Meet April Audia | Actor & Storyteller

We had the good fortune of connecting with April Audia and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi April, we’d love to hear about how you approach risk and risk-taking
I think I have been taking risks since I was seventeen years old and moved to Los Angeles from NY. I didn’t see it as risks at the time, but I realize now it was all a risk. Leaving family and friends, being alone and broke, working several jobs at all times to survive in Los Angeles. For me I was all in, I didn’t have a time limit or a back up plan. I was risking my youth and my time and energy and money on one dream. I wanted to be in the entertainment business. What that means of course changes as you change and grow, but it is all in the same wheelhouse. It then takes risks to grow and change, to consider yourself a writer or a director or a creator. It takes guts to believe this is who I am now and I’m going to step into that and own it. Believing that as you grow and age you still have something to say. I think for some people it is in our DNA. If we are not changing it up and moving the pieces around we get antsy. I have more to say now than I did at twenty. And I’ll have more to say twenty years from now. Taking risks gave me the life I wanted, I don’t know how to function any other way.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
It is and will always be a challenge to live a life as an artist. It’s not a lifestyle that is conducive to making money in a continuous fashion. You may make a chunk of money at one time and then make very little money for the next eight months. You have to learn to live your life differently than others. However, that was more the case when I started out when you either took the path of high school, college, job and money or you took this uncharted path of creativity. It wasn’t easy for me but it would have been harder to go the other way, to have it all planned out, without any room for something unexpected. So the first thing is you have to have the personality for it. When you are younger you have all the energy in the world and you have to be willing to spend it on this career. Standing in lines at cattle calls, being rejected from agency to agency, being told you need experience first but no one will give you a job; trying to crack the code. I did not have any financial help, so everything, every earned moment had to come from me. The good news is, this builds a sense of self awareness and the feeling of having earned your place in the story. It’s often thought if you become famous that is success. It’s really not, it can be or it can just be you become famous. Success is yours for the taking, it has no price tag, it is grit. Day in and day out of hard work and sacrifice, and risk taking and putting yourself out there to be judged the entire time. I see a lot of anxiety in younger people, I would say take that anxious energy and just put it 100% toward your life. I think that is what sets me apart from a lot of creative people in LA. I just never gave up, I never walked away, I never looked for an out. That’s fine if someone did, then that’s what they really wanted, to move along to another life style. But if you stay and if you want an artist life, just do it, stop complaining, stop comparing, stop worrying about what others will think. Do the work, you will find your tribe and that will be your life. Maybe you’ll get a sitcom and maybe you won’t, it doesn’t matter. You will have lived the life you wanted, the rest is not up to you!

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
It would start with a bike ride along Santa Monica Beach. We forget the rest of the county doesn’t have this weather and this magnificent ocean at their fingertips. Grabbing a late lunch at a restaurant along the bike path in Venice. Home for a shower and then off to see some theatre at “The Geffen Playhouse” in Westwood, some late night coffee or a drink in Westwood Village to end the day. Of course if they are here for the first time you have to spend a day at Disneyland and or Universal Studios. These two theme parks are part of our pop culture in all of America, everyone will enjoy what they have to offer. I also like off the beaten path places, maybe a hike up in Topanga Canyon then a early dinner at Canyon Bistro and Wine Bar and then some Music or Theatre at Will Geers Theatricum Botanicum. Another day would be a metro ride to Downtown Los Angeles, an early dinner at Perch to see some magnificent views of downtown LA while “perched” on top of this building. After that, Disney Hall, LA Opera, Ahmanson Theatre or the Mark Taper, any of these venues would finish the night with top entertainment. The next day a bike ride along Chandler Path in the San Fernando Valley (yes I have a bike rack) and then perhaps a movie and dinner at Rooftop Cinema, the ride home you can cut across Mulholland Drive and see the night time lights of the valley. You can spend a relaxing day at the pool and grab some dinner and coffee at Aroma Cafe in Studio City. There are endless things to do in Los Angeles with any budget!

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
I would have to say my teachers at “Los Angeles City College Theatre Academy” Fred Fate, Al Rossi, Jennifer Rountree, Donna Tollefson and Winston Butter. All of whom helped me to understand the importance of story telling and how it is a life to be proud of. LACC is one of the only Conservatory Training programs that wasn’t thousands of dollars. Because the Academy is on a Community College Campus (but separate from the schools theatre department) you could get a theatre conservatory training for a tenth of the price. When I went I think it cost about two hundred dollars a semester, the American Academy of Dramatic Arts at the time I think was around five thousand a semester. I could never move forward in my desire to get a Theatre Conservatory education because of the cost, until I auditioned and was accepted into LACC Theatre Academy. That program and those teachers changed my life!

Website: http://www.longislandwebseries.com

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Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/AprilAudia

Image Credits
All pictures from my camera.