Edinburgh Bound!

This post is from All For One’s Literary and Communications Director, Kati Frazier.

In the month of August, the entire staff of All For One is heading to Edinburgh. For our Executive director, it’s a month long adventure as Naked In Alaska by Valerie Hager (which he directed) will be in the prestigious festival. For myself and our General Manager Corinne Woods, it’s a two-week excursion full of days jam-packed with solo shows. Our Artistic Director Michael Wolk is heading out as well, leading the charge as we see both American and international shows in the Edinburgh Fringe.

For me, this trip is something special. When I first graduated college I started building my resume self-producing in my local fringe festival in Greensboro, North Carolina. I learned a lot of what I know about marketing and producing from trial and error in those days. Now, I’m taking a theatrical career that started with that small fringe consisting of about 8 shows in the same venue, to scouting and networking at the Edinburgh Fringe with a show catalog the size of a phonebook.

On top of what this means for me professionally, this trip is a big milestone for me personally. I grew up in North Carolina. My mother was a teacher’s assistant. My father worked for the city. We never had much money, and our biggest vacation was a three day trip to Disney; we drove the whole way and brought our own microwave so we could make our own meals in our budget hotel. My parents had never been to New York until they visited me here last year, and my mother has still never been on an airplane. With all that in mind, it’s likely no surprise that I’ve never left the country.

I’ve been eagerly anticipating this trip to Edinburgh most of the year. The smile on my face in my brand new passport photo is completely sincere and uncontrollable. It’s absolutely perfect that my first trip out of the country is to the Edinburgh Fringe. It’s a theatrical pilgrimage of sorts, and I couldn’t be more thrilled and thankful to be representing All For One when I go abroad.

Keep your eyes on our blog in the month of August. We’ll all be sharing our experiences as we explore and experience the Edinburgh Fringe, and meet a wealth of solo performers from all corners of the world.

Take Your Solo Show To The Next Level

This blog post is by All For One’s Executive Director Scott Wesley Slavin.

Creating solo theater began as a hobby. My girlfriend at the time (now wife) Valerie Hager had just moved into my apartment in L.A. and had been invited to perform for the second year in a row in The Why Factor, an annual showcase of Los Angeles women’s voices.

The year before she had performed Autumn Leaves, a piece whose one character was a composite of many of the women Valerie had worked with in strip clubs during the previous ten years. For her new show, she wanted to tell a different story: about losing her stepfather Karl to an unexpected, early death from a drug-induced heart attack.

Valerie Hager

Sunshiny Days premiered at The Why Factor in 2007 and took a sweeping look at the impact Karl had on Valerie’s life—much of it magical—without turning away from the addictions that lead to his early death and the ruins it left his family in. At the opening performance, Valerie’s mother sat in the first row.

This was my first experience of the power of theater to transform lives. I had known it up to that point as entertainment—or worse, as “culture.” I had my fill of snooze-worthy experiences watching Marcel Marceau, Wagner, and safe, interminably boring productions of Shakesepeare—theater that my family would have nothing to say about afterward except, “Where are we going for dinner?” I hadn’t known theater where real families actually cried and healed.

Valerie and I began working on more solo shows and solo theater passed from being a hobby into a vocation. We began submitting to festivals, implementing marketing strategies, hiring partners, creating budgets, crowdfunding, touring—in short, we started professionally producing.

We learned very quickly that, if we consider ourselves hobbyists, New York City offers an abundance of opportunities to perform our work for little or no cost. Virtually every neighborhood has a monthly variety-style show perpetually on the hunt for new, free, and reliable talent.

However, if we consider ourselves professionals—independent theater makers—the city’s landscape rapidly changes. Those many opportunities to perform for 10 minutes are rarely more than a starting point. To move forward in our work, then, we must produce. We must understand what our goals are, what our show needs next, create a business plan, and find the funding to make this all happen.

produce to win-2This month we have created two exceptional workshops for our community on producing solo theater professionally and successfully: Produce to Win and Think Bigger Than Press. I encourage everyone involved in theater to enroll in these workshops. And here’s why:

In Produce to Win, Tony-award winning producer Jane Dubin will lead you step-by-step through her time-tested “Principles of Producing” that she’s used to award-winning effect both on Broadway and with independent solo theater. Then, All For One’s Corinne Woods will lead you through key concepts and approaches for effective production budgeting and understanding production contracts—whether you’re in a festival or other run. Finally, All For One Board Member Peter Breger, Esq., will moderate a Q&A for all students to get their producing questions answered—including how to legally protect yourself and your work.

There is not another workshop that brings this kind of talent and experience together anywhere in the city—I’ve looked. If you are heading into a festival or run this summer or fall, I’d consider it essential.

Untitled-1Next, Aizzah Fatima and Valerie Hager’s Think Bigger Than Press will give you festival-tested audience-building strategies they’ve developed over a half-dozen years self-producing here and abroad. One of the most common mistakes artists make is placing much of their effort in getting traditional publicity. In reality some of the biggest gains come from grassroots efforts and employing smart strategies for creating passionate advocates on the staff of festivals, venues, and nonprofit organizations who already work with your show’s target audience. Aizzah and Valerie have gathered a goldmine of templates, approaches, and contact information to share with you so that you can give your next production a sold-out house and powerful word-of-mouth.

In the end, I can’t answer why you are investing your life into solo theater, but I can answer why I am: because solo theater heals—it heals us as creators and heals others as they get the privilege of watching their own dramas unfold through the courageous stories we tell. I believe it’s important for the work we create to reach as large an audience as possible; as professionals, we create work to share it. As we embrace our roles as professional self-producers, we empower ourselves and our stories to make a lasting difference in the lives of others. We repair the torn fabric of our world.

Thank You All For One!

After six amazing months it is time to say goodbye to All For One, the office that became a second home, and the people who became great co-workers and friends. This was an internship I will never forget and with people who made working and returning each day a complete pleasure.

It has been an incredible journey as I read countless plays and had the opportunity to meet and integrate with the wonderful solo community! Having the chance to see each WIP move from submission to the stage, and each salon showcase the many other solo performers putting their work to new audiences.

AFO is unlike many other offices as it teaches, nurtures, and allows for you to be as nerdy, and out there while working. I have gained so much from learning about the literary side of submissions, keeping a theatrical community connected through salons and our website, and about myself as a co-worker. The AFO team always pushed this growth and allowed for me to be involved in every aspect of it’s work.

Thank you so much AFO, I’ll miss you guys!

Ariana Sholette, Literary Intern

Meet Billy Scaltsas!

He’s the new development intern here at All For One. So you could get to know Billy, we asked him a few questions. . .

What’s your name?

Billy Scaltsas

What did you study in college?

Public Relations, Sociology

Why did you want to go into theatre?

It’s one of the things I’ve always loved most, and playing a small part in it each day is exciting.

Do you have a favorite solo show?

Whoopi Goldberg: Back to Broadway

If you could travel back in time to see any show, ever, in all of history, what would it be?

Cher in Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean

If traveling back in time to see that show irreparably altered history, would it be worth it?

Absolutely

When you were 5, what did you want to be when you grew up?

Actor

What about now?

Anything that makes me happy at that given moment

If you were a tree, what kind of tree would you be?

Weeping Willow

Tell us a joke:

“I laugh in the face of danger. Then I hide until it goes away” – Sarah Michelle Gellar, Buffy

In the event of a zombie apocalypse, what 3 items in the AFO office do you think would be most important for your survival?

I’ll get back to you on that one :)

If you were to write a solo show about your life, what would be the title?

“Can I Have a Mimosa While I Wait?”

What are you looking forward to the most in your time with AFO?

The people.

Well! That’s everything you could possibly need to know about Billy! Make sure you say hello to him next time you’re at a salon or other AFO event. We promise he doesn’t bite.

Introducing Our Collaborators Panel Series

This blog post is from All For One Executive Director, Scott Slavin

 “From my first day on the job in theater, I understood in a visceral way that no man is an island in this business. A successful show effectively fuses the talents of a vast cast of characters, onstage and behind the scenes. And yet the writers, actors, musicians, designers, crew members and managers involved in a show often have competing interests, needs and opinions about how a production should come together. To add further complication, all of these parties have their creative reputations riding on the outcome of the final product. This means [in solo theater] that the leadership of the [writer/performer] is critical to unite [collaborators] behind a single set of artistic decisions. Everything rides on this person’s ability to transform a group of artists with strong opinions into a tight-knit community dedicated to one another and to the work. It is a Herculean task — and one that [you can] handle with tremendous grace and savvy.”

– Playwright Christa Avampato

“The truth is, in collaboration you’re only as good as the people you’re working with.”

– Theater Director and Choreographer Martha Clarke

director panel-slideshowIn the world of theater, collaboration is essential to success. Yet how do solo theater artists identify what collaborators their show needs, connect with these professionals at the most appropriate stages of their show’s development, and properly evaluate who might be the best fit for their production’s highest success?

We receive inquiries from our community regularly on all these fronts. So, we have gone a step further and created a brand new series of free panels for our solo theater community: The Collaborators Panel Series.

These panels will roll-out over the remainder of the year and will introduce you to mid-career professionals who can speak from experience on what truly works in terms of collaborations and why, as well as trends they’re observing in the field.

A few specific topics that each panel will cover:

The functions of the collaborator and their key contributions to your show

Insight into their perspectives, approaches, and artistic goals

Ideal timelines for when the collaboration is most appropriate

Essential research, interviewing, and contracting procedures for a successful and mutually rewarding collaboration

Criteria for evaluating which candidate is actually most likely to help you achieve the show you truly want to deliver

Expectations that are appropriate and inappropriate to have of the collaboration—and the best ways to put these on the table and discuss early on in the process

At the end of each panel there will be ample opportunity for a public Q&A (so all your burning questions get answered), followed by free time for casual one-on-one introductions, discussions, and enjoying fellowship with other artists.

The Series is kicking off on June 30th with a focus on Solo Theater Directors. We’ve assembled an astounding panel of award-winning talent covering the gamut of solo theater styles, and I’m incredibly proud to be bringing them to you. Though it’s a free event, space is limited, so please RSVP here.

Following our Solo Theater Directors panel, we will be presenting panels to cover five other key collaborators in solo theater:

Lighting, Sound, and Projection Designers (July)

Writing Coaches & Dramaturgs (September)

Acting, Movement, & Voice Coaches (October)

Producers (November)

Marketers, Advertisers, and Publicists (December)

By providing these free panels, All For One is stepping up in our mission to support solo theater artists in continuing with and further enriching their work, mastering the skills to tell their most meaningful stories, and forging healthy, collaborative partnerships that draw out each person’s greatest power and potential.

Together we can break into new frontiers. We can build exponentially more fellowship in a business that thrives on and longs for it. We can succeed in our work at levels we may not have envisioned possible—before our lives were graced by such talented and visionary collaborators.

I’m looking forward to sharing these panels with you, learning alongside you, and celebrating the incredible resources we have in this community to help solo theater work soar. Come participate in our Series. Ignite your show.

NOTE TO ALL: If you have solo theater educational needs and questions that you’d like us to answer—in this Collaborators Series or through our ongoing workshops and classes—please contact us! We want to hear from you and address the community’s needs as they arise, so you can continue moving forward.

Next In Our Works-In-Progress Series

BURNING

Written and Performed by Heather Harpham

Directed by Cassie Tunick

Monday June 9th at 7:00pm

At Theatrelab

357 W 36th St, 3rd floor (between 8th and 9th ave)

BURNING is a highly kinetic, semi-comic romp through the absurd landscapes of climate change where comedy, tragedy, activism and cautious optimism collide.

Heather_Harpham_Burning_1Using movement, song, monologue and otherworldly images — this solo play pings between Hurricane Sandy, our obsession with apocalyptic movies, NPR’s narcoleptic effect, and the million trivial tasks that preoccupy us while Rome burns. Faced with a winnowing polar ice cap and obdurate political leaders, BURNING asks the uncomfortable question: If we can’t Google, Tweet, Skype or buy our way out of this particular fix, what happens next?

Ultimately, BURNING invites audiences to climb into fraying hammock and drift down into a dream deep enough, perhaps, to re-envision the way people inhabit the planet.

A reception will follow the performance with wine available for a small donation.

 About The Writer/Performer

Heather Harpham is a writer and performer of physical theater, originally from northern California. Her solo plays and theatrical collaborations have been presented nationally and internationally, including in Nepal at the Kathmandu International Theater Festival and in Estonia at the Notafe Festival. Her previous solo work, Happiness, was presented by the inaugural All For One Festival in 2011. She has performed at DTW, Joyce SoHo, Dixon Place, 3LD Art & Technology Center, and many other NYC venues. Together with Cassie Tunick and Danny Tunick, Harpham is part of the physical theater ensemble Second Nature, whose work is regularly produced in NYC by Triskelion Arts Center and Roulette, both in Brooklyn.

Harpham has published in MORE Magazine, received the Brenda Ueland Prose prize for her fiction writing, a grant from the Barbara Deming Memorial Fund, and was a 2009 nominee for a New York Innovative Theater Award for her ensemble work with Company SoGoNo. She has taught master classes in physical theater and improvisation at colleges, universities and conservatory programs throughout the US, including The Neighborhood Playhouse, Muhlenberg College, The Pratt Institute and Sarah Lawrence College. She is currently adjunct faculty at Manhattanville College and at SUNY Purchase.

www.heatherharpham.com

About The Director

Cassie Tunick is a performer, writer, director, and teacher. Her physical improvisations have been seen on stages across the US and in Germany, France, Holland, and Estonia. Theatrical collaborators include the Butoh troupe inkBoat, experimental music-theater group Reflex Ensemble, video artist David Finkelstein, poet Katie Yates, and most recently Abby Bender. She is a founding member of the company Second Nature, performing regularly with Danny Tunick and Heather Harpham (Cassie and Heather’s long-standing collaborative relationship spans 37 years). In New York her work has been presented at Triskelion Arts, Danspace at St. Mark’s Church, Ontological Theater, Brooklyn Museum, Irondale Center, Dixon Place, Movement Research, and Roulette. She is a Senior Teacher of Ruth Zaporah’s Action Theater, devoting herself to the study and development of Action Theater for the last 25 years. She holds an MFA in Writing and Poetics from Naropa Institute and recently finished editing a book on improvisation by Ruth Zaporah due out in September from Random House. She is thrilled to be involved with Burning in a directorial capacity. www.cassietunick.com

New work at our May salon!

We’ve been pumping up our salons this year, and in April it’s getting even better!

Get Your Tickets now!

The Performers

AFO Alum Heather Harpham is back! She’ll be performing her new show BURNING in our Works-In-Progress series next month, and she’s giving a sneak peek of this new show at our salon! Also, Antonia Lassar just returned from her West Coast living room tour of GOD BOX, she’ll be performing an excerpt from a new work about the healing power of comedy. We’ve also got Joseph Gallo testing out his new show on fatherhood. And we’re rounding it out with Siobhan O’Loughlin, whose show NATURAL NOVICE will be in Planet Connections!

The Prizes

Our first raffle was a huge hit, and we’re keeping it going with even more prizes! On the docket we’ve got Two Tickets to MTC’s new solo show THE LION, and we’ve got Two Tickets to the New York Neo-Futurists TOO MUCHLIGHT MAKES THE BABY GO BLIND.  Or if you’re looking to win something a little more practical how free registration to any of our one-day classes

And the night goes on…

After the performances and raffle and networking, the doors of The COW will eventually close. But the party doesn’t have to stop there! We’ll be heading to Donnybrook after the salon for drinks and to keep the conversation going.

Tickets?

Some of you might be surprised to see a ticket price on the salon. Opening up our salons to a bigger audience, and our full community means additional costs. The modest ticket price makes it possible for us to keep the salon going and to keep bringing you the best performers, prizes, and an evening of networking, fun (and did we mention cheap drinks?)

We can’t wait to see you all at the salon! If you buy your tickets in advance they’re only $8!

Gioia De Cari talks about touring

All For One Executive Director Scott Wesley Slavin sat down with Gioia De Cari to talk about solo show marketing, touring and her upcoming course with All For One.

Scott Wesley Slavin: You’ve said you come to solo show touring from a different point of view. What do you mean by that?

Gioia De Cari: When I started touring, it helped me to look at the big picture: performing arts touring. I saw there were all these small arts organizations—theaters, dance companies, musical ensembles—out there touring, and I thought, “How am I different from that? How is what I’m doing the same? How can I go in that direction and have a show that’s as professional and tours like any of these other sorts of performances?” Because being a solo show doesn’t mean it’s completely different. And this was a very fruitful point of view for me.

SS: You won Best Solo Show at FringeNYC 2009. What was the process for deciding to tour Truth Values and package it for a touring market?

GDC: It happened faster than I had expected! I was already booked to do a regional premiere of Truth Values when I was at FringeNYC. So it was like, “Hello, let’s tour!” I really didn’t know what I was doing at the time. Before the Fringe, I had reached out to the M.I.T. Alumni Club to see if they’d be interested in my show. Sure enough, they came as a group and packed the place—and were the greatest audience. That really told me something about what kind of community would be especially interested in my work, and I thought, “How do I put it in front of more of them?” So I looked for opportunities in theaters to do that, and particularly those near M.I.T. I found what I thought was an especially good opportunity, tried to learn all about that theater—who worked there, what kind of work they did. I went to Boston to see their work and meet their staff. I talked to the Artistic Director. One thing led to another, and they booked the show for a regional premiere right after FringeNYC.

SS: So on the heels of your FringeNYC success you had a regional run in Boston. What was the takeaway from that production?

GDC: That was absolutely amazing, because the whole thing sold-out. Just [snaps fingers] sold-out! They added a week—it was all they had left in their schedule to add—and that sold-out too. When I had approached the theater, I had thought, “This is a good one because that community is going to really like this and tell their friends to come.” And they sure did. It’s as simple as that. I thought, “Where will tickets sell? They’ll sell in this town.” That was a big takeaway. Also the theater had really good PR. They had a great publicist. It was a great help to what I was doing.

SS: When you were writing your show, how much were you visualizing or intending it to be a vehicle that would have now a 5-year life of successful touring?

GDC: I didn’t have any idea at all that it would get past Off-Off Broadway. I really was all about the art. I’d read about the kind of enterprise where you’re trying to create for the sake of selling it to someone. I know there are people who do that brilliantly. But that’s not the way I was drawn to the work. I was just, “How can I create the very best show I can?

SS: After FringeNYC and these two successful regional bookings, what was the process for identifying the next steps for the show?

GDC: The first bookings led to other bookings. So people who came to see it would talk to me after and say, “I would love to have this at my university because it could be a great conversation starter for us. We’re having all these issues with women and men in science and math fields.” And I’d say, “OK! Sounds great!

SS: And how did you go from that to actually making it happen?

GDC: There was already a lot of good word of mouth. People would talk to me after the show, give me their card and say, “Gioia, could I talk to you about this?” And I would follow up. I would keep track and follow up on every single thing. It was a lot of follow up.

SS: In the beginning, were producers reaching out to you or were you reaching out to them for more opportunities?

GDC: Both. I always tried to arrange it so I wouldn’t leave it to chance. So if I was going to be performing—and this is a good recommendation for anyone already touring—I would make sure to reach out and at least try to get certain key people in the room. I always do that. I send them an invitation and follow up, whether or not they come.

SS: At what point did you have a clear idea of whom your target market is so that you knew who to get into the room?

GDC: I have to confess: for a long time—because I was first at MIT and then at FIT—I was really into image and branding. I was fascinated, even obsessed, by branding. I read and read about it. Listened to podcasts about it. I was crazy about it. And I started thinking, “You know my show could be branded. How would that work?” And I started doing branding exercises with it and discovering, “Oh, I think this marketing may be good.” It was just fun for me. It helped me to put my finger on the target market before I had even put Truth Values in front of them. Now I understand my target market better. Now I know who my community is, and who makes the most sense as far as my marketing time.

SS: How have you learned to nurture relationships throughout the journey of your show, so your following is loyal and continues to increase?

GDC: I think one old-school thing that’s helpful is e-blasts. E-blasts are still more effective than even Facebook. Keep adding people to that list, keeping in touch, making sure everything you mail is interesting, captivating, has good content that people are going be interested in and click on and read and watch. And do that on a regular basis. That’s the very best thing of all, I think, to grow a following.

SS: As more people are becoming savvy about technology, do you see it becoming increasingly saturated or competitive to differentiate yourself in the marketplace?

GDC: I’ve seen technology change, but I also do a lot of sales of tours on the old-fashioned telephone. You nurture a thing, you’ll have a nibble from someone—it’ll probably take more than one nibble. You say, “Hey, you are interested. Would you like to talk further about that?” You say, “We’re going to be in your area at such and such a time.” And the best way to do it is on a call. It’s sales, right? It’s the relationship. It’s better on the phone. Or Skype. Or in person, over a drink, is even better—because it’s about building a relationship. But I’m not all about old-school style only. Social media is a great help for building relationships, too, especially if you use it in certain non-standard ways with your booking goals in mind.

SS: What excites you most about teaching this workshop?

GDC: When I started out, I didn’t really know where to turn. There weren’t a whole lot of options for places to get help every step of the way. But now I’ve done it, and I can be there for my students, support them. I think back to what it was like in the beginning for me. I’d think, “Well, I guess I better talk to so-and-so about this, I think they might know… And then I’ll talk to so-and-so about that…” Now I have the whole picture. I can truly inform in many ways about touring, booking, selling, building a following, branding, and marketing—all of it. I’ve been there, done that. I want to be of service in this way.

Take Your Story To The World

 From AFO Managing Director, Scott Slavin

Recently I watched Half the Sky, a documentary that looks at the oppression of women worldwide and profiles individuals dedicating their lives to helping women heal from the brutal experiences they’ve had and re-write the limiting stories their cultures have told them about a woman’s value.

Half the Sky cuts straight to the heart and inspires action. The individuals it profiles demonstrate incredible heroism in the face of violence and death so they can empower others. In doing so, they are awakening communities and shaking the status quo to its core.

I couldn’t stop feeling outraged, humbled, and inspired while watching Half the Sky. Everywhere, these women are using individual stories as catalysts to help others feel seen and encourage them to speak out and act.

I couldn’t help connecting the dots to our community of solo theater artists and storytellers. And the dots ended at this: you need to get your show out there! Get it seen and heard by those who need to experience it. It’s not about you anymore; it’s about creating a more just and open society. It’s about using what time you have to be an agent of change–one audience member at a time.

One particular scene in Half the Sky brought this home for me like no other. Somaly Mam–founder of the Somaly Mam Foundation through which she rescues and provides safety and opportunities to girls in Cambodia who have been sex trafficked, as she herself was–sits on the floor among her girls. “It’s often hard,” Nic Kristof tells us in voiceover, “for these girls to put their pasts into words–”

“Who’s brave enough to come up and sing their song?” Somaly Mam asks them. “–but somehow in a song,” Nic continues, “it’s a little bit easier. And most of the girls have their own song they’ve written to express their story. Other girls know them by heart and they sing together.”

Suddenly, a girl of no more than seven or eight stands before the group. It’s difficult to breathe, she begins to sing, Life is unfortunate. My heart is breaking. I’m just four years old, They sold me to the brothel. I don’t know know anything about the life here, They destroyed my life. They’re beating me, beating me all the time, They force me to have sex like I’m an adult. I want my mother to come and help me, Where is she, why did she leave me alone?

And now it’s–

Somaly Mam breaks into tears. She can no longer translate.

“Does it remind you of yourself as a kid?” Nic asks.

“All of them,” Somaly Mam says, pulling the girl in her lap closer to her chest, “We have the same lives.”

Like Somaly’s girls, communities exist whose experiences are so similar to those in your show that you could all say, “We have the same lives.” Do whatever you can to get your show before them. Use your work to empower others to sing their own songs. Let your legacy be art *and* change.

And here’s the second point, equally important: they won’t come banging on your door; you must go bang on their’s. But so what? If making an impact requires it, do it.

And we’ve got help: Gioia de Cari. She’s toured Truth Values for five years–50 universities, 100 venues, 17,000 audience members. It’s picked up awards; she’s spoken on panels with Pultizer Prize winners. She’s built Truth Values into more than a show; it’s a program inspired by a greater mission: to empower women to fight sexism and discrimination in the workplace. That’s the essence of her work and *Truth Values* is packaged to serve that mission and has been successfully booked around the country.

If you’re even considering touring your show, enroll in Gioia’s four-week workshop Successfully Package & Tour Your Solo Show before it begins May 28th. She’s spent five years learning how to package and book solo shows; take her class so you don’t have to.

“It’s easy to see the pain here,” Meg Ryan says of Somaly Mam’s work after the songs have been sung and the girls have gone to sleep, “but what’s beautiful to me is the love here. The health here. The community–even if it’s a community of pain at first–is so healing. That’s a very simple yet powerful idea. It’s in action here.” Our world’s outdated, repressive stories can–and must–change. Take your show to the world. Be that change.

David Crabb talks storytelling with AFO

AFO Managing Director Scott Slavin sat down with writer/performer/educator David Crabb to talk about solo theater, story structure, and his solo show Bad Kid. Click the images or read on below to see their interview.

David Crabb’s class on the fundamentals of story structure is this weekend! You don’t want to miss this one!

Scott Wesley Slavin: How did you become a solo theater artist?

David Crabb: I came at it from the theater—from a performance background. I was an actor before I was a writer. Three to four years I ago, I went to The Moth for the first time and sort of became obsessed. I didn’t know there was a place where people could do this sort of thing—this thing I had been told my whole life that I did—on stage for an audience of 300. And then—very quickly—I just got involved. I started performing, co-producing, and teaching, and later hosting The Moth StorySLAMS. I’ve been told by people I’m a different kind of storyteller—that I’m a little more theatrical. I do different voices, but organically work them into my stories so it doesn’t feel like you’re seeing a monologue. Over a two-year period of telling stories, I realized most of them were from my youth as a goth kid in Texas. So I joined with my director and co-creator Josh Matthews and said, “I wanna tell this story. I wanna smash all these stories together and make one big experience out of it.”

SS: When you moved to New York, you began by enrolling at the Upright Citizen’s Brigade. How did ensemble improv lead to solo theater?

DC: I enjoyed improv, but I felt like improv was giving me a toolbox and I wasn’t getting to use the tools. So I would sign up for another improv class, and feel like it threw a few more tools in there. But at a certain point, I felt I was really happy with my toolbox and wasn’t building anything. So I started acting in “legitimate” theater— namely plays at Axis Company, which I really enjoyed because it was a huge gap in my proper theater career. The great thing about working at Axis was I got to play this absurdist fever-dream character called the Research Physician [in their series Hospital]. And the Research Physician had inexplicably this black mouth—like a cigar just blew up—and a shock of white insane hair. Basically I just morphed into a Bobcat Goldthwait-Jerry Lewis nightmare creation. And I’m so grateful to that because Randy Sharp [Artistic Director of Axis] let me have so much fun with that character. And even though that character was part of an ensemble, it was this great experience for me because it was so freeing. It felt very connected to improv and comedy and a bunch of other stuff I had interest in, like stand-up. Playing the Research Physician really made me think about what I could start bringing to my own narratives especially from a character point of view. I’ve always loved doing impersonations of people—my mother, my father, my friends—and that time in my life, when I was a goth kid, is just rife for stand-up and parody… because it kind of is a parody. When you’re a 16-year-old goth kid, you’re kind of the walking parody of the real thing. So when I got into storytelling, those were just the stories that I naturally wanted to tell. The first time I went to The Moth, I told a story about this goth girl I know named Silvia who wore a bunch of ankhs and had purple hair and tortured everyone she knew. And that lent itself to more storytelling. I didn’t even realize I was building a sort of cabinet of stories about that time in my life.

SS: What’s been the process for figuring out how all these individual storytelling moments could add up to your solo theater show Bad Kid?

DC: I feel like so much of making sense of these narratives had to do with having a co-creator. It had to do with working with Josh Matthews, who directed the show. Because when I teach storytellers, I feel like so much of the challenge is having them make sense of their own lives. Because it’s hard to see the forest for the trees. You look back on your own history, and you can think that the totally wrong things are of significance, and be totally burying the lead over and over again, because you don’t realize these things you take for granted about your family or where you were born or who your friends were in high school or your first job—you forget that they’re special and they’re different. And you’ll mention it to someone when you’re in a workshop environment and it can take them looking at you and saying, “That’s incredible! You need to talk about that!” And for me, working with Josh really helped me break through, because together we devised the order. On one level Bad Kid’s a chronological show; it’s not a conceptual show. The chronology of it made sense. That being said, there were still so many details and characters and moments and events that he was instrumental in making me realize either needed to stay or go or I needed to mine further for more information and details. That was really great for me. I feel like telling a self-contained 5-6 minute story is something that a lot of storytellers need direction on, but it’s manageable. I feel like when you get into telling a 60-minute, 75-minute piece—whether memoir-based or fictional—I admire anyone who can just do that sealed in a vacuum. I don’t know how you do that. I’ve met a few writer-performers that do that, and that’s crazy. I don’t believe them.

SS: How does understanding story structure help someone when they’re looking at their stories or thinking about writing a story?

DC: I feel like what’s important about understanding basic story structure, especially if you’re creating a long-form piece, is understanding the way that you make that natural rhythm replicate itself. You know, in a 6-minute story, your job is to create a story that asks an enticing question. And in 6 minutes, you’re gonna give the audience that answer. When you have someone for a much longer period of time, your job in a way is to do that and extend that whole process. That’s a part of it, but naturally, what you’re doing is you’re building a lot of those little 6 minute arcs within that. Because you’re answering many questions in a row when you have 70, 80, 90 minutes with an audience. So, housing little replicas of that structure that build and in the end sort of create one arc that makes sense and delivers an answer that the audience wants can be really, really helpful. You have to understand: What do you want the audience to want to know the answer to? You’ve got to create desire in me as an audience member by pretty quickly getting me to want to know the answer. Then you have all this time over this arc to give me all the details. But you’ve gotta create hunger in me as the listener from the very start. It’s really important.

SS: What’s one of the biggest struggles that you help students overcome?

DC: Oftentimes I’ll see habits in students. I’ve had many students who do great right out of the gate. Maybe they come in and they’re a natural. And then they tell 2-3 stories, and they start to feel like there’s something missing. Like, “What was it that I had?” Oftentimes what we’ll find is that they’re getting into habits. When we identify these, we can remove them and their stories immediately become more awesome and wonderful.

SS: What’s the most important takeaway that you want students to get from your workshop?

DC: The thing that would make me saddest is if someone left any workshop with me and thought, “Wow, I was right, I really don’t have a story to tell.” Format, nuance, structure—all of those things are very, very important, but the driving force behind all of that technical knowledge is the ability to understand that you are full of engaging history and narrative. Whether these are fictional ideas in your mind that you trained yourself to think aren’t important and no one will care about, or whether it’s your real life growing up in Savannah, GA with a stepdad. It’s so interesting! Ultimately, it’s not the story that’s so important—it’s the way you tell it. I help students understand the nuances of the writing and the structure and the journey.

AFO at Actors Pro Expo

We had a great time at Actors Pro Expo this weekend with our panel on solo theater!

A big thank you and a welcome is in order to all the delightful attendees! Welcome to the AFO community. We hope to see you at our salon, or maybe one of our upcoming courses.

Here’s a little more information on our panelists for those of you who asked:

Bill Bowers

http://www.bill-bowers.com/ https://www.facebook.com/BillBowersMime

As an actor, mime and educator, Bill has performed throughout the United States, Canada, and Europe. Bill’s extensive training and heartfelt personal style of acting and pantomime have led him on a incredible journey from regional stage to tours, television, film, and even Broadway.

Mark Gindick

Wingmantheshow.com

Markgindick.com

Mark Gindick is a professional actor, clown, physical comedian, director, teacher and writer/creator of his own theatrical shows. Wing-Man, his original theatrical piece without one spoken word, won BEST ONE-MAN SHOW in United Solo Theatre Festival. Mark has appeared in major feature films, including the Nora Ephron comedy Julie & Julia with Meryl Streep; on televison, The Late Show with David Letterman, Late Night with Conan O’Brien and was featured in The PBS mini series CIRCUS, and more.

David Harrell

http://www.davidharrellonline.com/

David Harrell is an actor, speaker, and writer residing in New York City. His solo shows A Little Potato And Hard To Peel and The Boy Who Would Be Captain Hook have toured across the country, in addition to productions in and around NYC.

Aaron Mark

http://aaronmark.net/

Aaron Mark most recently wrote and directed Another Medea, starring Tom Hewitt, which premiered at the Duplex Cabaret Theatre and was subsequently presented at the Cherry Lane Theatre as part of the All For One Theatre Festival after a residency for New York Theatre Workshop at Dartmouth College. Other plays in development include Deer (NYTW reading), Cirque du Mental (Eight Plays in Eight Days/American Theater Group), Failed Suicide Attempts (Living Room Series/Blank Theatre), Subject, Bait, Fucking Wagner, and Plays With Landline Phones.

Aizzah Fatima

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Dirty-Paki-Lingerie/206581909362954

Aizzah Fatima is an actor and playwright responsible for the one-woman show, Dirty Paki Lingerie, where she plays 20 characters. Dirty Paki Lingerie has toured both national and internationally with resounding success.

Don’t miss our next salon!

We’ve been pumping up our salons this year, and in April it’s getting even better!

Get Your Tickets now!

The Performers

We’ve got salon favorite Katie Northlich she hosted the One For All open mic, appeared at several salons, and now she’ll be testing out some new work for us! We’ve got Moth and UCB veteran David Crabb bringing in some of his hilarious and heartfelt work. Plus a performance from Mabou Mines resident Gardiner Comfort! On Top of those exciting performers Jeff Wirth, artistic director of Playing With Reality, will be showing off his brand of interactive theater!

The Prizes

Our first raffle in the March Salon was a huge hit, and we’re keeping it going with even better prizes! On the docket we’ve got NYTW Date Night, that’s two tickets to Red-Eye To Havre De Grace and dinner for two at Phebe’s Tavern and Grill. Or if you’re looking to win something a little more practical how about a free day of rehearsal space! On top of that, we’re also raffling off free registration to any of our one-day classes (maybe you’ll want to use it on our upcoming Story Structure Workshop with David Crabb?)

And the night goes on…

After the performances and raffle and networking, the doors of The COW will eventually close. But the party doesn’t have to stop there! We’ll be heading to Donnybrook after the salon for drinks and to keep the conversation going.

Tickets?

Some of you might be surprised to see a ticket price on the salon. Opening up our salons to a bigger audience, and our full community means additional costs. The modest ticket price makes it possible for us to keep the salon going and to keep bringing you the best performers, prizes, and an evening of networking, fun (and did we mention cheap drinks?)

We can’t wait to see you all at the salon! If you buy your tickets in advance they’re only $8!

Lessons From Solo Theater in the UK: Part 3

This is the final part of a three-part blog series by All for One’s Managing Director Scott Wesley Slavin

I’m sitting in the dark in an upstairs studio at Contact Theatre in Manchester watching Rachel Mars’ The Way You Tell Them, a solo show about growing up a comedienne in a family that perpetually tells jokes to escape from true vulnerability with one another–and I’m riveted.

Dramatically, Rachel already gave me at the top of the show the story information I need: Her Jewish grandparents emigrated in 1937 to the UK from Germany–months before the outbreak of World War II. Over the next five years they received over two dozen death notices for their parents, every sibling, and their extended family. One day, unable to carry the guilt of being a survivor, her grandfather tried to kill himself. Finally, her grandparents made an executive decision to stop moping, cleave the experience of World War II from their lives, and move forward in joy–never to speak of the Holocaust again.

Years later–and just months before Rachel’s birth–her grandfather died from a pulmonary embolism: a blood clot that traveled along an artery to his lungs from a recent hip operation. His shadow over the family remains significant.

Then, suddenly, Rachel surprises me: she moves beyond the dramatic and into the theatrical:

Rachel walks upstage, steps onto a raised platform, turns to the audience. Music rises. Lights fade. A single spot focuses on her. We see that on her white t-shirt is an outline of the human repertory system. Over the speakers, Robert Oppenheimer’s famous words following the first test explosion of the atomic bomb begin to play on repeat, “A few laughed, a few cried, most were silent”… followed by a laugh track. Rachel takes her forefinger and begins to trace the fatal blood clot’s trip from her hip, along the artery drawn on her t-shirt, to the left lung. We know it’s her grandfather’s body–and that metaphorically this struggle is in her, too. Right before that final moment, she breaks from the scene and reenters the literal story.

In these repeating scenes she’s using theatricality to go beyond simply narrating the drama itself. Whenever the tension is highest between Rachel’s longing for connection and her conditioning to use a joke to negate it, she returns imaginatively to the source of this conflict: her grandfather. She shows us not only what killed him literally but what killed him spiritually–the clot as metaphor for the refusal to heal the wound of the Holocaust itself. She layers in Oppenheimer and, in concert with a poignant instrumental track, weaves these complex, layered experiences into a devastating emotional tapestry.

Final lesson: Get Theatrical

From The Way You Tell Them to riverrun at The National Theatre, the productions I saw in the UK actively–and boldly–experimented with the theatrical possibilities of the work even more than the dramatic possibilities.

Here’s the difference: dramatic possibilities are what’s possible with the written text; the process is script-focused. Theatrical possibilities are what’s possible on the stage; the process is visually-focused. The question becomes: How can we use the physical space, available technology, and the actor’s doings to communicate the story visually rather than rely so much on the text?

I remember Deb Margolin asking the class at the start of her All for One workshop last November, “Why do we go to the theater? We go to stare at people.” True enough, the English word theater comes from the Ancient Greek word théatron–a place for viewing. A theater is a place where we go to see.

I love the double entendre: yes, we go to see people do stuff, and we also go to see through these doings into the imaginative and empathic capacities of us all. When we deeply explore the theatrical possibilities of our own solo shows during our development process, we can launch our show from “storytelling plus” (a work of storytelling with a veneer of theater applied) into a fully-realized monodrama innovatively using the tools of theater to drive and deepen the story.

The ultimate achievement may be balance. As we develop our artistic range, we empower ourselves to make more informed decisions for specific story problems. This serves not only us and our audiences, but also the form. Through discovering our shows’ theatrical possibilities, we more fully contribute to and even reframe the rapidly-evolving, international language of solo theater.

Lessons from Solo Theater in the UK, Part 2

This is the second part of a three-part blog series by All for One’s Managing Director Scott Wesley Slavin

“That’s a really good question,” Sophie says as we walk down a long hallway that connects the west and east wings of Battersea Arts Centre in London. Sophie’s a producer at BAC and has played a key role in the international success of Kate Tempest’s Brand New Ancients. After nearly 35 years, BAC has become a leader in the development of new work and in what they call “inventing the future of theatre.” I love those words together, but I have no picture of what that looks like in practice. “By ‘devised theater,’” Sophie suddenly responds, “we mean ‘theater that does not come from a text.’ We’re interested in how artists who have no background in theater will explore their questions in a theatrical context.”

Lesson 2: Forget the Text

During my trip to Manchester and London, theater producers across the board expressed interest in devised theater and theater created and performed by non-theater artists.

What is devised theater more specifically? Devised theater is an approach to show development that builds the show by playing in space rather than writing a dramatic script. In its simplest form, the performer just stands up and begins to improvise, play theater games, and experiment with physicality, voices, costumes, and props. Any assumptions that the developing narrative present a clear storyline or plot points are temporarily picked up and set aside. The artist holds the space for the most appropriate storyline and structure to be birthed over time and through focused play. The motto is trust: Trust that the work, given this type of active gestation, will become Great Work.

Taking a devised theater approach to crafting solo performance is not new (Eric Bogosian is one of its most prominent practitioners)–yet it remains revolutionary. In New York City, survey classes offered by solo show and storytelling teachers and you’ll find little to disprove this. The approach strongly emphasizes writing your solo show–then performing it. “I’m still writing it!” is a refrain I often hear when checking in with solo theater friends. But other approaches, like devised theater, exist and can provide radical insights and story solutions.

By understanding how to create through devised theater, we also open up new creative opportunities. Many executive producers and artistic directors in the UK right now are very attracted to devised theater because it’s an investment in the potential of an artist rather than in his or her already realized work. It’s process over product, discovering what “the future of theatre” could be rather than knowing it.

I found myself deeply invigorated by these discussions and their passion. Back in New York, I wondered what I could draw from the devised theater approach so popular in the UK to share with my own community. Here’s one learning framed as a challenge:

Create some distance between yourself and whatever text you’re working on. Temporarily, forget it. Forget the story and the outcomes you want. Give yourself the opportunity to be surprised and uncomfortable by your inner life.

Find a safe space where you can play. Instead of writing Morning Pages, play with Morning Scenes. If you want to pause, don’t. If your inner critic perks up, so what. Welcome him or her into the room. Keep playing. Start with as little as 1 min. The goal is consistency over time far more than individual duration. Just show up.

Develop a practice of letting your many voices emerge organically. Play with and trust your creative intuition in space and out loud. For some of you, this may be quite a slog. Self-consciousness, emotional paralysis, shame: all of it may come up. Awesome. Stay at it. You are bigger and more important than all of it.

A week later, reflect. What’s been coming up? What questions or scenarios consistently appear through monologues, characters, and scenes? Who’s actually speaking in those moments?

Keep going back to your Morning Scenes. Keep those moments safe and sacred. Let the Muse begin to trust you. Like any important relationship, make nurturing her your daily practice.

As you develop your skills in devised theater, it might become the shovel that gets you to theatrical pay dirt. At minimum, you will empower yourself with a new skill and make yourself able to capitalize on the opportunities for devised theater on an international scale.