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. Becuase, 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 marginilized 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 creatvity in a way that doesn't happen if they're waiting around to be "cast," in somebody elses 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 stuggles 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.............

How to Begin Writing Your One Person Show for Performance….

Have you dreamed of creating your own solo show but don’t know where to begin?

First, some basics of storytelling:

     Why do we love stories and why should I create my solo

     performance?

There are infinite forms and variations of the story of our humanity

Only one person can tell your particular story and the world needs it right now

Compelling Solo shows all have certain qualities in common:

1.    Presence (both in writing and in presenting)

2.    Authenticity (both in writing and presenting)

3.    Transformational Arc (movement in which the protagonist is faced with an obstacle or problem and goes on a journey- either internal, external or both) to face the issue that is compelling them. We are all on The Hero’s Journey every day, in every risk we take, challenge we move through, or situation we choose to meet.

4.    Right now, the world needs authentic stories as a model for how to transform ourselves and the way we relate to ourselves, each other and the planet.

5.    When you marry your life experiences with your natural creativity you will uncover your “voice”.

Here are some exercises I have my solo students do to begin their exploration of stories and themes:

1. Write a Letter of Intention(to yourself and the Universe) about your show.
2.  Tell a five minute story of an event that changed your life
3. Begin an inspiration journal and write on the following topics, allowing your own inner knowing to guide you “into” your answers:

*What are my greatest gifts?

*What is my deepest knowing?

*How will I express these qualities in my one person show?

*Begin an ongoing list of qualities that you are currently opening to transform in yourself and your life.

*Write an autobiographical 8 minute monologue(1^st person Storytelling) about an emotionally charged day or event in your life. Something that transformed you;

Choices: The best sex, the weirdest thing that ever happened to me, my first love, in my family…., saying goodbye ~ Begin with one of these topics and let your imagination run free. Speak it out loud into a mirror or a tape-recorder. Allow yourself to connect emotionally to the story as your speaking it. Tell the details and re-connect with how you felt at that time in your life. Get big with it. Allow all emotion to flow…allow your body and energy to connect to your words. Embody the story as you tell it.

Excellent…. A great start…..see how simple it can be!

“Who I am and Why Spalding Gray Matters”

Hi Everybody!

Welcome to my new blog. 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~

testing your new blog