Erin McGrane

Erin did a great deal of her growing up in her Father's gift shop in Spencer, Iowa. He purchased a ribbon-making machine and taught his daughter how to use it. She worked at it and got rather good.

You've probably experienced that stomach flutter of apprehension and uncertainty searching for the perfect gift for someone. It's nice when someone can make suggestions to help you out a bit. And it must be satisfying to be the one doing the helping. From her description of this time, this shop, these ribbons, the quality merchandise (yes, bags by Coach in Spencer Iowa!) it sounds like the makings for a film script dealing with the intersections of people, things of beauty from distant places, a man who helps people solve problems, and a young woman who worked hard, observed people, witnessed real business transactions via the cash register she operated, recognized beauty, dusted and attended to product placement, mastered the art of making a pretty ribbon, and learned a bit about herself.

Playing a flower in your school production of Alice in Wonderland may not seem like a breakthrough role as a budding actor, but for Erin this was a real play with real costumes with a real audience who had to purchase real tickets and probably purchase something from the PTA bake sale table. Erin's childhood wonderland acting studio included her living room where her Mother played Broadway show soundtrack vinyl records which gave Erin great material to mimic and some catchy beats to dance to. Erin's Mom was a nurse and probably had her hands full with this rather high-energy daughter of hers who danced, acted, and moved around a great deal. There must have been a few skinned knees.

Portraits and pictures begin with a few layers of paint on a canvas. A play or a film begins with a script from a writer who writes it. People carry their stories within them and it's lovely when they share them. The origins of things and people tell us a great deal. Memory is a gift more precious than any article in a shop. And like the lessons from the gift shop, it appears that Erin McGrane learned to pay those gifts forward with her art forms of acting and singing which after all are the art of storytelling.

Erin tries to balance working hard with working smart. Where work begets work. Where auditions for commercials become the actors opportunity to solve someone's business challenge. Where people matter.

If you act or perform as your art form, pause to consider how that flesh, bones, and intellect of yours is your canvas, your hunk of clay, your block of marble, your instrument. Oversimplification? Maybe. Erin, without saying this, conveys this perspective. Actors have a way of saying things without saying them.

Erin's a natural teacher without being preachy, but there's a professor lurking beneath the layers of this performer. Her counsel centers a great deal around the theme of learning and training which infers curiosity, being open to change, letting go in order to change, discipline to make the change real, and this concept of movement. Erin's Mom understood this about her. Movement could have been Erin's Father's reason for making her make those ribbons with that machine in the back room, away from breakables on the gift shop shelves. Just a guess.

Movement...

She believes that Kansas City is an amazing place to learn and develop. She chose UMKC as her university. There she learned the literal and figurative ropes of theatre at one of the greatest incubators in the country. She moved into corporate fluorescent lit cubicle life for a decade while moonlighting in front of footlights and strangely fragranced microphones. She boxed up her desk chachkas after a decade or breathing rarified filtered air and dedicated her energy (which is high, remember) with requisite respiration and perspiration to performing. She moved around, tethered to her dear Kansas City, to land the parts, attend the auditions, and be in the shoots wherever those opportunities arose. She has to move. Since she keeps herself open to possibilities, the possibility of this interview lasting longer than an hour flickered and dimmed because this bright bulb named Erin had to pack for a last minute trip to Chicago for an audition. From scribbled notes by someone (the author not Erin) who needs to learn shorthand, consider the following scraps and tasty morsels courtesy of Erin McGrane:

• Keep moving
• Play nice
• Secure an agent
• Be open to opportunities by being open and accepting of yourself
• Get out there and see other people, your peers...support others
• Get out of town once in a while...keep moving
• Find an accountant...and follow their directions
• Keep a journal of your tasks, projects and hours
• Try to be a fun person to work with...play nice
• Check out the Union(s)
• Get to know your audience
• Erin's a sole proprietorship and a co-owner of an LLC
• Attend workshops...train
• Play nice
• Keep moving

Photo used by permission © 2011 by DeAwna McGinley, Styling by Jacqueline Ortega

Erin is a Spring 2010 Artist INC Fellow.

Written by Tom Ryan, 2011