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News just in that Rob Raffety's political comedy series CapSouth  - which was shot over the summer with me in the role of Congresswoman Gracie Todd Englewright - has been named an official selection at this year's LAWeb Fest !  Naturally I'll be heading out to Los Angeles for the festivities and to connect with film industry friends in the area. The LAWebFest is the world oldest and largest web series festival in the world. Last year saw entries from 33 states and 19 foreign countries. Workshops, networking, lots of good times. The New Year is already looking up.

Taped the Season 1 finale of CapSouth , the web series about the antics of Congressional staff, i.e. those who really run Washington. Since yours truly plays their nemesis,  Congresswoman Gracie Todd Englewright , and we taped in a popular DC pub, it required me to essentially be "in-character" through the four hours it took to shoot my scenes. Whew!  Pretty tiring. The series has a fine cast though and it was a lot of fun. As I tweeted earlier today, I'm an introvert and a non-drinker (well, a rare drinker) and the scene involved me giving a nearly 5 minute speech to a big crowd in the pub announcing my intention to run for re-election - oh, and it had to be funny. I was feeling a little pressure. Here I am with the principal cast. (L to R) R. Michael Oliver, Kathryn Browning, Andrew Heaton, and Naomi Brockwell   

#CapSouth , the new online political comedy about the antics of the Capitol Hill staff of yours truly (as Congresswoman Gracie Todd Englewright) continues to gather media accolades: the Washington Post , Washington Times , Morning Express, Politico (full page spread with photos), RollCall (twice), The Hill, and online at Cynopsis.com 7/9/13 and  Comedy TV is Dead .  Creator Rob Raffety also got a radio interview with CBS radio affiliate WNEW here in DC and a write up in his hometown paper the West Virginia Gazette .  I think that has been more attention than even House of Cards got - at least from the inside-the-Beltway press. "Gracie," by the way, is very media savvy.  She has her own Facebook page for responding to "constituents" and tweets at @HonorableGracie.  Episodes of CapSouth can be found online at YouTube, and I appear (so far) in episodes 2 and 5.  We'll see where this takes us.  Will it prove a hit or be too inside baseball for the rest o...

An actor will take good news wherever he/she can find it, and this is the week my horoscope said my career was going to take off! I know nothing about the movement of the planets but - so far - it's looking pretty darn good! Check out the spread on my new political comedy #CapSouth in today's edition of Politico !  That's me as Congresswoman Gracie Todd Englewright in the photo at lower right, with the statue of former House Speaker Sam Rayburn. The series was created by Rob Raffety , and the cast (playing my Capitol Hill staff) includes NY comic Andrew Heaton , R. Michael Oliver , Allison J. Howard , Naomi Brockwell , Satya Thallam, Chris Mannix, and a host of others. The CapSouth Marketing Team has been working overtime and doing a bang-up job. July 8th spread in Politico

Gracie arrives in Washington, DC, this week in the new YouTube political comedy # CapSouth . The nation's capital may never be the same. Congresswoman Gracie Todd Englewright in #CapSouth     Photo by Lauren Shannon

My new political comedy, CapSouth , is launching this week on YouTube. Whew, high tension!  It's already been written up in RollCall ,  The Hill and Politico , and rumor has it that an important announcement will soon be made in  Buzzfeed . I don't think of myself as a comic actress and, as I've said before, feel somewhat like I'm playing the Margaret Dumont role in a brilliant cast of Marx Brothers. But there are tips even second bananas can draw upon to find comedy in a scene. Backstage magazine recently had a nice piece by actor and audition coach Michael Kostroff that outlined some of the frequently recurring elements to consider when approaching a comedy script. They are: "Disproportion: an extreme reaction to a small problem; a small reaction to a huge problem; lots of effort for an easy task; little effort for a great task. "Lack of self-awareness: an unattractive character who thinks he’s irresistibly good-looking; a drunk who thinks he’s behav...