For Kyle.

Well, this is a slightly unusual blog entry, even for me. It might be a little more dismal than my other blogs, and a hell of a lot shorter, but I think it’s only fair you still see it out. The past three weeks have seen my entire world change.  Losing a friend who had been lying to me for months, then losing a friend who had been nothing but a perfect gentleman to not just me, but to everyone he met.

The break up came as a complete shock to me. At first, I thought my world was over. I remember thinking to myself, how can everyone just carry on as normal when it felt as though my world had come to a standstill. As though I was literally grieving. Then, and surprisingly, it only took two weeks, but I realised that what I had thought to be perfection was all in my head. Even the people who treat you nicely, say all the right things and make you smile like no one has before have the capability of crushing you.

It’s weird because everyone’s natural reaction when they heard the news was to tell me to write a play about it and make a shit load of money, but the truth is, I’ve got writers block at the moment. You might find that hard to believe, and to be honest, maybe it’s just a cop out, but I just don’t feel like I have it in me at the moment to write fiction. Perhaps it’s because my own life has felt somewhat like a soap opera for the past three weeks. Any fiction that I wrote would undoubtedly pale in comparison to The Emily Chriscoli Show.

Once I had realised that I genuinely was worth more – and I don’t just mean the usual spiel of your mates texting you to say “you’re ten times better than that”, “you’ll find someone who actually deserves you”, and my personal post break up pet hate, “there’s plenty more fish in the sea” – I’m talking about actually casting my mind back to things that had been said and done in the last year and thinking, no. Hang on a minute. I’m not a bad person. Therefore, I should be feeling relief. I shouldn’t be feeling as though I’ve lost something special, because if a person really is that special, and if someone really is that good a person, they wouldn’t abuse your trust and shatter your self confidence like that.

As soon as this hit me, I began to feel okay. Understandably, I was still sad. I felt out of routine. A little bit lost. But I was beginning to get my spark back. It was during this time that I learnt the sad news of the death of a good friend of mine. Twenty three years old, a university graduate, the world at his feet. He had fallen asleep and never woken up. It seems unfair, cruel almost, to wish this on another person, but it feels even crueller that it should happen to Kyle. He was one of life’s good guys. And I mean, genuine good guys. From helping you to walk home from a night out when your feet are in tatters, to getting up early to secure tickets to a TV show for you, and everything in between. 

I first met Kyle at Edge Hill University in our very first drama lesson with Lisa and Ron. We were all stood round in a circle, nervously giving little glances at one another and generally coming to accept that these slightly exuberant characters were to be our classmates and our neighbours for the following three years. Kyle was wearing a bright orange Hawaiian shirt and baggy black trousers, which he’d rolled up to the knees. When we learnt the soul destroying news that we had to perform barefoot, everyone started whinging but Kyle, full of beans and enthusiasm, whipped his socks off, rolled them into a ball and threw them to the other side of the room. He got stuck in.

Over the three year degree, we chose similar modules. Both of us were keen playwrights and would email each other drafts of scripts that we were writing, then pretend to be surprised the following day in our Script Writing class when we had to read them aloud to the group. He would always show up at parties, often with a crate or two of beer, and would generally be one of the last ones to call it a night. Outside of university life, we were quite similar, and booked tickets to go and watch The Jeremy Kyle Show live in Manchester together with a few of our friends. Kyle was the sort of person who you could go a few weeks over the summer holidays without speaking to and when you were reunited the following September, it was as though nothing had changed. You could literally pick up where you left off. Always smiling, ever the joker, everybody knew Kyle Gardner, and more importantly, everybody liked him.

The world has truly lost a character and the sky gained a star.

It was interesting because just days before his death, Kyle had messaged me in an attempt to cheer me up about the break up. He started off with a rap, “I like Chriscoli and I cannot lie”, and then told me something, which I will take to the grave with me. He said, “It could be worse. You could be dead.” Then a few days later, I discover he has passed away. Now, you might find that spooky – unbelievable, maybe – but if you knew Kyle, you would know that he would be roaring with laughter at his final witty remark.

With hindsight, what he said was true. I can’t think of anything worse than your life being cut short when you’re still trying to find your feet. The sad thing is, in my twenty three years on this planet, I’ve known so many young people to die – nearly all of them involved in the Performing Arts in some way or another. Lives taken far too soon. Naturally, it makes you think about your own future, but it also leads to you wondering what they would be doing if they were still here. Would Dominique be a professional dancer? Would Luke be producing plays? Would Kyle be planning his next stand up routine?

So, no, it’s not the countless texts, phone calls and hugs from people telling me that everything will be okay and that everything happens for a reason. It’s not the copious glasses of wine I’ve consumed, or the six pairs of shoes I’ve treated myself to. It’s not even the thought of proving that I am worthwhile or to try and make the ex realise what he’s lost. It’s the fact that we don’t know what the future holds. You might think you’ve got everything sorted, then go to sleep after a long day at work, feeling content and never wake up again. As frightening as that thought is, it's also very true, and sadly, very realistic. It’s important for me, now more than ever, to grit my teeth, knuckle down and get on with it. It is going to happen for me, but only if I pull my socks up and work my backside off for it.

As I'm sure you all know, when someone dies, it sort of becomes the norm for people to place them on a pedestal and make out that they were a straight A student, a model citizen and a true asset to the community. The truth is, when Kyle died, nobody needed to pretend that he was amazing. We all already knew it.

You win some, you lose some.

I know I said I probably wouldn't post anything for a long time, and that even if I did, I certainly wouldn't publish it because I was too scared... well, I did publish my last blog and it seems to have gone down a storm, so seeing as I have new and exciting news to share with the world, I thought I'd post again.

My every instinct is telling me to write this chronologically, but to be frank, I don't know where this story starts, so you may have to bare with me. I suppose it starts with me stumbling across something on Google during one of my many "let's search the internet for anything acting related in the North West". This is a regular occurance in my life, and it's a heart breaking moment when everything Google throws at me is written in that God-forsaken purple, informing me that I've already looked there. So annoying.

Anyway, about three months ago now, I read something online about the Write Now Festival, which is held once a year in Liverpool. It's sort of like the Manchester 24:7 festival, only slightly smaller - although perhaps only smaller because it's only ran for three years. The founder of the festival was someone I had worked for before. (I'm sure you'll probably read this more than once in my blog, but it really isn't what you know, it's who you know.) I had a poke around and read some reviews. Everything seemed tip top - but this was when I was working at Asda, so everything seemed tip top compared to that monstrosity.

However, there wasn't an audition process as such. They were holding a casting day for any interested performers or technicians on Sunday 12th February. Well, as this was December, it seemed as far off as 2045, as everything does before Christmas. After Christmas, however, it seemed pretty close. I'd never been to a casting day before, so wasn't entirely sure what to expect.

I'd imagined a dance studio, possibly adorned with a ballet bar or two and more than enough mirrors to remind you how much Christmas weight you were carrying. I'd pictured a table of people - X Factor style - of whom I'd have to perform a monologue, a song, maybe a dance to while they marked me on a piece of paper. Do you remember the video for Geri Halliwell's "It's Raining Men"? Where she walks into an audition, starts dancing and falls in front of haughty, uninterested judges? Yeah. That's what I pictured. Cue me walking in with my Paperchase's finest unicorn and rainbow umbrella and my packed lunch in a Decathlon carrier bag...  I'd also imagined a lot of waiting around, as you find with most auditions; lots of sitting on uncomfortable floors, pretending to text from your mobile to pass the time whilst sitting amongst the biggest bunch of misfits you could hope to lay eyes on.

It was nothing like that.

I'd met up with two young budding actresses who I'd met my audition for Black Box wayyy back in September - Sophie and Becca - and we'd decided to go down to the casting day together. It was oddly nice, sharing the nerve-wracking experience with like-minded people as usually, auditions are a very lonely time and although you speak to a great deal of people, you rarely see a friendly face. We wandered down to the studio in Liverpool where the casting day was behind held. The second we walked through the doors, however, I think we all realised just how big the Write Now Festival was going to be. There were at least fifty people in this tiny little room, crowding round noticeboards, lining up to stand at tables, shouting over each other to be heard. The time we were in there, however, I reckon it probably went upto about seventy people, and we heard that when we left, there were so many people that they were having to wait outside.

After signing ourselves in, we wandered around the room, feeling very much like the little fish in the very big pond. There were professional actors there who we recognised from TV... how were we to stand a chance? We sidled over to a table of people who were writing a play called 'Saving Grace' and they were after three women in their mid to late twenties. Now, as I am nearly 22, I suppose I fit the bill pretty well, but anyone that knows me, knows I get ID'd for lottery tickets. Realistically, I'd say I look about 18, 19. That's with make up. Without, I'd honestly say I could very easily pass for 15. Which is great when you consider how many trains and buses I have to get, but terrible for everything else. Anyway, we had a chat with the playwright, the director and the producer, left our acting CV's and headshots and went off to 'work ourselves' a tad more.

We handed our CVs in to just three other tables - 'Alice', 'In the Beginning' and 'Catfish Therapy'. There were ten tables there, with ten plays looking to take on at least two people per play. But the majority of the parts being casted were for older actors, particularly for men in their late 50's. Jolly good for them, I suppose, but pretty crap for us! I honestly didn't think I stood a chance. We'd been at the casting day for a total of 45 minutes. With a heavy heart, I phoned my boyfriend to come and pick me up and I pushed it all to the very back of my mind.

To my utter shock, I got an email the following day, inviting me to an audition for 'Saving Grace'. I was gob smacked because I'd literally been checking my emails all day, and I'm not one of these modern technology people who has the internet on their phone. Every time I want to connect to the 'online world', I have to whack my laptop out. So, after an entire day of watching Gavin and Stacey and refreshing my Hotmail, I hadn't had anything. It was only when I finally caved and went in the bath that the email came. (The very best things happen to me when I'm in the bath. It's a great place for inspiration. Something about the hot water and the bubbles... really brings out the best in me.) The day after that, I logged on to discover another audition for 'Alice'. A few days later, I found I had an audition for 'In the Beginning'. Considering I genuinely thought I hadn't stood a chance in the festival, I was pretty pleased, although understandably nervous.

I won't go into huge detail and bore you to tears with what happened in each and every audition, but I will say that they all went as well as they could have gone and I was pleased with my 'performance' in all of them. (It's really difficult trying to decipher what you're going to wear to an audition. Do you dress up, so they see you at your best? Or do you wear your comfiest clothes incase you're rolling around the floor, pretending to be a cat? I went for a comfy middle for all three auditions.) After receiving a no for both 'Alice' and 'Saving Grace', I didn't dare to get my hopes up for 'In the Beginning'. In fact, I spoke to a friend of mine and actually told her I hadn't got the part - because I was so convinced that I hadn't.


 So, you can imagine my surprise when I got a lovely phone call off the playwright of 'In the Beginning' offering me the part of Eve! I was made up, although worrying slightly over my costume - surely me standing on stage wearing nothing but a fig leaf would not only nauseate the audience, but also cause my father to discombobulate?

So, here starts the gruelling rehearsal process. Please bare in mind we only get paid for performances - hence why I'll be dragging the majority of you to come and see the play. The more people come, the more I get paid! It's wonderful to have some proper acting stuff to get my teeth into again. It's been two months since I did anything and I was starting to crumble inside. Being unemployed can do that to you, as I'm sure some of you are aware. However, I start a new job at a call centre in 3 weeks time and I'm also having two or three driving lessons a week (stay off the roads), so I'm fully aware of how busy I'll be. But that's me. I love biting off more than I can chew...!

Biting the bullet.

Okay, so I've never blogged before and to be perfectly honest, I never thought I would ever be one of those people that said "hey, come read my blog" so I might just keep this badboy under wraps for the time being and then drunkenly publish it to my Facebook or Twitter one night, no doubt.

Well, first off, I'll tell you a bit about me, although in all honesty, if you don't know me and you're reading this blog, I have to ask WHY. Because I lead an incredibly dull life. Although the occasional crazy thing does seem to happen which I suppose would make very good reading... in which case, hi and welcome to my blog.

I'm Emily Rose Chriscoli. I'm 21 and I'm a university graduate from Warrington. If you don't know where Warrington is (that's probably a good thing, by the way), then it's slap bang between Manchester and Liverpool. It's something like half a metre closer to Liverpool, so you would expect me to have a Scouse accent, but I don't. However, once in Manchester Picadilly train station, I got stopped by some American girl who was lost and as I was waffling on, she was just staring at me and then at the end of my speech said, "Oh my god... do you know the Beatles?"... So, perhaps you can hear a soft trace of Scouse in my accent.

I graduated from Edge Hill University in July 2011. So that's 7 months ago now, which makes me feel a bit sick when I think how long ago it was and sometimes I still describe my friend Katie to people who don't know her as "my housemate Katie" or when people ask my occupation, I automatically say "student". Clearly, I'm missing the student lifestyle, which isn't surprising as I have nothing but fond memories of university. Saying that, however, I've not had a great time since graduating.

I was fortunate enough to find out about an audition for a theatre company based in Liverpool, called Black Box Theatre Company in September and was taken on by them, which I suppose was very lucky considering I'd done no professional work before. I managed to secure quite a few acting jobs with them actually - in September and October, I was touring round the country in a little Ford Focus with two guys called Mike and a girl called Claire, performing a little known play, which you might have heard of, called "A Midsummer Night's Dream".

I have nothing but hilarious memories of those few weeks. Except the early starts. Anyone who thinks acting is a glamorous profession is deluded. I'd set my alarm for 4:45am everyday, to get up, washed, dressed, bag packed and onto the train for 5:45, to get into Liverpool Lime Street for 7:00, to meet up with the two Mike's and Claire. We didn't say much in those early mornings - usually after a tankard of coffee and a bit of toast my mum had made us all wrapped in tin foil, we could just about open our bleary little eyes (except Mike Lockley, who was the designated driver) and we would tour round the country to perform A Midsummer Night's Dream to primary schools and high schools at 8:30am. It was always cold, despite it only being September, and naturally, my body's denfences were shot at so I was full of a cold. It's fantastic standing on stage in front of 200 school kids who clearly don't want to be there, trying to say "I love thee Lysander!" whilst in the midst of a coughing fit. I'm well aware that I sounded like Mike Reid throughout that entire tour. For this tour, I was paid £290. Sounds like a lot, but when you take away train fayre etc, it doesn't really stretch far. I knew then I needed a job in between acting jobs.

In October and November, I toured round the North West with a girl called Liz for a play called "Harry the Horror", which was aimed at the very little ones from the age of 3-7. As it was a two hander (and for those of you who have no idea when it comes to theatrical lingo, that means only two people involved in the play) Liz drove and I nagivated - yes, you read that correctly. I navigated. So naturally, we got lost many, many times. The show was mostly a puppet show, so I comandeered this ENORMOUS lime green duck whilst simultaneously trying to hide behind a flowery curtain and with my spare hand, control the CD player (which had a mind of its own - seriously, I would press 'pause' and for reasons unbeknownst to us all, 10 minutes later it would start playing and poor Liz would have to shout her lines. Yeah, the kids loved us. Not so sure the teachers did though.) and when 'Duck' disappeared behind the curtain and 'Lion' and 'Zebra' appeared in front of it, I had to not only stuff my hands out of and into various animals bottoms' but also change the track on the ghastly CD player AND hold the curtain. Naturally, it went wrong and on several occasions, children screamed "MISS, MISS, LOOK! THERE'S A GIRL BEHIND THAT CURTAIN!" For this whole tour, I was paid £450. Again, sounds like a lot, but isn't that much really.

Then in November and December, I was rehearsing for and performing for a series of six short plays - of which I performed in two - called, quite imaginatively, "Six in the City". The two plays I was in were called "Goose's Gander" and "The Inner Man". Two very different plays, very different characters. This was a great time for me because finally, I wasn't acting for children. Six in the City was performed at the Liverpool Contemporary Urban Centre for three consequtive nights and all my friends and family came to see me. Even the boyfriend's mother came. I had a fantastic time and got some wonderful reviews, but the pay was dreadful. I won't tell you how much I earnt, because it's somewhat soul destroying, but hey ho that's the industry I chose to work in, I suppose. Now, it didn't matter so much about the pay for Six in the City, because I was simultaneously working at Asda the whole time we were rehearsing and performing.

You see, ever since I graduated, I'd gone from temporary job to temporary job. I needed something flexible enough to be able to ask for time off for rehearsals/performances etc, and when I saw Asda were hiring, I jumped at the chance. I won't bore you with too many details, but to cut a veeerrryyyyy long story short, they lost my passport details, I got my bank card stolen and hacked into by someone in the locker room and then I got sacked the day before Christmas Eve because I asked if I could go to church for 6 o'clock mass on Christmas Eve. I won't name my department manager, so let's called him Pat. Pat was a twat. I apologise for my language (or as my gran would say, "Excuse me French!") but he was a down and out twat. Only 3 years older than myself, throwing his weight around. And he had a LOT of weight, being a big fella. He sacked someone else the day before me and assaulted a girl in the stockroom by throwing boxes of DVDs at her. He was a charming man, was my department manager. So I quite literally got turfed out into the snow.

I sobbed my heart out at home, even though, if I'm being honest, I hated the job but I did enjoy sitting by the Christmas tree crying to my mum who kept saying the same thing, "It was never meant to be. You were too good for Asda anyway". Even though she's my mother and she did bring me into this world, I have to say I think she's right. Nothing against people who work in supermarkets - my Auntie Nat and three of my cousins work in a different Asda to the one I worked in - but it just isn't for me. When I was there, I was surrounded by people whose idea of fun was scribbling 'cunt' into their work shirts and seeing if anyone noticed, and no I'm not remotely kidding. I felt like a little flower being kept in the shade. So, I tried to turn into a positive thing and I wrote a letter to David Cameron about the sheer state of our society. I searched for auditions, I looked for any acting work going.

So, it was with a very heavy heart, that I signed back on for Job Seeker's Allowance.