Monday, December 26, 2011

Your Unique Point of View in Solo Shows

As much as we would like for it to be, creating a solo show is not a linear process. Sure, it would be nice to just sit down and write a kick ass script in a week-end, then go into production.

My first show essentially took me eleven years to write. The second show took 6 weeks. The third show took about a month.

O.K....Let's go back to the first show. First, I wrote a pretty bad 5 woman show. I didn't know what I was doing, but basically just copied the structure of "For Colored Girls...who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf"...And tried to fill it in with white girl stories, white girl from a suburban home stories, umm...white girl from a suburban, dysfunctional home stories...In other words. UGGGH.

"For Colored Girls...." is a brilliant show, and back when I was 26, I was lamenting the fact that I wasn't black, or ethnic of some kind, or "interesting"

I actually was interesting, but I didn't know it yet.

Very few events are very unique, or original. There is very little new ground to break in terms of stories, adventures, home life etc....We have all heard a million alcoholic home stories, adoption stories, love stories, abuse of all kinds stories etc..

If you are out to break another taboo in our culture, good luck with that. I think between Oprah and Jerry Springer, that has all been covered.

But do not despair! What you have, that is unique to you is known as "point of view"...It is your unique, quirky, funny, absurd, poignant, authentic lens. It is the way you see and hear and interpret the world. It is the way you bring your characters to life, it is how you choose to focus your story.

For lack of a better cliche, it is YOUR VOICE...

This is what one needs in a solo show. Your voice, your way of seeing, feeling, coping and enduring. Your way of gleaning, extracting and transforming. Your way of separating the wheat from the chafe.

Not everybody will like or appreciate your point of view. If you get mixed reviews, you are doing your job. Think of some of the most successful solo performers of our time:

Spalding Gray...those of us who loved his shows might say: brilliantly neurotic, funny, absurd and more. His detractors might say: self-indulgant and annoyingly neurotic.

Margaret Cho: outrageous, brilliant, raunchy and fearless OR disgusting, crude, crass, nasty

David Sedaris: sharp, cutting, clever and poignant  OR mean-spirited, whiny, petty.


See...it doesn't matter. Nothing will kill your show more than BORING your audience. How do you avoid this? Take a Point of View and go for it! All the strongest performers exhibit confidence and are behind themselves and have a point of view on their material. At it's best we get to experience another's adventures through their lens for an hour or so.

And like it or not, you will have a strong place from which to work...



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