Hello readers- It has been quite a while since I last wrote in this wonderful forum. I was a regular contributor to Ms. In The Biz for about a year, and I tried to honestly document the journey of my acting career, while offering advice so you could avoid my missteps. I came to a crossroads with my feelings about my career and the industry, and found that I could no longer put a positive spin on the less than positive things that were happening. Thus, I stopped writing, I felt that if I had nothing good to say, no…
Author: Stacey Ann Shevlin
Stacey Ann Shevlin
Stacey Ann Shevlin is a Philadelphia native and currently loves living and working in the much sunnier Los Angeles. She grew up as a competitive figure skater, and all free time not spent on the ice was spent acting and dancing. After studying production and obtaining a business degree in college, she made the logical choice to return to acting. Last year she worked on the feature The Mine in Russia with award-winning director Nurbek Egan. Stacey had the privilege to work on three other films, Paddy Lincoln Gang, Road To Sundance and Awaken, all of which have been selected for several Film Festivals. When she's not in front of the camera, Stacey writes music, travels to places even more exotic than Russia, and drinks craft beer on her back porch while indulging in her latest organic meal creation.
Welcome back to my column. It is the 1 year anniversary of Ms. In The Biz. It is crazy how fast time flies. I cannot believe I have been a part of this great and inspiring community for a year. I though of doing some sort of retrospective but in the interest of full steam ahead, I am going to leave the past where it is and talk about the present. I started writing this post a week ago, and had it almost complete but just wasn’t happy with it, so I asked for an extension. I didn’t know what…
Hello and welcome back to Ms. In The Biz, and to my little section of the site. I do hope that you have had a great month so far. My month has been quite slow on the acting front especially the theatrical side of things. And has been picking up pace on the commercial front. Plenty of auditions and callbacks, thanks to my commercial and print reps. Theatrical remains to be a struggle however….I sound like a broken record. Do you ever feel that way? I feel like I have stopped talking about my career in general because I don’t…
Hello- Hope this month has treated you all well. Welcome back. If you read my post last month, you’ll recall that I ended the post with the following statement. “I guess I just need a sign that this is the right path for me, and I need lady luck to pay a visit as well”. Well as the title of this month’s post suggests, I got my sign. At least a big enough sign that I decided to interpret as a signal to stick with this crazy life. I have heard several stories from other actors, at all levels, that…
Hello readers welcome back. I was talking to a non acting friend recently and she was asking questions about my career and the business in general. I usually try to quickly change the topic in these situations for a few reasons. One, I am tired of talking about it in general and two it’s hard to really explain what we do on a daily basis and in the long term of our careers to anyone, let alone someone with no experience in such matters. For some reason, I chose to answer her question rather than change the subject. The following…
So it turns out progress takes time, and there are a lot of setbacks, and bumps along the way. Since my last post there have been ups and downs, and ups and downs again. I know that you’ve all experienced this in your careers, and personal lives as well. After leaving town for 10 days over the holidays, it was kind of jolting to come back. I came back at a time when the industry was in it’s hibernation, which gave me a week to sit and think. – which for me isn’t always the best thing. I find I…
Hello, and thanks for returning to the blog. This month I want to talk a little bit about a decision I have made. I don’t know how much I believe in fate or karma but I do try to keep an eye on what I put out into the universe, so it means a lot that I am going to put this out there. I have decided to give myself a year, this coming year to make a tier jump. I have decided that I am going to give my career 110% (so sorry to my friends who will see…
Hello readers, welcome back to the blog! Today I’d like to share an experience with you in order to hopefully impart some knowledge that I wish I had when I first got to LA. When I moved here from Philadelphia, PA I wanted to hit the ground running. As I have shared in the past, I set about the task of reading every industry blog I could get my eyes on. Trying to understand how to navigate this town and it’s strange business ways was a learning curve. Honestly, I feel like I still learn something new every day and…
I believe that work begets work, and that every opportunity has something to teach us. Here is one such story. Almost two years ago now, I got an audition notification from my commercial agents for an industrial audition. After reading the notification and breakdown for the job, I saw that it was posted as a one day job for a relatively low day rate. Now, I take every audition that is offered to me if I do not have a conflict with the shoot dates, It’s just a promise I made to myself to be as active and grateful for…
Hello Ms. In The Biz readers hope you have all been well this past month. In keeping with my candid chat format, I am going to share a personal story from this past month. I submit to breakdowns on Actors Access, LA Casting, and several other sites daily. Sometimes I get contacted for an audition, sometimes I do not; that’s the nature of the business. I submit, then I move on. Well, I submitted on a particular project and didn’t get audition for it, but what I did get in my inbox (not my cmail or alerts) but my yahoo…
I have been thinking a lot about my career here in LA, and my life in general, over the past several months. Trying to be proud of how far I have come, and the achievements I have made. But unable to let go of where I think I want to go and how the hell to get there. When I really think about it, I have to admit that I push myself pretty hard. I try to set goals – small measurable goals – and I really work my ass off to meet them. As we all know, in this…
June/July tend to be the slowest months for auditions, from my experience. I was beginning to worry that I would have nothing to write about this month. I have been self submitting on Actors Access and LA Casting as always, but the auditions have been few and far between. Then came quite an audition, and what a story I have for you all. I submitted through AA (Actors Access) for a role that had very little character description (Supporting – 18-30, single mother, bold, defensive) and no project description at all, it just stated that it was a non-union feature…
Its been a crazy month since I last wrote here. Many ups and downs. I will share one with you here. This post is about trying to stay positive when things seem so wildly unpredictable and hard. I had the good fortune to book my first SAG national commercial last month. And then my second. The first one was a big production, many actors hired, many locations used. I went into it very excited, I mean this is a mile stone for us actors in our careers. I was very grateful for the audition, the callback and the notice that I…
Hello! I am so excited to be blogging for Ms. In The Biz. Since this is my first post I would like to share a little about myself. I have been in LA for 3 years, pursuing acting full time for the last 2 years. I moved here from Philadelphia with my husband and our amazing dog Dax. Its already been such a crazy journey and I know there is so much more on the the route I have decided to take. I was having a difficult time deciding how to format my posts, what to talk about, how to…