This past Saturday I took my daughters to their first open call at a modeling/acting agency. What an experience! My older two have shown an interest in the industry for some time now; after everything we watch they ask me to look up the actors who played their favorite parts, they look through my dust-collecting parenting magazines for pictures of kids modeling, they marvel at the posters and billboards of children their ages and “want to do that too!”
I considered it when they were babies, but I always felt like I’d be exploiting them and it wasn’t fair. I’m not sure now if someone else planted that guilty seed or if it was my own doing, but with my current baby I don’t feel that way at all. My big girls want to know what the industry is about and my infant just so happens to really enjoy smiling, so I figured…I’m not working a 9-5, we’re finally close to a big city that has major industry connections, why not give it a try?
All of our professional pictures were taken by Shannon Culpepper ❤
So we went. I didn’t get to bed until 1am on Saturday morning because I’d spent the night preparing their applications, arranging their photos in folders, packing our meals, and being anxious about it. I had to wake up at 5am to shower, pack the van, and wake/groom the girls before getting on the road to the first open call.
My GPS lead me astray, but we eventually made it to the parking garage. We suited up for the rain, and walked for thirty minutes to the first agency. So far so so…it was wet, and cold, and Boston’s sidewalks are not very accommodating to parties of…more than one. But we’d made it, and we weren’t late. We went inside and took some open seats next to another family of curly headed children. The mother and father of the curly headed siblings were drop dead gorgeous; I couldn’t even keep eye contact with the father out of fear that I’d blush too much. Wow. It’s not that I lusted for him, it just seemed impossible to me that anyone could look that gorgeous without being Photoshopped!
Anyway. The accented agency man explained the business to us and what would happen if our children were accepted. Since I had both a baby and children for the older division he had us stay behind and wait for the second session to end before interviewing my girls. They had to sit quietly for over an hour before it was their turn to be interviewed and I was incredibly impressed with their behavior and their answers when it was finally their turn to speak.
I’m not sure what will happen, but it was a learning experience either way. We left that agency and headed to another. It was another good 45 minute walk away in the cold, in the rain, but we were already prepared for it so I wanted to stick it out. We got there on time, parked the stroller, walked up three flights of stairs, and waited…and waited…and waited…and waited some more. No one every showed up. What?! We have no idea what happened, but we were not the only family waiting for the agency to open its doors. Several other mothers, one of them a mother of six who had traveled from Rhode Island for the open call, were just as confused as I was. Calls made to the agency earlier in the week verified that the agency would still be having the open call, but the doors never opened, and it made me a little unsure of whether or not I’d want to work with them regardless now.
So after an hour of waiting around quiet at the second agency I wrote a note, slipped our folder of applications and pictures under the door, and we headed toward the Boston Children’s Museum. It was still raining out, and still cold, and we were getting hungry. I’d planned to go back to the van, grab our tennis shoes and lunch and the baby carrier, then head to the Children’s Museum after the open calls. I found, however, the navigating Boston’s subway system with a stroller is not the easiest thing to do, by far. After making circles around the subway stations, searching for elevator access and smelling the stench of the elevators we found, I scratched visiting the van from our list and head directly to the Museum.
When we finally arrived at the Museum the line was longer than I’ve ever seen it. It was raining harder than it had all day, and there were at least twenty families in line ahead of us. I just laughed because I couldn’t have imagined things getting much worse. We’d watched a few clips from “Singing in the Rain” a few days prior so the girls attempted umbrella tricks while we waited in line, but I was nearing the end of my energy.
We finally got into the Museum, but being inside wasn’t much better. We weren’t cold and wet, but I swear that every child in Boston was there as well. The place was so packed full of people you could barely get from one room/activity to the next. We stayed for three hours, but spent most of our time maneuvering around the mass of bodies, and visiting the bathrooms. Ugh! It was so overwhelming.
When we finally made it back to our van, after another ridiculous attempt trying to navigate the handicap subway exits, I packed us up, distributed snacks, and drove for three minutes before Nohra was crying so hard that I had to pull over for fear that she’d choke on her tears. It had been a hard day for all of us. We eventually made it home, did Bedtime Business, and fell asleep.
I must admit, it wasn’t all headache-inducing craziness. One perk of hoofing it around the city to the two agencies was that we wound up right in the middle of Boston’s Anime Convention. The girls loved seeing all of the colorful costumes and even took a picture with some girls dressed as Madoka Magica characters! We also hadn’t known prior to arriving in the city, that the last official mile of the Boston Marathon was being run at Copley, and we got to watch and cheer awhile as people crossed the finish line. And a friend of mine from Emerson met up with us at the Children’s Museum and brought us brownies from the bakery where she works. It was nice getting to see my friend, see Boston Strong again, and hear my daughters say, “I can’t wait to grow up so I can dress up like those people!” 🙂
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