Why a Solo Show is Great for Business (even if you're not an actor!)

People come to me to do one person shows for many diverse reasons. I notice that different kinds of people come to me in waves.


Because I have been doing this work for so long, I have had waves of people doing solo shows for various reasons.

In the beginning and because of my own training I suppose, I almost got actors exclusively as clients. And there are still many many actors who have become aware of the fact that solo performance is an empowering way to showcase ones' talents. This is one of the reasons why Fringe Festivals and Solo Performance festivals are popping up all over the globe. Solo Performance IS the new paradigm of theater and the fastest growing in the world.

Because I live in Santa Fe, not NYC, LA or San Francisco , I get a unique cross-section of non-actors who are driven by alternative reasons for wanting to find a specific and powerful expression for creating and performing a show. Many are woman who want to feel their voice is being heard in a deep and creative way in the world.

In the last ten years I have worked with a shaman who wanted to express her spiritual journey, a former sex worker who was now a therapist, many business people and several cultural creatives doing interesting projects in alternative markets.

When people tell an interesting and powerful story in this forum, huge amounts of energy get stirred up. It's why I tell people it is a shamanic process. You literally cannot offer a show onstage to a community of people and not change and be changed.

It is a great way for like-minded people and people who can benefit from your business services to find their way to you.

I must say that particularly for people who do work with people; therapists, teachers, healers of one kind or another..the balance of sharing one's own story onstage attracts business.

It is a new paradigm. In a way, it is exactly how my path has played out. From solo performer, to teacher/facilitator to healer/director. It has all been how my brand has been formed. Not in a contrived way, but in a very organic way.

Solo shows are a wonderful, expressive and fun way to connect with your natural clients. It is putting yourself out there in a HUGE way.

And so the form continues to morph and expand....


Happy Spring to All! Love, Tanya

My Cousin Rusty...a monologue by Tanya

www.TheSoloPerformanceCoach.com

This is a show I wrote and performed in ten years ago! Can't believe it's been so long. The show was called "Pregnant Pause" and this monologue was about a family member and his reaction to his girlfriend's pregnancy.

What Are You Waiting For? Do Your Solo Show Now!

At least three times a month, I get a call from somebody who is interested in working with me on a one person show. More often than not they start out the conversation by saying something along the lines of " I've been working on my show for years but cannot seem to pull it together" or "I've been thinking about doing this show FOREVER, but have no idea where to begin"

I totally relate to this. In 1984 I knew in my bones that I would do a solo show. But I had no idea where to begin. My path was circuitous. I dreamt about doing a solo show, but kept putting it off. My performance career had become boring to me despite the fact that I continued to be cast in many shows. The material of the plays themselves were just not interesting to me. They felt stale and contrived. I longed to use all of me; my voice, my concerns, my passions, my humor, my life and my ability to perform to create something unique that felt truly "my own" as an artist. At the time I did not know this consciously, but I wanted to expand and take up more space I wanted to take my place in my life as well as on the stage.

In 1992, I began journaling daily. Then I joined a few writing groups. "The Artist's Way" was a brand new book at the time. Morning Pages and Artist Dates became part of my life. Tentatively, I was finding my writing voice. I always was confident in my acting ability, but did not know how I would find a way to write what I really wanted to express.

Slowly at first I eked out the words. I wrote and wrote and began to uncover nuggets of gold. Finally, an experience arrived that matched my insides in terms of what I really wanted to say.

And so, after many years of living with a burning and haunting desire to do a solo show, I wrote and performed "Honeymoon in India"


One of the reasons I do the work I do is to assist people in short circuiting the time on this process. By quite a bit. We work together in my studio, and within four days, you have the raw material for your show.

All of my own experiences with this form are grist for the mill. At this point I have worked on over one hundred solo shows. I'm able to take you straight to the heart of your story. The most essential story. The one you have needed to tell for your entire life.

There is no need to wait. If the strong desire is inside of you to write and perform a solo show, I can guarantee you that it will not go away. No matter how hard you try to get it out of your mind. It will remain and grow bigger. And the longer you put it off, the more it will drive your crazy!

Because your SOUL knows. It knows what it knows. And if you were meant to take this journey, just do it.

Your Soul will thank you and you will be able to rest at night without thoughts of your undone show swirling in your brain.

Best of all, your life will expand. Because when you stand up on that stage and take up that much space, power and energy, things really won't ever be the same.

Don't believe me? Check out one of my favorite solo performers, John Legizamo in the video above. Wouldn't you like to be that engaged? That alive?

Yes, it is possible.

Your First Show...Where do I begin?

I get a lot of phone calls from people who want to do their first show. Very frequently, people tell me    "I've wanted to do a show for (ever!) 5 years or 10 years or for as long as I can remember but I have never known where to begin."

Before I did "Honeymoon in India" (Top 10 Shows of the Year, 1995, Santa Fe Reporter) I carried that longing with me for eleven years. From the time I saw my first show, that longing was intense. But, it is such an undertaking. And generally one's first solo show (unless one is already a t.v. star and someone else will do the producing/promoting for you) involves writing, performing and producing/promoting. This can all be overwhelming and daunting.

So where do you begin. Just to get the energy really moving. Well, to begin with I think that on a creative level, writing, writing and more writing is a great place to begin. When I got on that journey toward my first show, I had almost no comfort level as a writer. Especially writing for the stage. I began working with 2 books that shifted the course of my life. One was "Writing Down the Bones" by Natalie Goldberg. The other was "The Artists Way" by Julia Cameron. This was 21 years ago and I had just moved to New Mexico. Both of these writers live in Santa Fe, but their work scopes way beyond "local" into the Universal. Basically, Julia gave me permission to claim myself as an artist and Natalie taught me how to write in a way that was true and authentic to me. In a way, her work offered  me my "Voice"

This is essential when working on a show and it must be uncovered/discovered  either before the process or during it to have something that is worthy of being put up onstage. Every artist who is creating original material that involves writing, must come to know and rely upon the voice that is uniquely their own.


Then I would suggest seeing/reading as many solo shows as possible. There are certain structures that "work", certain rules that "work"....just like in any other art form. And one can only be free to break the rules once one knows what works. Specificity works in my experience, both in the writing and performing of a piece. Will you incorporate characters in your show to bring the piece alive? How do you become embodied in the work? What is your point of view overall for the piece. Also, a show must have movement, just like dance or a piece of music to take the audience on a journey. What journey are you taking them on? Is it internal, external or both? What is the moment of reckoning? Is there a transformational element in the individual characters or the overall story.

Once you become comfortable in your voice, these are the kinds of questions you can begin to pose for yourself in your first draft.

After this you will need a coach/director and to put together a production plan. As I am heading out for the evening and I don't want to overwhelm you, I will cover these issues in my next post or two.

In the meantime, write, write, write. On paper, on the computer or by playing around on a tape recorder. But getting the stories out, is the place to begin.

The "Business" of Acting and Finding YOUR own way..

This week-end my fourteen year old daughter Chloe was in NYC for a teen Broadway Intensive workshop. There were days scheduled with casting directors, acting teachers, vocal coaches, dance instructors and even a Master Class with some of the Broadway cast of "STOMP"She attended with her best friend since kindergarten, who is a singer.

Both girls study at the New Mexico School for the Arts high school. Chloe in acting and Sam in singing. NYC was different. Chloe reported experiences with cutthroat stage mothers, casting directors who were mostly concerned about "type" over originality and that intense vibe that one only gets to experience in NYC studios.

The experience was good for Chloe. She has more information on which to base her choices of what kind of actor she wants to be, what kind of path she wants to forge. And the various costs of various paths...Because we all pay in one way or another for our choices.

Her whole experience made me reflect on my own training, my own dreams of youth and how some of them played and some of them did not. And how some of them changed.

When I saw Meryl Streep in the t.v movie "The Holocaust" when I too was 14, I decided that I wanted to be an actor. Her performance rocked me to the core of my humanity. I asked my mother to sign me up for acting lessons in the DC suburbs which she did.

My first teachers were wonderful. I felt "seen" and "whole" for the first time in my life as I embarked upon the deep emotional journey of an actor. I thrived playing in the deep end of the ocean and my happiest times were spent in rehearsals for shows in a darkened theater. I instantly loved Shakespeare, Albee, Williams, O'Neal..I was cast in show after show and attended a summer camp for the Arts during high school at Goucher Collge where I studied with a truly amazing teacher, Pat Vitalglian.

My experiences in college was mixed in terms of teachers. I had a great one, Matthew Vakey at Carnegie Mellon and another great, Ron Jenkins at Emerson. Both continued to instill my love of the art. Both were deeply supportive in terms of developing my craft.

But the ugly shadow of competitive, one size fits all acting had also begun to creep in. At Carnegie Mellon, I had a female teacher who "went after" all the Freshman and Sophmore girls who were vulnerable in any way. She told one girl, Diana that she couldn't stand the sight of her and to get out of her classroom until she lost some weight. She told another girl that she would never work because of the size of her nose.

And one day, she pulled me aside and said that I was too unattractive to be an ingenue and too pretty to be a character actor. And so that at 18, I might as well give up on a career now. Because there was not a "place" for me. And I did give up for a while. Her words penetrated my deepest fears and deepest wounds. I began to get suicidally depressed. By summer I decided that I wasn't going back to school the next year. I went to NYC for a year and began to study with the late, great Bill Hickey at HB Studios. Bill confided at me that he would never teach at any of "the League' drama schools because they were all this way when I told him the story. I got into an abusive relationship to validate my worth and attractiveness.

I was running my life based on  the thought that I was not good enough to have my dream even though I knew that I was talented as an actor. The "business" of acting already felt brutal to me and I had barely begun.

Then I decided to go back to school in Boston.And I met Spalding Gray...a man who was creating his shows and touring with them. A man who had stepped entirely out of the system. From the moment I walked out of the theater after seeing him, I knew what my new dream was. To create and perform solo shows. In time the dream also included helping others create.

Deb Margolin, an early and well known solo performer who also teaches at Yale called solo performance "Outsiders Theater'. I agree with her wholeheartedly. No matter how the culture sees us, those of us who are drawn to solo theater, in some way, identify as outsiders.

I do not know what my daughter's path will be. An insiders path or an outsiders. Or an in-between. As artists, we all find our own way. And pain and failures along the journey can even lead to our deeper calling. That is what happened with me.

I met some amazing people and just kept following an inner voice over an outer voice. Isn't that what outsiders are here to do?

You can have your art. You can have your career. Do it the way you want to.