"Living the Dream"

My good friend Monica Carrera said to me 2 years ago,

 "I'm going to write a play about 3 women. I'm going to do this."

I said, "Great!"

She said, "No, you don't understand. I'm really going to do this. I am going to finish something I start this time, and I'm making a promise to YOU that I am going to have this play finished in 6 months."

Of course I encouraged her, but I didn't take this promise too seriously because:

a) she had a 3-year old;
b) she had a full-time job; and
c) she had never written a play before. This was probably one of those things that would burn out in a few weeks, when the very real demands of being a full time working mom would douse the flame.

We all have dreams, but life gets in the way.

Boy, was I wrong.

In 6 months, her play about 3 women in their 40's navigating the world of LA was written, re-written, cast, and staged for 3 sold-out nights at the BANG Theater in Hollywood.

3 months later, one more re-write and then a staged reading of this re-write. It was a smashing success.

Now what?

"I'm going to make this a web series," she said.

"A what?"

"A web series. That's the next place this has to go. I have to write another script and shoot a trailer. That's apparently what you do."

I have to say, I've known Monica for years, and I'd never pegged her as the "I'm jumping head first into the fire" kind of person. She had been in the theater world and done some acting in the 90's, but she got married and now had a house and a kid and a normal job and seemed to be living a safe life.

This was an altogether new persona.

She began to dive into the world of film making with tenacity, curiosity, resourcefulness, eagerness, and her entire savings account. I don't know of anyone who would do such a thing at this stage of her life. She hired a director, a crew, a location scout. She held casting sessions. She hired makeup and wardrobe. She took no shortcuts. It was utter madness.

She cast me as "Sara", one of the leads, and for the first time in 13 years, I was acting in front of a camera again.

We shot for 2 days and ended up with so much footage, there was enough not only for the trailer, but also an episode. Behold the pilot episode for "Living the Dream":

I can't begin to express how proud I am of my friend Monica. She took an idea, a desire to write about 3 women - the kind of women we all know here in the Land of Make-Believe, and she created what is now hopefully an ongoing series about these characters.

To keep it going she mounted a funding campaign on IndieGoGo, so that we can continue filming more episodes. It's a long haul, but we're gonna do it!  See the trailer (which started it all) below, with the link for donating: