight.

It lasted only a few minutes and the work pulled us past ourselves.

She did an amazing job and Steve ended up buying her a coffee and just being a total gem.

then Steve took over the flying and postering lead. He met with Nick at the SPACE and got a game plan. He then picked us up and we went home and got the boys and then got ready for the show that night.

They flyer for 2 hours and I had 5 people the first night and 15 the second ( around that) and then tonight I had three.

they reduced the flying to 1 hour before the show but…We shall see.

Yesterday we actually had a photo shoot from 12-2. in the church and the theater lobby at the space. WE got kicked ut of the theater and then had some great photos taken by a photographer my press agent got me.

He was talented and I suspect the shots will be very good – egg inferno too Jesus…Heather a the alter in Roller blades and Jim in a guy outfit as well as Nedra and I at the space in the lobby and me in the outfit from the show eating the pie and stretching on the railing..

The second night the audience was amazing and kind and I was enjoying myself a lot. Tonight it was intimate and I ran the show as best I have…I have 12 more performances ..needless to say it will get better and better.

I hope the boys have the script and the technicians know how to call the show and that all goes well.

I am proud in a humbling way of the work I have done on this show. I have produced, written, stared and feel fully committed and seen and like I have left nothing on the table.

I am drenched at the end of the show. I am tired I am exhausted and it runs a good 45 minutes..it is a fun show…people in the audience smile…one guy looked at his watch but that’s something I have to accept and understand… I love my work…

Nedra is leaving tomorrow…I am sad about it…I am going to be ok…Maria is coming in a few days and then Christina and they will be super helpful…

Steve …and the boys….I could cry just thinking about it…have been so kind and loving….Jeadon was a little sad about not staying till the end of camp but them last night we talked and he was able to get over it..or maybe it was that camp ended for everyone and there is nothing to be sad about now…

They have been flying and helping and Steve…I think…there is something about this play and him helping and driving everywhere ( on the wrong side of the road) that has been so sexy and helpful and just totally affirming…

the feeling I have now is AIR…space…nothing…

I have fed a giant within me…I ma doing a one woman show and I am loving it…I am fully DOING it…all of it…and it is such a powerful freeing feeling to do…I am sure others who have done this know what I am talking about but to those that are thinking of doing it…wondering if it will really mean THAT much …change your understanding of self THAT much…well…YES…so far..yes..

I was terrified to do my first run at the soho house in their gym space while it was being refurbished and then again I was like WHAT…at the Miami Light box and now…Now I see here in Edinburgh I am ding it and it is becoming …something I do…like a gig…like a job…

I suspect we will go in early on Monday and see more plays and then from there I will be able to flyer and then into the show….althougth it has been nice staying home till about 5..

today we went to eat at a place Nedra’s friend ( who I know as well) told us about called THE ROOST. Her friends cousin owns it.

it was yummy..

Tomorrow Steve is taking Nedra to the Airport and then gig to see a famous gold course and then we are all gong to go to a hike he saw…outside of the city.

Monday I have the opportunity to perform on a stage and do a little snip of the show…I am excited about it /terrified but like not really..

Par too this is like I am going through something I have already gone through..like oh yeah..I know this…I feel it may be like this because I have been meant to do this for so long now…

Steve is smiling when he looks at me…he sees me happy and content in a massive way..

I am going to bed…It is 1:23 am

I love my life…

I love it all…..each space between the morsels of it…

xoxoxo

SUSIE

Kitchen

a year and a half without my implants….and I have almost forgotten….

By

who I was with them. That is another meaning of F in S.U.R.F. – I really do forget and it is a good thing…it is a wonderful skill to forget once you have processed….it is a helpful gift that working things really out OUT gives me.

Residue of past roles..exist in us…it is proving to be the reality in my new play as I tap into old stories from my new and improved point of view..there was still residue…with the other people and in this play I suspect there will be more.

Who we are…in this lifetime… changes..often…and more often if you buy a ticket….to the never-ending solor system that is within you.

I have always been self obsessed, from a Doctor point of view. I am amazed at how any person moves through this life and since I am the closest person I know., I have shifted that curiosity to myself 100%. I don’t try too hard to understand why other people do what they do…I try to understand what I am doing and why…

I have become clear and can even understand who I am when I am off center..I can say…oh…this is off center because…guess what? I have felt center every one in a while…..here and there and for longer and longer amounts of times…days and even weeks…so I know who susie Susie is…and I also know who she is in a myriad of situations…while she is off center…

Being able to know thyself is the first step to being true to her. I feel like at this age…45…I am who I am….I am kind to her even when she is mean…I am loving to her even when she is angry and I am patient with her even when she is scared…

I have become my own lover and best friend and in that I have allowed my neediness of other people’s evaluation of me to dwindle. This self awareness work make me less selfish..when I am needed or around others because I am usually so over my stuff I am happy to become involved in others…when needed.

I am myself…and tomorrow I will be an older version of her and so on and so on…I am proud fo her…and her bravery of letting go of things that gave her power…things she falsely prayed to like saline filled boobies and frozen brows…

I may falter later on in life…I may fall back to wanting to be young externally forever but eventually…and logically I realized I will have to cross over into the next wise woman phase one day and why not get a head start with a happy heart?

being older and wiser as a woman can be sexy..right?…. Sexy .in a “you wish you understood what I have viscerally learned”…way.

Acting

How I got out of character

By

Getting out of character.

I am an actor and part of how I work is taking on other people’s thoughts, movements and beliefs. It is a fascinating dive into the empathy realm and the playing with the line of reality. What is reality. What is YOUR reality and what is their’s and sometimes that line bleeds…if you are lucky, if I am lucky I am so believing in my role that even I don’t know where Susie starts and this new role ends.

It is the ultimate necessity to be an actor. To have the fearlessness to release yourself and that is what it is all about. Being able to walk up those never ending stairs- movement by movement -or belief by belief or word by word or action by action into another dimension.

This is the scariest thing mostly because you k now somewhere in this journey you are sacrificing parts of your own self and like a diver..how long can you be under water without suffering from vertigo or whatever it is called where you can’t remember which way is up?

Acting…FOR ME….is like that…I get lost…usurped by the role and disappear…I keep a shell of myself and my world and my family and kids and husband represent that but more than that and the entry is harder…so I shed a lot…I let go of comipments and relationships and I disappear…

Maybe not to the naked eye but to any would seeker or evenly worker they’ll see..I am slipping…

One day after I had returned to acting after raising my young children into semi functioning children I was heading home and I remember as I opened the front door….Oh, Yeah…my kids.

It struck me as funny but the idea that I can release my motherhood role was fascinating.. and to do it to such a point that I had to actively remember it…well.it was all a bit MENTAL to say the least.

Then one day after playing a very lovely part who loved to cook but not into sex so much…my husband asked..When in Susie coming home?

IT made me stop chopping my scallions and look up. “Excuse me” I said or she said…who knows…

Steve repeated the question and it slowly sank in….HE KNOWS…he knows I am not quite myself …even in my own kitchen…

I smiled and said…”don’t you like her…she loves to cook…”

She is fine but I miss Susie he said and in that moment the veil of delete that I am perhaps many actors live with was revealed…I was missing…

Give your heart to someone…even another version of your self and it can be tricky to find the door to unbolt and retrieve yourself..

Unless you build a very clear path back to it…to her…. And that is what I have been working on.

Finding first who SUSIE is and then venturing off and trying to return sans too much collateral damage.

What I am about to share with you look me years to articulate but recently I was speaking at the Miami Beach chamber of commerce to their health and wellness committee and they received it…they didn’t;t run to take my class because the idea is still touchy but they got it and I felt in that room…they felt the idea flicker in their mind…

What if THEY TOO were still in character and if they were…what role was it and what would they be without it…

I

SURFing Process

F$%K … Recasting

By

In my process of getting out of character (SURF) the hardest part for ME is recasting. It is the point where I know what I am doing is perpetuating pain and I have to change but the question is what and how and where and when.
And i am not moving…not doing my class…no studio…just tried to get time at little Haiti and one door was locked- one was taken and the theater was setting lights as i heard the sound and knew there was someone in the light booth..

Where is ALONE….

Today i realized that

I have wanted my own artistic VOice for a long while and I have it and it is so strong that it isn’t letting me work with anyone or any company or any message that isn’t on the same path.
THUS it has become clear that it is…
dibiulitaing to me NOT to have my own company…

Knowing what I can’t do without causing me pain pushing me into a corner of the ONE and ONLY thing I Can do.

Officially establish my company
My PLACE to do MY work and work with like minded creative that are in line with ME…

Artist that are here to spread LOVE
Not pain
Artist that are healed or demand to try and be
Artist that let go and move on and forgive
Artist that take responsibility
Artist that have empathy
Strong ALPHA voices that have vision and alphaness
People who can hold me

I am heading to the graphic designer to create the SURF logo
So i can take my freind up on talking at the chamber and introduce officially to the city my company. My Artistic Company

I can set a date for the next show and how stories are our passions…seeing the story you are in and choosing to shift what is needed form your position and with those you live with so that you can have a better version of your story…pas-present and future.

Transforming through performance…

So my a issue in my tissue is that i am an amazing pleaser and I have to stop activating that becasue it is not aligned…I am pleasing others before myself and that is never a good thing. I can’t do it anymore and this last part – the accommodating – I have no time for that-

This is the year of pleasing Susie…If it pleases me…

Now I must lift weights and strengthen my core-

solidification

RECASTING AS
A strong older woman with wrinkles and a voice!
Cue the kitchen walls as they fall open like a house of cards and the world is revealed and I am free- Flowing and forgiven.

List
Logo for SURF
Trademark name
Class and process
Venue for Edinbough

S

Kitchen

LEtting go of …LEMONS

By

I met with a woman who is teaching me about being a Pitta. Pitta is part of Aryeveda (sp) and I am basically FIRE and need to be aware of how NOT to agitate FIRE within me.

I had in the past few years been drink lemon juice and apple cider vinegar. Both of which agitate the Pittas. So I switched to LIME juice When needed and no vinegar.

I am also supposed to eat a larger lunch – THis is a Very NEW concept to have a large meal at lunch and a small meal at dinner but I think it will eventually be OK.

I also am trying to return to chicken and remove red meat…I suppose I can do this…so far so good. I like knowing that I am fire and I like knowing I can be attracted to things that create more fire and perhaps that is why I tend to think I like things that are not good for me. I used to call is crossing my wires…but now I can see that adding something to me that creates MORE heat is not needed.

I want to run WARM not HOT and I have a tendency to get hot fast…but I like this idea of knowing I can cool myself down..It is why I have begun meditating the past maybe five years every morning.

I wake up HOT…really hot…with flaming ideas and I have to curtail that energy into something I can transmute.
I know this in my work and now I am doing this in my food.
I still haven’t fully adapted but I am getting there.
Large lunch small dinners is more of a social thing and I don’t even like dinners..I j

Kitchen

Goodbye…agent..and cat

By

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 …Hoʻoponopono

By

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

London vs American Acting

By

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 ….N.Y.F.A

By

I never wanted to be an acting teacher. I have a Masters in Classical Theatre from London but the idea of teaching never really accured to me.

Fast forward many years and I wind up teaching my MOVEMENT technique to entry level acting students. Students who for the most part never had an acting class and they are In thier first year of college.

I brought with me my WARM up…what I had created in the pole dancing room at IRON FLOWER gym on biscayne….MISS THIS ROOM SO MUCH….and I added to it a few of the required curriculum for thier degree.

From here I created a gamification of movement that opens the artist and also allows them to heal themselves and let go of trauma- theirs of their characters.

The process was simple and I felt it can be used to help other people in the community as well as link the community to the actors.

My last semester working there I invested 10 people from here commnunity to be our guest. We worked as a team to help them release their stories and it was amazing. I knew at that moment that the training we had can infact thelp NON actors and Allon people who were searching for a way to express themselves and deal with something an alternative to “Therapy”

I presented this to the head of the theater department and along with that several internship opportunities. He responded NO to all the attempts to extend the school outward. It became very clear again that this was not the place for me to GROW anymore and it was time to say goodbye.

I had one talk with the New head of the Miami Beach school who sided with the Head the acting department and then one talk with the head of the international school who was down from New York.

THey both lasted hours and they both came to the same conclusion. What I had to offer wasn’t really their front burner and although I enjoyed teaching I didn’t enjoy the ceiling the program had on what I could do with with teachers.

What I learned is people want and need to be seen in thier LIFE,..

People’s lack of being heard or seen without judgement is lacking and once a person feels heard they can begin to let go of the story they are telling…it is the unhearing …the lack of it landing on loving ears that understand and accepts .that perpetuates once’s story.

PErhaps that is why once I spoke with the HEAD of the school and he heard me and my thoughts I was free to leave the school without any sense of resistance or negativity.

I even went so far to meet with one of the other teachers that I was told approached acting form the opposite direction and we had coffee then he took my class and now he also SEEs what I am doing…

All this allowed me to feel HEARD and regardless of the outcome I was free to peruse my next adventure…

MAybe share without needing people to agree. Share becasue you don’t need them to agree but rather you need to speak your truth –
And it is on you t one able to share without existence becasue it is in how you deliver the information.
If can be aggressive or hurtful or just soft and simple and with the lease about of energy as possible. That is when you will have the lease amount of boomerang energy on the return and you can exit in that window…. of FLOW

S