A new Diamonds, Wow! video product
Sex, Drugs & the Hard Rock Cafe. Starring Ben Rodgers, Rob Cuthill, Andree Vermeulen, Tony Rodriguez, Jamison Guest, Fran Gillespie, Nate Lang, Kate McKinnon, Brandon Scott Jones, Eddie Dunn, Thomas Middleditch and John Frusciante. Directed by Ed Mundy. Edited by Zach Neumeyer. Cinematography by Ryan O’Laughlin. Written by Melinda Taub.
We filmed this a while ago, but editing it involved a lot of photoshop stuff. Zach worked way way overtime on this. Melinda wrote a great sketch. And John Frusciante gushed while doing the voiceover.
You’ll like this one, even if all I did was hang out with the cast as they sat around in costume.


UCB Harold Auditions- advice?
The UCB is holding auditions for Harold teams very soon. Lots of my students have asked me questions students and requested some general advice.
Here is what I tell them.
RELAX. The most important thing is to relax. This isn’t the time to fix any weaknesses you feel you have. Audition as you are now. You either know it or you don’t. You can’t cram for art. Stepping up and trying to correct mistakes will just put you in your head. Sometimes being in your head is ok, for instance if you are working on stuff in rehearsals, in general you are at your best when you are playing from your gut and instinct.
Should I audition with friends? It depends on you. I’ve heard folk who prefer both. I’ve done both. I personally liked auditioning with one or two people I knew and a few I didn’t. But I know some folks liked to have a full group of friends, and others liked to be all randoms. It all goes back to my first point. Whatever helps you be your most relaxed.
What are they looking for? Strong scenework and game. Grounded, smart scenes with game moves.
Anything else? Remember when I said to relax?
Be prepared, show up early so you can warm up and not rush into the audition.
Come with some warmups in mind. I remember always being surrounded by nervous people who didn’t want to suggest a warmup. Do any warmup anyone suggests, starting yesing from the moment you start warming up. If no one suggests one you should be ready to say what you like
Have fun! It’s hard to do this for some of you, but don’t put too much pressure on the auditions. If you love doing improv, then a bad audition won’t stop you from improvising. You are at your best when you like what you are doing.
Keep in mind this is just what I think. This is not official UCB advice.
Keep in mind if you don’t get called back it’s not over. It took me 3 auditions before I got a call back, and that’s not counting the non-open call audition that I did not get called into. Even after the callback I didn’t get placed on a team until 6 months later. A team that lasted a little over a year. Then I had to audition 2 more times before getting back on.
I went through a lot of auditions. Maybe I don’t know what I am talking about.
I could go into a lot more detail about my personal audition process, but I tend to talk about it anytime anyone asks me, so if you really care about the details of what I went through then I am sure you’ll hear me talking about it over a beer sometime. Or maybe I can blog about it another day.