That One Audition with Alyshia Ochse

Today's guest is a vibrant force of passion and hard work and, for those of you interested in how the world of Broadway works and how it differs from TV and Film, she is a genuine triple threat---From eight shows a week in New York to recurring roles on TV, she’s spent 20 years in this business, putting in the work and thoroughly enjoying every step of the journey.  Jackie Seiden is an actor/singer/writer born in Highland Park, IL. She graduated early Cum Laude from Northwestern University with a Bachelor in Science and a Music Theatre Certificate. After graduating, Jackie moved to New York City and was cast in her dream show, "Hairspray" on Broadway. She was also in the original company of "Good Vibrations" on Broadway, and originated Mary Delgado on the 1st National Tour of "Jersey Boys" along with many other off Broadway productions, tours, regional shows, and worked with greats like Twyla Tharp and Bob Dylan. After performing as Pinky Tuscadero in Garry Marshall's production of Happy Days, she moved out to Los Angeles permanently where she met her husband Jason Winer (Director/Producer). Since moving to LA Jackie has worked on many films and television shows ("Jersey Boys" with Clint Eastwood, "New Year's Eve" with Garry Marshall, " Jack and Jill," with Adam Sandler "Christmas Switch," "The Catch," "Modern Family," "Life in Pieces," etc., and performed all over as a part of the For The Record Live company. IG: @thejackieseiden

Neal Bledsoe is an actor, writer and journalist. Admittedly he is now more confident in the tools of his expression but admits he still doesn't know what he is doing.  Falling in love with the work and the his characters after a stint in rehab, Neal shares the utility of the business.  From voice to walk, he has manifested some of the best characters on MAN IN THE HIGH CASTLE, UGLY BETTY, SHAMELESS, SMASH, IRONSIDE, REVOLUTIONARY ROAD and SEX AND CITY 2.  Accomplished stage actor, writer and visual artist Neal Bledsoe bares it all.  Down to what to not ask agents/managers in meetings, how to prioritize the work and learning to have faith that he can't control the business. He honestly shares the details of his journey in self-discovery, proving that questioning everything, including yourself is key to cultivating an honest and authentic body of work. IG: @becauseibledsoe

Alanna Ubach has cultivated a career marked by the kind of range that many actors dream of. A bonified character actress,with equal parts grit and grace, she is unequivocally honest about her experience in Hollywood, generously sharing what she’s learned along the way.  Hardly recognizable from one character to the next, Alanna Ubach has starred in nearly 150 theater, film, and TV projects. Born in Downey, California to a Mexican-born mother and Puerto Rican father, Ubach has been a working actress since childhood. Following her television debut on "Romper Room," she joined the Lee Strasberg Institute's Children's Program. At 15, she fearlessly travelled to New York to star in WPA's Off-Broadway production of "Club Soda.” She made her mark in the industry playing the family housekeeper-turned wedding caterer and Gaylord's first lover in "Meet the Fockers," the sorority sister/best friend to Elle Woods in "Legally Blonde," and the sex-starved Israeli neighbor on "Hung." In addition to her role as Jo on Bravo's first original scripted series, "Girlfriends' Guide to Divorce," She can also be heard lending her voice to Disney/Pixar's Oscar winning animated film "Coco," featuring an all-Latino cast, where she plays great-great-grandmother Mama Imelda.  IG: @alannaubach  

New Year!  New You!  Over this intensity of the New Years resolutions?  Well, this episode is all about giving you the tools to actually understand your values and how to effectively manifest them at any point in your life.  Each of these women used their transformative journeys to invest in a product to help others do the same!    Alyshia Ochse: Author of Life Letters Brianna Brown Keen: Manifest Your Mission Planner Marnie Alton: Transforming her artistry to a different stage that helps shift your mind, body and spirit (LA Barre Belle Studio)   Leslie Becker: The Organized Actor   Life Letters Manifest Your Mission LA Barre Belle Marnie Alton Workout The Organized Actor Silver Edition

What We Are co-founder, actress, musician and producer Nikki Deloach shares the brave, beautiful tenacious, unforgettable career moments that shaped her 30 year career. This woman is a purposeful, driven and talented storyteller but more importantly she is one who prioritizes vulnerability and openness. She shares the highs and lows of being a veteran of both the music and film industry from the success of the cult classic 90's show The Mickey Mouse Club to losing everything to making a come back and taking a break. Nikki Deloach is best known for her portrayal of Lacey Hamilton on the hit and critically-acclaimed series Awkward for five seasons. Nikki's other credits include Love & Other Drugs, North Shore, Windfall, Grey's Anatomy, and Mad Men. When she is not busy showcasing her talent onscreen, DeLoach is expanding her repertoire behind the scenes. She has re-teamed with Hallmark to develop and produce the upcoming Christmas project Reunited at Christmas, which she will also star in.    Nikki Deloach on Instagram: @nikdeloach

Our episode today is a must listen for actors who want to learn how to orchestrate a career. This is an conversation about empowering yourself as an artist, about staying power, about the necessity to invest in yourself, and the importance of having a vision of where you want to go in your career and how to align everything in your life around that vision. Our guest today has fully arrived as an artist and is here to stay! Leven Rambin is an award winning actress and director originally from Houston, Texas who trained and taught at Playhouse West in New York City. Leven began her career at just thirteen years old on the set of “All My Children” as Lily Montgomery. Since then she’s worked on dozens of films, including “The Hunger Games,” “Chasing Mavericks,” “Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters,” and “Two Night Stand.” Most recently she starred in Ramaa Mosley’s independent film “Lost Child” as an army veteran who has returned to her home in the Ozarks to find a young, mysterious boy in the woods. She is currently working on the film “London Calling” with Ron Perlman and Malcolm McDowell and “The Dirt,” which follows the origin story of Mötley Crüe. Her television credits include “Grey’s Anatomy,” “Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles,” “One Tree Hill,” “Scoundrels,” “Wizards of Waverly Place,” “The Tomorrow People,” and “Private Practice.” Leven joined the cast of “True Detective” in the shows second season before portrating Chloe Jones on Hulu’s “The Path,” starring alongside Aaron Paul and Michelle Monaghan. She is currently leading WGN’s crime drama “Gone” with Chris Noth and Danny Pino. “Gone” follows Leven Rambin’s character Kick Lannigan, a survivor of a famous child-abduction case, after joining a special task force dedicated to solving missing person and abduction cases. IG: @levenrambin  

  In our second conversation with Elliot Knight we take a deeper look into everything, from his relationship to auditioning, to how he makes the distinction of being in love with the performance, the storytelling, and the craft rather than the industry and what that difference means for him. He talks about wanting to be the kind of performer who reveals rather than masks. This is a conversation for anybody that needs reminding to own and honor the space you take up, to be expansive, to be vulnerable in your art, and how to let life imitate art. Elliot Knight is an English actor best known for his break out performance in the British television series “Sinbad,” playing the titular role. Knight received his theatrical training at The Manchester School of Theatre before landing the coveted role. Knight appeared as a recurring character in the BBC crime drama “By Any Means” before making his US television debut in ABC’s “How to Get Away with Murder,” joining Viola Davis, Aja Naomi King, and Alfred Enoch. Knight joined the cast of ABC’s hit fantasy series “Once Upon a Time” as Merlin in the show's fifth season. He starred alongside Juliet Rylance and Antony Starr in “American Gothic” before being cast in Erin Cardillo and Richard Keith’s “Life Sentence,” which aired on the CW. “Life Sentence” follows Lucy Hale’s character Stella as she navigates life after her terminal cancer is cured, her family, and her relationship with her husband, played by Elliot Knight. The show is currently available on Netflix. You can catch Elliot on Greg Berlanti’s DC universe “Titans,” which has just finished its first season. IG: @itselliotknight

Award-nominated actress, writer, and director Keesha Sharp sheds light on the courage it takes to break the rules and go after what you want, how fear choked her voice out of musically performing, fighting expectations and results, deciding when to change agents and how facing fear ultimately will open up the blessings.  This conversation connects the dots about showing up for your craft 100% of the time and how you never know what job might land you the ticket for the next big job. In 2019, Keesha not only returns to the screen as Trish Murtaugh in the international hit series “Lethal Weapon” for FOX, but also introduces her directorial skills to the show, which premiered its third season on September 25, 2018.  Combining action and drama with friendship and humor, season three of "Lethal Weapon" follows Detectives Roger Murtaugh (Damon Wayans) and the newly introduced Wesley Cole (Seann William Scott) as they combat crime in Los Angeles.  Sharp shines as Trish, a district attorney, mother, and devoted wife and confidante to Roger.  Sharp was nominated for Outstanding Actress in a Comedy Series at the 2017 NAACP Image Awards for her work on the show.  On the film front, Sharp was also most recently seen starring opposite Chadwick Boseman, Josh Gad, Kate Hudson, and Sterling K. Brown in “Marshall”.  The film follows the story of Thurgood Marshall (Boseman), the first African-American Supreme Court Justice, as he battles through one of his career-defining cases.  Sharp’s standout work as Buster Marshall earned her a third NAACP Image Award nomination in the Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture category.  Additionally, Sharp is currently shopping an Eartha Kitt biopic, set to head into production in 2019.  Having been compared to the icon since her early theater days and dubbed by many reviewers as a “young Eartha Kitt,” Sharp will portray Kitt in the leading role of a film that promises iconic songs, compelling childhood stories, and triumph through political blacklisting, all told through salacious details.

Today’s conversation is a crash course into the journey of an animator. It’s about how a young man who never met an art medium he didn’t like chose to pursue a highly competitive and challenging career and truly thrived in his art form. We follow Joshua Beveridge’s early memories in a home filled with art history books, as a kid always painting and drawing or sculpting, to attending a College of Art and Design to being the Animator Director on "Spider-man: Into the Spider-Verse". Joshua Beveridge is a Head of Character Animator at Sony Pictures Imageworks. His other titles have included Animation Director and Supervising Animator. Beveridge earned his BA in Computer Animation from the Ringling College of Art and Design before landing his first professional job on Disney’s adaptation of C.S. Lewis’ “The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.” Since then he’s worked on various teams as a Character Animator, Supervising Animator or Lead Animator in popular films such as “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2,” “Alice in Wonderland,” “Hotel Transylvania 2,” “Arthur Christmas,” “The Amazing Spider-Man 2,” and “Storks.” His work on Warner Bros “I Am Legend,” starring Will Smith and Alice Braga, garnered a 2008 Visual Effects Society Award nomination for Outstanding Performance by an Animated Character in a Live action Motion Picture. Beveridge’s latest animated feature film “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse” has broken the mold (again) for telling stories.     Quotes: “The idea of animation being a job people did was kind of like a lightbulb, aha, moment.” “You have to be comfortable with making things. Just making something is better than trying to make something perfect and letting that paralyze you from trying.” “We’re manipulating every single shape and motion and form is sculpted, crafted, posed and a decision. Nothing happens accidentally.” “Talent is such a small percentage of anything really great. Work ethic is the most important. Work ethic runs circles around talent any day and I was an early subscriber to that.” “The actual process of truly being an animator I didn’t learn until on the job and I think that’s a luxury that I don’t think exists anymore.” “I feel like with every promotion I’ve gotten it’s really just been another way to help more animators.” “There’s nothing impulsive about animation.” “If you are afraid in art that’s usually an indication that you’re on the right path.” “There’s no such thing as enough information. All we’re doing is trying to be as observant as possible.”   Joshua Beveridge IMDB Instagram https://joshuabeveridge.com/ Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse Official Trailer https://www.ianimate.net/ https://www.animationmentor.com/ Storks Trailer

This is a conversation about what it means to demand our worth as artists and women, what that looks like when you are trying to break out of being a guest star and how our guest is asking for that series regular. Camille Chen discusses how to be a good guest star, how she uses and works with the reader in the room, and the small and huge successes along the way. We talk about how she became the Queen of Commercials, improving for Aaron Sorkin, side hustles, to being an acting coach and why improv was the most beneficial class she took in college. These are the expansive, inspiring, knowing your own worth, honest stories that have all lead Camille Chen right here. Camille Chen is a film, television and commercial actress best known for her work in “Game Night,” where she joined Jason Bateman and Kyle Chandler as well as her portrayal of Samantha Li in Aaron Sorkin’s “Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip.” Throughout her career Camille has guest starred in nearly 50 television shows, including “Californication,” “American Horror Story: Asylum,” “Castle,” “Backstrom,” Criminal Minds,” “Dog Therapist,” “Bones,” and “Lucifer.” She recently played a recurring role on USA’s “Unsolved: The Murders of Tupac and the Notorious B.I.G.” a true crime series based on the investigations that followed the murders of Tupac Shakur and Biggie Smalls. You can watch her next on ABC’s “Single Parents.” She’s worked in numerous popular commercial spots, including State Farm, Motorola and Old Navy. IG: @thatasianactress