Years ago, I had the pleasure of seeing a performance of "Jail's, Hospitals and Hip Hop" in NYC...Danny Hoch is one of the most brilliant solo theater performers in the world in my opinion. Danny grew up in Queens N.Y.....a white guy in a predominanty black/latino/asian neighborhood....Danny is able to embody other ethnicities/cultures better than any performer I have ever seen...He plays guys on the street from every angle. His performances are raw and extremly powerful, yet they have a surprising innocence to them.

Danny also uses theater as a means of social activism whether he means to or not....I read that his new piece which is currently playing in Los Angeles is about gentrification. His message generally is the opposite of gentrification..There is nothing sterile or pat about this man...He is a product of the intergration of culture/experience/ethnicity and social awareness. He is also, plain and simple a brilliant actor.

The reason he got into solo theater is because he literally couldnt find any thing he wanted to act in that spoke to his life or experience. And so he created his first show...

I totally relate.....

For the past few weeks I have been in rehearsal with Shannon de Jung, a performance artist from the Bay Area who is out here working with me on her first solo show. It opens this weekend.

Today she was exhausted and had a case of what she called brain fog...She is about to perform her first solo show. It is a life-changing experience for any performer and it is SCARY! I remember my first show Honeymoon In Indial. The week before I was crying hysterically telling my ex husband over and over that I couldn't go through with it.

Of course I did, just as Shannon will do. It changed my life forever...as it will hers. I am confident about this..Why? Because I have seen it in myself and with every other performer I've ever had the priviledge to work with on their one person show. One has to be willing to totally stand behind themselves as a writer, a performer and as themself. When you perform a solo show, you are putting every aspect of yourself, your talent, your creativity and your vision on the line...when I put it like that, you may ask,"why would anyone ever do that?".....Because it is the most liberating, expansive experience you may ever have as a actor. For me, it is a spiritual practice and devotion. The only was I can get BIG enough and empowered enough to do this work is through the belief that my soul can handle it...That no matter how the audience reponds to me, I stand behind myself to offer my vision in hopes that it can serve, inspire and motivate others to do the same...to stand in the largeness of their soul as well...offering their vision to the worldin their own, unique one of a kind solo show....through our stories, our characters and our messages, we connect to the greater Universe. We walk through the world changed on the other side of our first one person show performance. We know that we can take up space, be seen, be heard and show up as authentic self in this life....

Try it......and see for yourself.

To work on your solo show, e-mail me at Tanya@ProjectLifestories.org

You already have everything you need to develop a solo show inside of you. This is a deep process of trust…..a surrender into the unconscious that holds all of your life experiences, stories, passions and more inside of you. It is about allowing what your show wants to say to reveal itself through you. It is not a process of control. The deep stories inside do not come primarily from the mind. Rather, they are contained in your body and your emotional body. By stepping back from your pre-conceived ideas of what you think you should be doing (which can create either writer’s block or empty, overly intellectual material), you allow the truest stories to come forth. This is a practice that takes time to develop.

No matter what type of show you are drawn to doing…. I highly recommend beginning this process with your own stories from your life. It can be an enormous aspect of “opening” to yourself and finding/re-claiming your voice.

This article wa published in "Backstage" this spring....by moi!

How You Can Express Essence through Writing and Performing a One Person Show

By: Tanya Taylor Rubinstein

Every actor has a secret dream……as do many non-actors who have creative souls. The secret dream is to write and perform a one person show.

Why do so many creative people have this dream yet relatively few act upon it? Perhaps because they are asking themselves these questions:

How can I get started?  How can I bring out the most essential stories and characters that I want to express in an interesting and theatrical way? How will I find the courage to break the fourth wall and speak to the audience intimately and authentically? I’m not a writer; how can I turn my life stories into a viable script? I’m not a producer; how will I get people in the seats to see my show?

These are the questions that I have been exploring for the past 25 years. Trained as an actor at Carnegie Mellon University, Emerson College and HB Studios in NYC, I have devoted my professional life to the inner and outer aspects of one person shows and monologues. I have explored them from every possible angle; as an actor, director, producer, and facilitator for other performers. I have been involved in a primary role (performer, director, producer and facilitator) in over sixty solo and monologue shows in theaters in NYC, L.A., San Diego, Dallas, and Santa Fe, N.M. where I reside)

When I was a nineteen years old acting student in Boston, my professor took out class to see the famed monologist, Spalding Gray at the Brattle Street Playhouse in Cambridge. That night, Spalding performed one of his earlier works, “Travels Through New England.” He sat behind a desk and told us a story from his life. He was honest and forthright. To this day, it makes me laugh to think of him sharing his experience of masturbating at Walden Pond so that he could feel closer to the spirit of Thoreau!

At nineteen, after studying for five years to becoming a classical stage actor, it was a revelation. The raw intimacy and truth telling that I had been craving my whole life, was freely offered in his show. I left the theater thinking “you can get away with this on stage?”…..even perhaps “I can get away with this on stage?” “ I can claim, as an actor, my full voice, my passions, my stories…….my life?”

From the day I saw Spalding Gray perform, my own desire to be a commercial actress evaporated. However, it took me another eleven years of performing in other people’s plays before I was able to take the leap into solo performance. From the opening night of my first show, “Honeymoon in India” which was named in the “Top 10 Shows of the Year in the Santa Fe Reporter”, I never looked back. The experience was so much bigger than anything I had experienced as an actor before. I was able to offer my audience an original show that I was passionate about from my core. I have gone on to write and perform many shows as well as facilitate hundreds of others in the process I have developed.

In the beginning it was quite a bumpy ride. That’s why it took me eleven years from the night the seed of solo performance was planted in me to the opening night of my first original show. Like every first time solo performer who I’ve worked with, I didn’t know

how to begin.                       

How does a non-playwright create a script? Will anyone care about my story? How

can I make it intensely personal  without falling into  the trap of self-indulgence?

How can I integrate characters that were part of my story into the script? How can I show up with full presence in my show? Where is the transformational arc in my script that will take my audience on a meaningful journey?

Through trial and error, I learned, through my direct experience, the components of a life-changing show for both performer and audience. In this book, the first half will reveal all of my discoveries from the last thirteen years in the process of creating a one person show….step by step.

In my experience, one has to discover what one most essentially wants to say before one can create the one person show of their dreams. I have learned to guide people through creative exercises designed to jump start and unblock their flow, move them through the obstacle of overwhelm that comes up when creating a solo script, address questions of topics, themes and break down the five basic artistic structures that the most well known performers utilize. Anna Deveare Smith, Sarah Jones, Eve Ensler, Danny Hoch, Chazz Palmeteri, Spalding Gray and others have all used these basic forms as “containers” for their stories and characters.

There are also performance qualities necessary for delivery and presentation. Some of these include authenticity, breaking the fourth wall, directly addressing the audience, making deep connection with oneself and the audience and the balance of drama and humor.

The Theater of Presence:

Solo performance has the possibility of bringing healing and transformation to the world in a way no other form of theater has can offer.

By revealing our deepest self as both writer and performer onstage, we take off the mask of ego and instead have the possibility of leading both ourselves and our audiences into an experience of timeless Soul. Ironically, when we reveal our most authentic stories, obstacles and transformations we have the possibility of moving beyond the story, into the realm of the sacred. In our courageous act of revealing the truth of ourselves, our lives and our world, we open the door to the experience of the Universal. The audience responds in kind.

Unlike traditional theater, we become the actor in our own story. Even if we include characters in our shows, they are based on people from our own experience. We drop the artifice and let go the perceived safety of the fourth wall. In other words, we have no place to hide. This can be both a terrifying and exhilarating experience for the actor. It can lead him or her past fears of deep connection and offer the audience more than a brilliant theater experience. In it’s purest incarnation, it can lead the audience member into a deeper experience of his or her own Self. By speaking the unspeakable, claiming our own voice, standing in our vulnerability, and by being willing to be completely seen, we break convention and are led deeply into the mystery of who we really are.

At it’s heart, solo performance is about awakening fully to one’s essence or soul.

Solo Performance, is the new paradigm of theater. As our culture has offered more and more artificial forms of “entertainment” the craving for this level of truth and connection is greater than ever. Our world is shifting radically. Old systems are crumbling in every sector of our society. Giant corporations are going bankrupt.  Socially and environmentally sustainable businesses are growing. Farmers markets and eating local and organic has moved beyond the “fringe” into the mainstream. “Fringe festivals” on the margin of theater society used to be one of the few places to see solo performance. Now, Julia Sweeney and John Leguizamo have had HBO specials. If you pick up the New Yorker any given week, it may have twenty or thirty solo shows listed. This is for both economic reasons and artistic/spiritual reasons. We know that we are in a time paradigm shifting on every level of society. Solo performance is the emerging theater for our new world. It’s time is happening now and many, many people have the desire to create their own shows and need a guide. Both performers and audiences want to see transformational theater that breaks through old structures and limitations yet is still accessible and engaging (unlike the radical or avante garde). This book is the ultimate guide to creating high quality and transformational one person shows. It will support the trend that is already happening and take it to a new level. This book has the possibility of being the definitive guide to solo performance at this amazing time in our ever expanding collective consciousness.

I have yet to perform or produce a solo show that does not lead the audience to a standing ovation. My audiences stay for up to an hour after the productions because they feel so moved by what they have seen that they want to stay and connect with the monologist personally. I have seen people laugh and cry in recognition. When a solo performer steps out onstage, trusting that their own presence is enough, they have stepped onto the stage of the soul. They are walking through their very own Hero’s journey. The show becomes a metaphor for their life and the audiences recognize this energetically. And so they are carried along on the journey with them, all the while finding themselves in the mirroring process that is always present when people connect in a group with their deep humanity.

For information about working with me on your solo show: please e-mail me at Tanya@ProjectLifeStories.org

 Why Spalding Gray Matters”

 I am an actor/writer/director of solo performance. I live in Santa Fe, NM and have been writing and performing my own solo shows for many years. I also coach and direct others in their own creative process.

I was trained as a classical actor at Carnegie Mellon University, Emerson College and HB Studios in NY. My original dream was to be a stage actor acting in other playwrights works. However, that all changed one night in Boston when my acting teacher took me to see a one man show. It was at the Brattle Street Theater in Cambridge in 1984. The lights came up on a man sitting at a desk, wearing a flannel shirt. That night, I laughed and cried and was completely engaged with that man’s story. I sat there in the dark and thought to myself “I didn’t know theater could be like this…I didn’t know it could be so intimate…so real” This man was Spalding Gray who went on to become probably the most accomplished monologist of our time. His show that night was called “Travels through New England” and turned out to be one of the first of his amazing one man shows that allowed us, as an audience to get to share in his amazing “life-tales”

If you haven’t seen a Spalding Gray show, I suggest that you rent or buy one. “Swimming to Cambodia” was probably his most famous and is probably the easiest to fine. In it, he tells the back story of his journey to Cambodia when he was cast in a small part in “The Killing Fields”…he went on to do many other amazing shows that I was privileged to see including “It’s a Slippery Slope”, ‘Monster in a Box” and “Grays Anatomy”  (about a crazy eye disease he got and his insanely neurotic and hilarious quest to find a cure”) My very favorite show was called “Morning, Noon and Night” and I saw him perform it at the Lensic Theater in Santa Fe a month before he was in a horrible automobile accident in Ireland that would ultimately lead him to take his own life a year or so later.

Spalding became famous for doing all his monologues sitting at a desk with a glass of water. He never really moved except when he walked in and sat down and walked off at the end of the show. But amazingly, in the middle of “Morning, Noon and Night” as he was recounting the joys of late in life fatherhood, he actually got up with a boom box on his shoulder, slid across the stage and danced! He danced as if he was dancing with his wife, Kathy and their kids, Theo, Forrest and Marissa. He danced, awkwardly and at the same time, unselfconsciously. Tears welled up in my eyes and I thought to myself “I’ll be damned; Spalding is happy”

The song he was dancing to was a hit, from the U.K called “Tub-thumping”….A few days ago, I was in the car thinking about Spalding and how different my life would be if I’d have never seen him perform….if I hadn’t devoted my life to the art of solo performance and monologues. (you’ll be reading all about this if you keep reading this blog!) Anyway, I was sitting in my car and asked Spalding if he had faith in me and if he could assist me from wherever he was right now in helping me spread the word about solo performance. What do you think happened next…yes! The radio….a minute later started blaring out the strains of the song “Tub-thumping” the song Spading had danced to. I hadn’t heard it in years~

e-mail: Tanya@ProjectLifeStories.org

This year, I have worked with many actors and other creative people developing their one person shows for performance.

One of the stories was about a man who grew up with a small time Mafioso for a father and the mystery that surrounded his death. One was a woman who interviewed a friend who had a stroke and created her character based on her friend’s experience. One was a Vietnam Veteran who went back forty years to create his show which was ultimately as much a coming of age story as a story about war. Another is of a woman who was given up to a foster family....there was domestic abuse and mental illness throughout her lineage and she used her story and the story of her ancestors as the basis for her show....Michelle, a former student, based her show on an interview she did with a Mexican housekeeper. I had given her solo performance class an assignment to interview someone who they knew as an acquaintance and find out about their life. They were to turn the interview into a monologue and embody the character for the class. Michelle embodied her character, Rosa to a tee...chomping away on a breakfast burrito and telling us the intimate and heartbreaking story of a woman who had left her life and child in Mexico to reach for a better life across the border. She spoke of almost dying in the desert and having to take water from the bag of a dead man....This interview with a woman who knew uncovered a powerful story and unearthed an unspoken story in our culture. Who are these new immigrants who work in our kitchens and in the back of restaurants and live among us? This powerful uncovering set Michelle on a journey of interviewing others who had crossed the border into this country, some legally and some illegally to share, in her show, the contemporary immigrants journey..

So where is your show hiding? Where is your material? I would say, it’s in plain site. Look a little closer at your own life, your own stories, the people who live among you. There are stories everywhere, waiting to be told. Waiting for you to tell them… Pay attention today to your life. It's where your themes, topics, passions, dramas, possibilities already exist.

Have you been dreaming of creating a one person show but don't know where to begin?

I have been offering services to more and more out of state performers who want to write their one person show but have no idea how to get started. Here's how it works. You fly out to Santa Fe and we work one on one in my studio churning out your show over the course of four days.

You may come  here with just a glimmer of what you want to say....That is fine. It is my job, through the process I've developed to get the story out of you and onto the page. You will leave Santa Fe with a script in hand. You just need to show up with your openness and your willingness to explore your lifestories, characters from your life, and themes that begin to emerge as we work together. It is an intimate, creative and lifechanging process. You give yourself the gift of claiming your very essance onstage.

You will be improvising, writing, brainstorming, moving and creating a show in a totally safe and supportive environment.

It took me eleven years to develop this process for my first show, "Honeymoon In India" which I wrote and performed to critical acclaim 13 years ago. It was my very first solo show and was named one of the Top 10 Performances of the Year by The Santa Fe Reporter in 1996. I have been working with hundreds of actors, writers and "regular people" to refine the process through working with each of them to develop a one person show, memoir or personal monologue (see my youtube page and you can view a wide variety of performances that have been developed in my classes, workshops and one on one intensives.)

What are you waiting for? If this has been your dream, forever...call today!Call 505-470-5267 or e-mail Tanya@ProjectLifeStories.org.

Produce Your Show in your own city or town.

Happy Holidays All~

I remember living in NYC years ago and checking out the theater listings in The Times or New Yorker. At most, their may be one or two solo shows being produced, most often by top names like Spalding Gray, Eve Ensler (back when The Vagina Monologues was a one woman show) or Anna Devear Smith.

These days it's very different. I recently counted 30 Broadway or off-Broadway shows that were solo (and that doesn't count all the festivals that have sprung up and the off-off Broadway shows as well as solo shows all over the country)

One Broadway producer told me that she was always on the look-out for great solo shows because they are so much less expensive to produce and much lower risk than large cast productions.

Two years ago, I took my daughter to NY to see Vanessa Redgrave playing Joan Didion in "The Year of Magical Thinking". She sat in a chair and talked the entire piece. That was the set. There were some absract backdrops that came down behind her at a few different times in the piece. It was stark as the subject matter, intimate and perfect.

The amazing think about solo shows is that they can be done anywhere. Once you have developed your solo show, all you need is a space with a stage (be it a bar or Broadway) and you can accomodate your piece. As an actor you will never feel more empowered than to develop your solo show because you can literally do it anywhere.

I know of one musician I worked with who is taking his show on tour in the same Texas roadhouses and bars he has played before. Only, instead of just his music, he will be telling the story of his life and the where the songs fit in with that time in his life.

Students of mine and I have done shows in festivals in different cities, bars, churches, yoga centers, dance studios and large and small professional theaters.

When I do my own shows here in Santa Fe, I have always been able to more than break even and usually walk home with a few thousand dollars in my pocket after expenses for a two weekend run (at $15 per ticket). Every economy is different, and every place is different. But, I have been able to negotiate free spaces by splitting the door or getting the door while the space got customers who would buy drinks. I have had shows sponsered through grannts and foundations give me large sums to produce shows that fit in with their mission.

Once you have a show under your belt you can go anywhere you want with it. It's your vision. It'syour dream.If you're a professional actor, the best part is you'll never be going on casting calls waiting for someone else to give you your destiny. You give yourself your destiny.

From putting yourself out there in your very best light, showcasing your talent, you create your future. One person shows are the THEATER OF NOW!!!! They are about empoerment, transformation, authenticity and always, always stories. The world is waiting for yours!

DON'T WAIT! MAKE 2009 the year you write and perform your ONE PERSON SHOW! 2 slots are still availble for Project Life Stories Year Long One Person Show workshop in Santa Fe and if you live out of state, schedule your 4 DAY INTENSIVE to write your show! For information about either class, e-mail Tanya@ProjectLifeStories.org

This week I am sooooo...busy, but all with some amazing monologue shows I am directing.

I have a year long class that meets in Santa Fe. The class begins every January and is called "How to Create a One Person Show"....In December, the whole class performs excerpts from their complete solo scripts that they have written and embodied during the year. This year I had 7 amazing students, all of whom are performing in the showcase on Dec 5 and 6 at the Railyard Performance Space.

Let me share a little about their upcoming shows, which are as diverse, eclectic and amazing as all of them....

Maida Rogerson, an incredible actor from Toronto has put together a show about a woman who has a stroke....She plays 3 characters in this show....The woman who has had the stroke who is in a rehab unit, her Type-A daughter...who has many issues with her mother and Wally, her flamboyant gay best friend of many years who adds some levity to the character's story. Maida has fleshed out these characters and offers a stunning intimacy into the world of a human being who has always been "in control" losing control of her body and the life she knew.

Kathleen Fonatin: Kathleen is unlike any other student I have ever worked with. I told her the other day she is a superstar and I meant it....Kathleen has energy the way John Leguzamo has energy...the way Whoopie Goldberg at her best has energy...she is completly embodied and alive in her work. She has a background in stand up comedy...but in the show she is doing.....she is offering depth, vulnerability and dare I say genius. This piece starts out as a wired, searching, questioning performance art piece and evolves into the most intimate personal story of her bottoming out as an addict (all the while, living in L.A. and performing) and her rise into wholeness.

Uma Jill Marcus is a dreamweaver, dream retrever and a visual artist who draws her dreams. In her show, the story of a four year period of her life, she literally draws her dreams to retrive memories that have lived in her body and soul. She dives into the deep end of the ocean. The piece, at once psycologically revealing is ultimatly the story of personal transendence. To boot, we are gifted with a slide show of her drawings from this time period, that take this multi-media performance piece to a whole new realm.

More on the other shows tomorrow.....I'm off to direct and rehearse.

To contact me about solo performance coaching in and out of state, e-mail me at tanya@projectlifestories.org

Last year, I was asked to teach a storytelling from the soul workshop at the Bioneers Conference(www.bioneers.org ) in Marin County. I wrote this article and thought I'd post it as it feels relevent to this blog.

“Restoring Our Souls”                                           

Tanya Taylor Rubinstein

Much is being said these days about restoring the earth. The eco-systems that have been badly disrupted the chemicals and technology that is being used to poison our food and water; Climate change and wars that are reaping destruction on the wounded body of Mother Earth.

There is much to be said about that. It is crucial and important. How it is said and conveyed to others is, in my experience, even more important.

My work is the work of restoring the human soul. My own first and then, when I feel rooted in that, extending to others from a place of wholeness. I have come to recognize that until I restore my soul to balance, I do not have the necessary energy or inspiration to truly help the restoration of the planet. I believe this is true for others; whatever “talk” they’re “talking. My hope is that offering others some of the necessary tools and inspiration to restore their own souls, in turn they create different tools to support other communities; plant, animal, mineral, human. I have come to recognize that it does not matter the form or forms we are serving. If we are living from our souls, we will be guided. We will know what to do. We will wake up to our assignment on this planet. We all have one and they are all equally important. They may look very different but when we are living in our spiritual connectedness, we will be guided through “inspired action” to serve in the way that is most true to the fabric of our own soul.

I serve through supporting people in giving voice to stories of their lives. I serve through supporting people in their deepening connection to their creativity as writers and performers. I serve by utilizing theater as a vehicle for awakening and transformation. I serve through the art of solo performance. I serve by offering what I love the most to others and utilizing my training as an artist to be the container for my soul to express itself.

I’ve come to find that it doesn’t matter what your container is; only that you find one. You can serve by gardening; by mediating, by teaching, by being a scientist, by being a poet. You can serve by cooking, by writing a book, or being in Public Relations. You will serve in whatever you’re doing.

But will you choose to serve your soul’s calling or your ego?

I met a man recently who is an environmentalist who just came back from the South Pole. He was literally shrieking and shaking when he was talking to me in a restaurant. He was screaming that it’s already too late for the planet. The ice is melting. He had seen it for himself.

I realized that I felt an aversion to him. Not to his information, which I believed to be accurate, but to him. Then I took a deep breath and re-connected to my own soul.  I realized that he had been so traumatized by his experience (and perhaps by many experiences before seeing the melting ice) that he was actually contributing to the problems of the planet rather than healing them. He was so out of his connection with his own soul, that his message of fear had only made him ineffective in conveying what he cared about the very most.

I have seen this pattern in myself and in others. When I care about something changing in myself and others; I can approach things in two ways. One is to “preach at”, harangue, attempt to “convince”, act desperate, get hysterical, act urgently, get angry, judge, defy or act out in any infinite number of ways to attempt to control others, get them to do things my way. I have found, through the microcosm of my mothering and as a spouse, that these are methods of my ego and are entirely ineffective as well as being destructive to the very thing I care about conveying. It is not just the message; it is the messenger. And, how we convey the same information, changes everything. It changes the entire world.

When I am living from my soul, I am offering information, presence and love in all my actions. I am offering a way of seeing the world, through my very being-ness. I am offering this to others, but have let go of my attachment to how it is perceived by others. I am patient. I trust the life force. I am doing my part to inspire and create. I am acting from my soul, not my ego. Underneath, always, I care about the same things. The restoration of our planet, that all children and animals are cared for and loved, that people and earth have the opportunity to be healthy in mind, body and spirit, that there is compassion and support for elders and the dying. That people know themselves and their power and their purpose.

But, how I convey the expression of my caring is the crucial difference. If I am speaking from the authority of my own soul, I am clear and effective. If I give in to the urgency of my ego, I am fragmented, nervous, angry and ineffective.

One of the people I respect the most on the planet right now is Bono. He is living proof that when we speak from our soul, with respect for another, miracles happen. I love the fact that in Washington, republicans and democrats alike love Bono. I do not think this is only because of his mystique as a rock star. Of course that is what gets him in the door, but I do not believe why it is why people respond. I have seen Bono interviewed. He believes it is his privilege and responsibility to help all people in any way that he can.  How he does it is what’s amazing. He gets people to change. He gets a stubborn, conservative president to become “soft” and liberal when it comes to relieving billions of dollars of debt for poor African nations. How does he do this? How does he bring  seemingly polarized people together around issues of huge importance.

He speaks from his soul. He speaks from his passion without speaking from anger. He appeals to people’s humanity. He doesn’t take sides. He says that he will speak to anybody, of any political affiliation, of any religious persuasion if it will help. He is speaking directly from his soul and he is healing the world.

Within my own self, I have had to heal my own soul and continue to be vigilant to that commitment. I see so clearly, the tendencies in myself to give into laziness, self indulgence, anger, self righteousness and fear. I see my tendency to want “others” “out there” to fix the problems in the world. I am afraid of really taking ownership for how responsible and powerful I am, and that my mission is no less important than Bono’s or any other being on the planet.

It is my gift to speak up and speak out and to strive to do it from my soul. That means transparency, humility and the sharing of my authentic experience. It also means, focusing on how I communicate to others. Am I respecting them, and all of the pain they carry with them? Am I having compassion for how they may be disconnected from their true selves?

When I am stuck on what to convey and how to I convey it, do I jump in mindlessly following my own agenda or do I take a deep breath and ask my soul “now what?” and follow from there?

When you decide to do your one person show, you give your voice the opportunity to speak from it’s deepest “soul place” and be deeply heard.

Will you answer the call?

Tanya Taylor Rubinstein teachers solo performance classes in Santa Fe, N.M . and works with people in four day one on one sessions to create their solo shows. If you want to create a one person show, e-mail me at Tanya@ProjectLifeStories.org

Most of you reading this blog, I am assuming,are either dreaming of or working on your one person show. I have seen lives changed, both the performer's and the audience's by solo shows.

I remember my first one woman show, "Honeymoon in India". In it, I told the story of going to see a famous guru on my honeymoon who turned out to be the exact opposite of what I expected. I revealed vulnerabilities about my relationships with my husband and mother. I portrayed my own "spoiled Amercian self "who freaked out and lost it when pushed to the limit in a foreign and unfamiler culture. I took risks. It was funny and poignant and to this day, I stand behind the work.  It changed my life forever.

People came up to afterwards and began sharing thir stories with me. One woman told me that she had a similar painful issue with her mother as I did with mine and she had never heard it spoken of before. Hearing it onstage had been healing for her.

Before this experience, I was in many plays that didn't inspire me.Not because some of these plays were't well written or "good"(one won a Pulitzer Prize) But I needed more than acting out somebody elses story or vision.

I was so interested in my own stories as well as characters whose stories weren't being represented in our culture. In truth, although a solo show can be the most terrifying thing a person can embark upon (onstage, alone, no other actors, exposing your life, your concerns, characters that you have created), it is also an actors dream. You are, for once in your acting life, completly empowered in your material. The show you write, perform and offer comes from your deepest longings, passions and desires of what YOU want to express to others, onstage. You also are able to showcase your acting abilities in a way that in unavailable in any traditionl theater.Do you do one charatcer or fifty? That will depend on you and your range but there is infinite creativity in a way a solo show can be written. And it can and should be written around your strengths.

I gurantee you that if you have the guts to stand onstage and express your deepest soul,and fully claim yourself in this way,you will never be the same. And neither will your career. Unexpected miracles come for those of us who have the courage to SOAR.

FOR INFORMATION ABOUT MY COACHING SERVICES VISIT: www.ProjectLifeStories.org. I teach on going solo performance and memoir classes in Santa Fe,New Mexico and work one on one with clients from out of state who come to work with me for 2-4 days. (ongoing online support availble before and after)