The pitfalls to watch out for when creating a solo show (hint: self-indulgence tops the list) xoxo, Tanya
Showing posts with label solo performance. Show all posts
Showing posts with label solo performance. Show all posts
Sunday, November 18, 2012
More Solo Performance Tips from The Solo Performance Coach
The pitfalls to watch out for when creating a solo show (hint: self-indulgence tops the list) xoxo, Tanya
Saturday, November 17, 2012
Solo Performance Tips on Video
I am so excited! Like a little kid on Christmas morning. I have figured out how to create videos on my I-Phone and post them here!
The first order of business will be posting Solo Performance Tips. Yesterday I cranked out four videos in about half an hour. When you have written, directed, produced, performed and coached as many solo shows as I have, you cannot imagine how much you have to say.
Thursday, September 27, 2012
Spalding Gray video
Here is a scene from Spalding Gray's seminal work, Swimming to Cambodia. I met Spalding a few years before he did this show at the Wooster Theater Group.
I saw an earlier show at the Brattle Street Theater in Cambridge, Ma. in 1984. It changed my life. About twenty of us sat in the audience. He came onstage in his usual way. His voice and style was already established.
He spoke openly about his mother's suicide and masturbating at Walden Pond to feel closer to the Spirit of Thoureau. I was hooked. From that night on, I knew that solo performance/contemporary storytelling was my path. Who knew how far it would lead me.
I love you Spalding. You were my first and the best of the best. Your generosity onstage set the bar.
Friday, December 23, 2011
Next month I am bringing Lauren Weedman to Santa Fe. Lauren Weedman is pretty much the Holy Grail of solo performers in my opinion. I am not sure if she claims this title, but when I saw her tape of BUST (check it out online) I knew that I was in the (virtual) presence of a master of this genre.
And, I work with, produce, direct, teach and see hundreds of solo shows a year. So, when I say this, I am saying something.
She is hilarious and transcendent and her point of view is sharp, dark, absurd and deeply compassionate. Not an easy combination to pull off. Only a most brilliant mind and embodied actor can offer such an enormous range. She just got a rave in the Washington Post. She deserves it.
She is humble enough to come to our little town of Santa Fe and offer her amazing talent for not much of a financial guarantee. That is because I produce these amazing shows on a shoestring. This is a mom and pop solo show operation. As in, her husband will be running the lights and my child will be babysitting her child. And I will be picking them up from the airport. Glamorous life...this one of live theater, huh?
And yet, when one hits the ball all around the park with performers like Lauren Weedman, Ann Marie Houghtailing, Ann Randolph all of whom I have presented or am presenting this year...the experience is like not other for me. It is a moment of shining glory, shining humanity actually.
This past year, I presented Doug Vincent at the first Santa Fe Solo Performance Festival. Doug had been working on the script for his show for several years when he got in touch with me a few years ago. He and I slowly worked on it together for a few more years. He presented it at this years festival. The show, which was called "Dad" and was brilliant, poignant and hilarious. It was about his Dad's suicide when he was a freshman in college, him coming to terms with it, and the birth of his own daughter. Doug was tender, warm, funny as hell and outrageous. As I watched him simultaneously claim the story, release it, and transform it...walking it out like a shaman in front of the tribe of audience, I could not stop crying.
The best solo shows will do that to you. You will not be able to stop crying, or laughing, or both simultaneously, or getting goosebumps. Solo performance is not meant as an intellectual exercise; leave that for the ministers and politicians. It is not meant to be self indulgent though many inexperienced solo performers can fall into that trap. One has to walk through a mine field of the Self to find the gold. But when mined, it is the most brilliant gold on the planet.
This is why I do the work I do. This is why I keep exploring it, teaching it and offering it. It has given me some of the richest moments of my life....Happy Holidays Friends!
And, I work with, produce, direct, teach and see hundreds of solo shows a year. So, when I say this, I am saying something.
She is hilarious and transcendent and her point of view is sharp, dark, absurd and deeply compassionate. Not an easy combination to pull off. Only a most brilliant mind and embodied actor can offer such an enormous range. She just got a rave in the Washington Post. She deserves it.
She is humble enough to come to our little town of Santa Fe and offer her amazing talent for not much of a financial guarantee. That is because I produce these amazing shows on a shoestring. This is a mom and pop solo show operation. As in, her husband will be running the lights and my child will be babysitting her child. And I will be picking them up from the airport. Glamorous life...this one of live theater, huh?
And yet, when one hits the ball all around the park with performers like Lauren Weedman, Ann Marie Houghtailing, Ann Randolph all of whom I have presented or am presenting this year...the experience is like not other for me. It is a moment of shining glory, shining humanity actually.
This past year, I presented Doug Vincent at the first Santa Fe Solo Performance Festival. Doug had been working on the script for his show for several years when he got in touch with me a few years ago. He and I slowly worked on it together for a few more years. He presented it at this years festival. The show, which was called "Dad" and was brilliant, poignant and hilarious. It was about his Dad's suicide when he was a freshman in college, him coming to terms with it, and the birth of his own daughter. Doug was tender, warm, funny as hell and outrageous. As I watched him simultaneously claim the story, release it, and transform it...walking it out like a shaman in front of the tribe of audience, I could not stop crying.
The best solo shows will do that to you. You will not be able to stop crying, or laughing, or both simultaneously, or getting goosebumps. Solo performance is not meant as an intellectual exercise; leave that for the ministers and politicians. It is not meant to be self indulgent though many inexperienced solo performers can fall into that trap. One has to walk through a mine field of the Self to find the gold. But when mined, it is the most brilliant gold on the planet.
This is why I do the work I do. This is why I keep exploring it, teaching it and offering it. It has given me some of the richest moments of my life....Happy Holidays Friends!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)