Last January, a poised and elegant woman walked into my studio. She told me she wanted to create a one woman show...She mentioned that she wanted it to be insprational and uplifting....

Many people in Santa Fe (and many other places) know Linda Durham as an art dealer, activist and world traveler....She oozes charisma and is powerful and a great speaker.

Intuitively, I know that if we relied upon any of the above "talents" or "accomplishments", that we would never get to the deeper invitation for her show.The intimacy,the core, the rawness of the human heart.

We started the yearrwith improvisations and storytelling...Linda is a natural, so the stories flowed out of her like honey...These were stories of her world travels and adventures.

But what really moved me one day was when Linda came in and started talking to me about her mother and how she told her as a child that she disliked Linda's freckles and  told her that "in Ireland, they put urine on children's freckles to get rid of them"....another story began to emerge; one of lonliness and a lifetime of wandering in search of true love.....the deeper and more personal inspration behind her travels started to splill out.

The transformational arc in stortytelling is what we all deeply want to hear. It is not self serving. It is not gratuitous. It is not about finding "the slilver lining".....It is about showing in a very specific way where we've come from and where we have gotten to...Not in an external way so much as what we have discovered about the workings of the human heart...our heart..how it has been wounded, broken, how it has collapsed and then risen above, how it has learned to forgive and where it shrieks in rage...how it  tries and fails to forgive and where it stumbles...all of it...every raw, real, funny, cruel, loving human moment is grist for the mill of a solo show....But, you've got to be willing to walk into the fire of truth...Let go of editing yourself or trying to "look good"

Two of the most courageous moments I've ever seen on stage will be revealed in Linda's show....because, she was, in the end willing to let go of "looking good'  and "being inspiring" to being human and real and funny and warm and cold and vulnerable....

Her show will succed because she surrendered her ego and tells the truth...It  is an act of radical courage. In this tech week, when things are crazy, I realize how I have come to adore her...which is very different than  the energy of "admire" , yes? And, yes, be inspired by the willingness to embrace everything.

So, if you want to do your own solo show, it means getting fearless...walking into and through the fire of your fears and sharing a story of depth and meaning (as the self or in charcters you've created)...You must give everything or it doesnt mean anything....

Hope to see you all at the show~

In love,

Tanya

The Genius of Spalding Gray

Spalding was completely riveting that evening. His autobiographical monologue entitled "Travels Through New England" was so intimate. He shared stories from his life about his mothers suicide and her odd Christian Scientist ways. He spoke of going to Walden Pond and of masturbating there to feel closer to Thoreau! He was outrageous, he was funny and above all he was real. The character he was choosing to portray was himself. His script came from his life.

After the show he sat on the edge of the stage and had a beer and answered some questions and comments from our class. I don't remember saying anything to him except "thank-you" but I left the theater that night and knew that the course of my life had been altered. I didn't know how and when I was going to get there but I knew that what he was offering was a path that I too would follow.

I had been craving this simplicity of expression without even knowing it. The combination of authentic and brilliant writing based on his direct experiences delivered to a live audience blew my mind. I understood immediately ad intuitively the enormous possibilities for performers and audience members alike.

As a teacher of solo performance and solo performer myself I have come to understand many of the components of solo performances that inspire an audience and those that don't. One of Spalding's great talents was his ability to completely embody his material. He made every word a visceral experience for himself and his audience. One of the amazing things about this was that he never moved. He sat at his desk in every performance I ever saw (except in one brief moment when he danced across the stage with a boom box in Morning, Noon and Night- what a joy!!!) and yet he filled the theater with his presence.

For me, the undertaking of a solo show is about 90% about presence. Yes, the story is important. The writing is very important. But what makes it or breaks it for me is the performers presence. Are they willing to take us beyond a "reading of a work" into a "feeling of their work"? Are they willing to show up with every emotion available to them and every cell in their body willing to re-experience the events they are sharing about? If they are, they can take their audience on a journey like no other.

At it's best solo performance connects us so deeply with one individual and their humanity that it connects the audience with themselves and their own deepest humanity. It takes a bedrock of courage to expose so much; not just in the writing of our stories, but in the embodiment of them for the audience.

Spalding had the knack.

Solo Performance to Change the World

Thursday, July 19, 2007

Creating Original Characters in a Solo Show

A Woman's Work.........(performed Feb. 2000)

I did nine performances of an original monologue show that I worked on with two other Santa Fe woman. The inspiration behind the show was from a Studs Terkel song about working. The concept of the show was that we would each write three , 10 minute monologues exploring female characters at work and their personal stories.

All three of the characters were based on my personal life experience but I put them into the context of different voices. The first character that I created was based on Barbie (the doll) She was giving a speech at the annual "Barbie Convention" being her usual "perfect" self when she starts to have a bit of a nervous breakdown onstage. She gets carried away and speaks of her longtime lust for G. I Joe and what it's like to be put into an arranged marriage with that "unic", Ken. She speaks about what it's like to smell food, but only to be allowed to snack on celery sticks and have to manage about 30 different "careers" and the "Malibu beach house" all the time with an insipid smile plastered on her face. She speaks about the emptiness of never aging and getting "laugh lines' from really never having lived.

When I created this piece, I found that I was able to publicly present some of my own political views in a clever and humorous way. It would have been "preachy" if I had given a speech about these topics, but as I incorporated them into an original character and showed the juxtaposition about how she was forced to live as an "image" rather than from a place of authenticity, these views were received in an open and positive way by the audience.

When I teach solo performance classes now, if someone is attached to "making a point", I encourage them to do it through a character. In my experience, when we're speaking on stage as ourselves, it only works if we stick to our own experience. In other words, our own stories from our lives and the insights that arise from our experience. I challenge my students to cut all opinions, judgments (good or bad) and metaphors out of their own story. Onstage, opinions and judgments will distance the audience from you. It takes the audience out of their own experience and into their intellects. Does this mean that you as a performer don't have opinions or judgments or a point of view? No. All strong artists do have a point of view. Your point of view comes across by what stories from your life you choose to share, the tone, your body movements, energy and presence. But, for me nothing is worse than going to a one person show where somebody starts to preach at me. Even if I agree with them!

However, the one way I've found to get around this is through creating original characters. You can take a point of view and show it through a character. For example, rather than saying "war is bad", create a character of a veteran whose child has died from birth defects related to his exposure to depleted uranium. Have this character tell his story. This will make your point much more powerfully and effectively than saying "war is bad".

Instead of saying "I hate the values of Hollywood and everybody's shallow there", I created a second character based on someone I knew who was an L.A. party planner. I had her entire monologue on the phone calling various people for an event she was planning. I didn't talk about narcissism being unpleasant to people; rather I portrayed how her curt and bitchy with every person she spoke to. I also added a surprising vulnerability to her last phone call which was with her dad who didn't (and obviously hadn't )had time for her. Instead of preaching about how people can become mean and self centered by lack of parental involvement, I painted that picture, through Staci's(the characters) interactions.

To sum my point up, if you are working on a solo show
a) if you are working in a storytelling format, stick to your story. Eliminate rants, and statements of judgment or opinion.

b) create original characters based on people you know or have interviewed. They can be and say anything that you want them to as long as they feel true to themselves.

c) To begin to create original characters, begin with people who have strong personalities who you know well. In my female students, I notice that their mothers and grandmothers are endless goldmines in terms of material. That is because these people literally "live inside" us. When you are developing original characters for the first time it is good to work initially with what we know (same with beginning writing- no coincidence)

The Great Possibility of Creating a One Person Show!

What is solo performance really about?

I was at a wedding in Maine this week and had a wonderful conversation with a professor of art who sat next to me at the reception. He asked me what I did and as always, I got ready to give a rather long explanation. Because, although performance art, storytelling and one-person shows have actually been around for a long time, it is still a marginalized art form. Many people don't exactly know what I mean when I say that I'm a director and performer who specializes in solo performance.

But this man got it right off the bat. He said "like Spalding Gray"? I said "yes, I was writing about how he was my first inspiration on my blog last week." Turns out that he had invited him in as a guest lecturer for his students many years ago after seeing him perform on Wooster Street at the Performing Garage in one of his first shows. So, we were off and running......

He asked me what I thought the value of solo performance actually was. What a great question to be asked! I said that I thought it served many purposes culturally; it gives expression to those who may be marginalized in our society, it empowers actors and performers who may be making a living doing commercials or working as bartenders; in their show they reveal their talent and their souls-beyond that they can take personal responsibility for their creativity in a way that doesn't happen if they're waiting around to be "cast," in somebody else’s movie. It is an opportunity to examine our families and personal stories thru the characters we choose to create, it's the opportunity to take a "Hero's Journey" in the Joseph Campbell sense as we reveal our own struggles and obstacles and utilize them as a path to transformation. It is a way to express the intimacy and connection we all yearn for by "speaking the unspeakable" and exploring the taboo thru our stories. It is a way to "claim oneself" with a depth rarely available onstage or in life. Well, I guess that's some of what it's been about for me...Other's may answer the question similarly or differently. But, in the end I can say one thing for certain. If one has the courage to stand on a stage, alone, and claim their life, their creativity, their characters, their stories and/ or their transformations, their life will never be the same. They will be BIGGER than they previously knew. And, with each performance they will grow in this knowing.

In the end, I would say that solo performance has no less possibility that the awakening of the soul to itself. For the performer and for the audience. Does this mean, it always happens? No. But, this is the invitation!

Wow, what an amazing journey.............

-         Tanya Taylor Rubinstein/ www.ProjectLifeStories.org

-         Solo Performance Coach

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.