Without walls, Outdoor storytelling
LESSONS LEARNED FROM MY 1st PAID GIG
Storytelling in a park is very different to storytelling inside. Mainly because there are no walls. This may seem like an obvious observation. And I had thought about it beforehand. About how mainly families with small children visit parks and I worried that those little ones would scream in disappointment when they saw I wasn’t a kids’ show. I realized that certain bits were not really suitable for children and that the audience would not hear me well or get distracted. And so I cleaned up the cuss-words in my story, replaced the whiskey for the young audience member at the end of my show with an apple juice, did extra voice exercises and emotionally prepared myself for a distracted audience.
But I was in no way prepared for what it felt like to see a row of five friends turning their heads away from me looking stage-left at something I couldn’t see, while behind them the majority of the audience lay back and looked dead, with beyond them beer drinkers loudly chatting, cyclists and runners zipping by nearly running into Pokémon hunters blind to world, toddlers screaming in a sandbox, hecklers yelling from behind tree trunks, boys playing football and a bald man mooning me. When there are walls the most distracting things are someone getting up to go to the toilet, a phone ringing or a glass breaking. I was not prepared for this level of distraction
I also wasn’t prepared for what happened when I saw the row of friends all look in another direction while I stood there telling them a story. It awoke my inner-toddler. I had an incredible urge to stamp my foot, yell their names and throw something at them. My inner grownup really had to step-up to prevent inner-toddler from stopping the show and asking them – insert whiny voice – what’s so much more interesting than me? Luckily while this was happening, two grey haired ladies cycling by, stopped to listen, then locked their bikes and slipped into some deckchairs to – insert excited voice – listen to me!
Those deckchairs also threw me. When I first saw them, I was super excited. Especially as the day turned out luxuriously warm and sunny. I could just imagine lying back, basking in the warm sun, listening to a story and was almost envious of my audience. Not once did it occur to me that this would leave me standing on a stage telling a story to people who for the most part looked like they were asleep. Or dead.
But dead audience members, screaming toddlers, near bike accidents and bare bottoms did not in the end effect my show in a way that others noticed. And I’m already looking forward to the next telling in a park and to putting to use what I learned from this one. All in all, it was fun and exciting. And some distractions were heartwarming. Like the tiny boy in the front row, looking up at me with big eyes like I was the most interesting thing in the universe. Right up to the end, long after all the other children had given up on my grown-up story and gone elsewhere to play, he continued to watch me, fully engrossed. He made me feel so relieved that I had thought to replace the whiskey with apple juice. His huge shy smile, when he walked up to the stage to get that glass of juice from me, made for the most uplifting moment of my day.
Prepare for what’s beyond the audience. If possible visit the outdoor venue beforehand to get a feel of the place and its sounds and sights.
Be prepared for your inner toddler, she’s just your ego trying to pull you out of the moment.
Avoid deckchairs! Especially on sunny summer days. How? Hide them? Put thumb tacks on the seats? Must find a legal solution to this problem…
Check out other ‘Lessons learned from my 1st paid gig’
Not the ambulance service
turnnoffyourmind
dailybridgerton