Emily Ellet

Here’s the latest episode of Gingham and Steel Bakes!  Notes and recipe after the video. Notes: I have a new editor!  My brother Brian gets all the credit for making this video series instantly more professional-looking and -sounding.  Let us know what you think of the new editing choices! I think I messed up these cookies, as they didn’t look or taste as I expected.  The cookies were practically flavorless, and the frosting tasted maple-y, not caramel apple-y.  I suspect thi

Giddy shrieks drift through my window On a musty river of moonlit air Its damp nostalgia recalling Capture the Flag at midnight On the dew-drenched lawn A charged haze of freedom On a cloudy night of teenage summer Copyright 2014 by Gingham and Steel.  Please ask for permission to reprint. photo credit: Psicoground via photopin cc #teenager #Poetry #summer #sleep #GrowingUp #NewYorkCity #Night #capturetheflag #Emily

“help with consistency” My only results were sports commentators on the New York Jets and parenting blogs.  Apparently, Google doesn’t know everything. Let me go back a little bit.  I had a small epiphany the other day: I am a project-driven person.  I sort of knew that already – I love organizational projects, creating to-do lists, performing in shows, and my occasional forays into producing projects.  But when that little nugget of truth popped into my thought the other day

Sometimes, when I talk to people about being a performer, I realize there’s a big difference between what I experience every day as an auditioning actor and what people imagine auditioning much be like. No, I’m not going to make one of those infographics that swept Facebook several months ago. Instead, I’m just going to let you in on a little secret – when an actor, dancer, or singer auditions for a show, there’s not a stage in sight. Once upon a time, aspiring performers aud

Sometimes your day job realizes you can do ten more things each day.  Sometimes you’re just so busy reading the amazing pieces that people are writing and sharing around the web that you just don’t have time to keep up with your real life (cough).  And sometimes you just don’t have anything valuable to add to the Internet. I haven’t gone anywhere, I promise.  Things are still going well – in fact, better than well: I booked a small show, yay!  But I’ve been taking time for me

My family is really good at this.  Well, to be fair, the female members of my family.  My mom trained us oh-so-well in how to fall in love with one song on an album and listen to it over and over again.  (This is also the woman who watched Ever After so many days in a row that we know the entire movie by heart.) In fact, it was such a bad habit of hers that, in late junior high, I actually made her a series of albums combining all of her favorite singles onto a couple CDs.  N

(That sound you just heard was my voice teachers of yore choking on their collective arpeggios.) The news was a shock to me, too.  I’ve spent the last almost ten years training to be a lyrical ingenue soprano, equally comfortable in both the classical and contemporary genres.  I have spent countless hours preparing to pitch myself to the theatre world as a Galinda in Wicked, a Laurie in Oklahoma, and even a Maria in West Side Story, (if I could ever tan enough to pass for His

It sounds so simple, doesn’t it?  “I mean what I say all the time!” you’re probably scoffing to yourself.  “What’s so hard about being an actor if that’s all there is to it?” The difference is that when you say a sentence in real life, it comes from all the feelings and circumstances you’ve experienced in the months, weeks, days, and often minutes leading up to that moment.  You can’t separate what you’re about to say from what you’re thinking and feeling, unless you’re a phe

All my life, I’ve had this one little problem. I always overdress. It’s not intentional, I promise.  Most of the time, I’m just trying to fit in, although admittedly that’s something I’ve had issues with my whole life.  In fact, occasionally I wonder which came first – the overdressing or the trouble fitting in?  Chicken or egg, perhaps. Either way, I just never seem to match those around me.  When others wore sneakers, I wore penny loafers.  When they upgraded to ballet flat

Anyway… Due to a very late meeting Monday night, I slept in my contacts on a friend’s couch in the city. This was no longer a great idea, as I realized the next morning at 10 am when my eyes were practically a fountain of tears and no amount of contact solution would help.  Granted, the last time I even tried to sleep in my contacts (which, to be fair, I didn’t have any problems with at the time) was in high school; ahhh, how much changes in a decade. So finally I had no choi

Am I the only one who lives in fear of pooping in a public restroom? I’m not a huge fan of patronizing public restrooms anyway, but, you know, life happens, and I occasionally find myself in a row of stalls with between two and ten other women, and suddenly I realize extra effort is required, and I start to sweat – because I’m terrified that people will realize it’s me. This is not to say I don’t do it – I am human, no matter how feminine I strive to be.  But why this stigma?

My mom is going to kill me if she ever reads this blog post. Oddly enough, when I reached high school and developed an appetite for high heels, Mom, a shoe girl herself, was more than happy to buy me cute pairs of high heels I didn’t necessarily need – though, consistent with her mantra, they were all very good quality.  Boy, did I have a great heels wardrobe: some pink BCBG open toe pumps with a big bow, a pair of faux-crocodile skin black stilettos with a silver heel, just

Truth time:  I’ve been having serious trouble working out or eating well lately. There are good and bad reasons for this (crazy work schedule, career fears, boredom, etc.), but it doesn’t change the fact that it just makes me more unhappy. And I know this!!  I’ve learned this lesson before!!  Yet somehow I still require the wake up call. Well, today was that wake up call. I managed to keep myself from talking myself out of taking advantage of the gym at work, and so I ran on

The answer is obviously no. Just from the smell of the crisp brown packaging and the satisfying “rip” as you tear off the packaging tape, you know it’s going to be a good day.  But then, the best part is that there’s a present inside. It doesn’t matter that you ordered it for yourself.  It makes no difference whether it’s shoes or soap.  The point is, just for a few minutes, it’s your birthday all over again. Not gonna lie, I was the girl who never received a carnation when t

Once upon a time, a brunette named E bought her very first car.  It was an incredibly exciting and enormous purchase, so of course she spent a long time researching.  Finally, she fell in love with a beautiful red Subaru that was (barely) in her price range.  Her dear dad investigated the car, which was near her hometown, and said that it looked to be a good car and a fair price, so, taking a deep breath, E plunked down her savings and became the proud owner of Lucy. Unfortun

It’s so kindly meant, I know, and it’s such a universal understanding that auditioning all the time is a heartrending experience because of all the rejection.  But I’d like to set the record straight once and for all: rejection is not what makes the actor’s life so hard. It would actually be wonderful to have a casting director say, “I’m sorry, but you’re not what we’re looking for.”  Or to have a producer frown and say, “I don’t like your voice very much.”  Or to have a writ

So, the weather this weekend was both awful and wonderful.  Awful because Saturday felt like August 1st in St. Louis – HOT with crazy humidity and no breeze.  Wonderful because Sunday morning had an Oregonian/Maine-ish rainy breeze wafting through my window that made it next to impossible to get up.  (I spent the first 10 minutes of my day drifting through my memories of summers at my grandparents’ old home in Oregon.) However, despite the wonderful weather yesterday, it did

Mike and I woke up Tuesday morning to a loud knock on our door, which Mike realized, upon opening the door, was a kind neighbor informing us that our apartment’s elevator was on fire. Remarkably calmly, we put on shoes, gathered the cats into their carrier, and put our packet of irreplaceable documents into my purse.  Then we walked out the door, into the smoke and the approaching sirens, totally at peace with the thought that everything might burn.  I then waited peacefully

Eighth Avenue at midnight is a murky sea of smoke and rouge, on which the battered hulls and tattered sails of the impoverished struggle to stay afloat, the jagged rocks below the waves, more stubborn than steadfast. A grey cloud tries to rise higher in the mire of fatigue and fails. Copyright 2013 by Gingham and Steel.  Please ask for permission to reprint! #Poetry #UrbanLiving #NewYorkCity #Night #Emily

Several weeks ago, a good friend of ours held a going-away party, as she was leaving NYC to head back home.  Sad occasion, but a great excuse to get dressed up, right?! Let me say, I went all out!  Fancy smoky eyeliner wings, a dress I haven’t gotten to wear in years (you can see why…), and TEASED hair. Actually, side note, I was quite proud of that hair!  It was the result of trying a technique I learned from my frequent hair modeling sessions for Bumble and Bumble.  You see