The Show That Went On: How It All Turned Out
The theme of this show was “First Times,” so each of us talked about a first experience: first girlfriend, first trip to Europe, first road trip, first Communion. I’d originally pitched mine as the story of doing my first yoga headstand. After a while, though, the first headstand story became intertwined with another first time story: that of losing my job. How did I put them together? I hope you’ll listen and find out.
The Show Must Go On #8: On With The Show
True-life storytelling, I’ve come to see, is actually terrifying for an introvert writer. It’s what happens when all the trappings, the crutches, and the podiums have been taken away–when the distance between the teller and the listener is no more than a cafe table’s breadth away.
The Show Must Go On #7: A Deep and Generous Listening
You can take a girl out of academia, but you can’t quite take the academia out of the girl. So I’ve been reflecting on what I’ve learned from this storytelling show process so far. And I know there will be more after the show itself.
The Show Must Go On #6: The Albatross
After working through issues of structure, I’ve got my first headstand story pared down to several bullet events, made into bullet points, and then the takeaway, or the insight and conclusion. I’ve got my first line, and I like it: ‘Last year, I discovered how NOT to take yoga classes: like a straight-A student.”
The Show Must Go On #5: Behind the Scenes (An Interview With My Producers)
I’ve been preparing to perform in Drunken Telegraph: From Living Plank to Pine Tree, a storytelling show in Tacoma. It’s been a great adventure to think about taking my work from page to stage. For this week’s post, I’ve got an intermission post of sorts, or—to mix my theater metaphors—a behind-the-scenes interview with the show’s co-producers, Megan Sukys and Tad Monroe.
The Show Must Go On, Part 4: Off the Page
My plan was to write a draft of the story, and then cut and adapt the scenes. But all things work together for good, at least in this case. Before I spiral much further into angst or research or other forms of writerly avoidance and overthink-age, my producer asked if we could meet to run through the story and workshop it.
The Show Must Go On, Part 3: The Structure and The Stakes
One piece of my self-assigned homework last week was to look at more storytelling guidelines, so I did. This set of storytelling tips on The Moth, hit me hard, especially this part: the stakes of the story need to be clear to you, and to the audience. Good news, then. Just by writing last week’s post, I figured out another piece of of why this story’s been tricky. I hadn’t identified the stakes of the story yet. Bad news: I didn’t know what the stakes were yet.
The Show Must Go On, Part 2: The Story We Tell Ourselves
I’ve signed up to do a storytelling show, though I’m not a natural storyteller. I pitched my story because being in a show sounds like fun. Because oral storytelling is a skill that I want to learn as a writer. Because I used to be a theater kid. And because as much as being in front of an audience terrifies me, I still love to perform. Then, predictably, stage fright sets in.
The Show Must Go On
In about eight weeks, I’ll be in a storytelling show, down here in Tacoma. And having signed up for this show, I am now cursed (or blessed) with abundant irony. I am terrified that I don’t know how to tell a story.
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