Tag: performance

Performing to an Audience

Going Through Stages

After a conversation with a member of my poetry group last week, I remembered that not everyone is as comfortable speaking on stage as I am. I then discovered it’s been four years since I last covered the topic on this blog.

As such, let’s update it. It’s wise to remember this should be treated as a subjective guide, not a textbook.

Talk with the organisers about what’s required

If the organisers haven’t already told you the plan, it’s worth asking for the following information:

  • How long you’ll be asked to speak for
  • What type of content is required
  • Whether you’re expected to read from paper or perform from memory
  • Whether you need to introduce yourself
  • Where you should wait before you’re called up
  • Whether any fee is payable

Each event has its own particular character. Some events like performers to fill a 15-minute slot. Other events allow performers to go up twice. Slams sometimes mark down poets for reading words from a page.

If it’s an unfamiliar venue, be sure to obtain the exact address and check how to access the building. Don’t forget to arrive in plenty of time.

Think about your own structure

The organisers will take care of the overall structure and running order, but it’s wise to plan your own slot so you don’t miss a step. A typical note-to-self might read:

  • Give name, say you’re reading from short story collection The Pie Seller
  • Say you’re happy to sign copies
  • Briefly mention editor at Law Hill Books
  • Tell obesity clinic anecdote
  • Read out And an Onion One Too (page 24)
  • Thank Tracey Sanders for organising
  • Read out The Crust of the Matter (page 12)

It’s a good idea to place the thanks as second-last, not as the final item. That means the audience are more likely to go away with the ending of your work in their head.

Briefly explain if you need to, but don’t apologise

Some pieces do require an explanation; perhaps a work is unfinished, is an extract from a longer work, or was written under certain circumstances. But keep it brief and don’t explain anything that the audience will take or infer from the piece.

If you feel you can’t read a particular piece without apologising or telling a long story, either take it out of your set or work on it until only a short introduction is necessary.

Read out loud and time your words

The best way to identify weak parts in your set is to read it aloud – and that’s the last thing you want to happen in public. So find a room on your own and read it out where nobody can hear you. Are there any long sentences that need to be broken up? Are there words that are difficult to say clearly?

When reading from a book or from sheets of paper, it’s a good idea to turn up the corner slightly or to stick a post-it note as a lever. When using an e-reader or tablet computer, practice tapping the correct area of the screen to turn the page; there might also be a delay on some devices.

Don’t forget to use a stopwatch to make sure all your words fit within the agreed timeslot.

Make sure everyone can hear you

In my experience, smaller readings tend not to use a microphone, so you might need to project. Avoid tilting your head down to read the piece; instead, hold your manuscript higher and off to one side so it doesn’t muffle your words, or look down only with your eyes. Always speak more slowly than you would in normal conversation and don’t be afraid to pause.

If there’s a working microphone, use it. If possible, test it out beforehand. A big annoyance for an audience is a sound level that increases and decreases at random. So whether the microphone is handheld or on a stand, keep it at the same distance from your mouth as you speak. Most are designed to pick up sound from the top, although a few have the pick-up on the side.

Avoid alcohol before the gig

I fully understand why folks need Dutch courage before going on stage. From years of going to the Edinburgh Fringe, though, I’ve found a drunk performer rarely makes a good impression. My rule is not to take alcohol before speaking, only coffee or a soft drink.

Decide where in the room to look

I know a few poets who deliberately look at individual audience members. However, it’s  unnerving to make eye contact for most people. I have two alternative methds:

The first is to look between two audience members, so the person on the right assumes I’m looking at the one on the left, and vice versa. The second is to look above the heads of the back row; this has the added advantage of giving you a better posture.

Keep going through distractions and cock-ups

Perhaps the microphone fails, perhaps you forget the words, perhaps a hundred other unpredictable problems crop up. Keep going as best as you can. It might mean cutting a piece short or shouting instead of reading, but the audience are there to see you perform.

A common issue at spoken-word nights is the audience member who keeps talking. Unlike a music gig, you don’t have the advantage of drowning them out with your instruments. A good host will take charge of silencing any chat, but if they don’t, either carry on as you were or – if it’s too distracting – politely ask them to refrain.

Signal when you’ve finished

At the end of a piece, the audience sometimes doesn’t know whether you’re finished or simply pausing for dramatic effect. A good clear signal is to lower your manuscript or to step backwards slightly, or even say ‘Thank you.’ At that point, people should take the hint and applaud.

Listen to the other performers

Unless you’ve arranged otherwise, it’s considered a courtesy to stay and listen to the other performers before and after your set. If you really must disappear straight after the gig, tell the organiser or mention it on stage.

Do it again

It’s a cliché, but the more you stand up and speak in public, the more techniques you’ll learn, like which techniques or always or never provoke a reaction. There are no guarantees that your poetry performances will always be successful, but by following the suggestions above, you can maximise those chances.

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Local Stories in the Global Room

Let me address first of all why you’re seeing this post on a Sunday when I’m accustomed to making them on a Tuesday.

I forgot to update on Tuesday, so my self-imposed punishment was to make two further entries this week: one on Friday just gone and one today. From Tuesday, we’ll go back to weekly posting.

In this entry, let me take you back to last Sunday.

Every year, the University of Dundee runs the Being Human festival, in celebration of the humanities. I’d signed up to join their Talking Bus tour, driving a round trip of approximately 75 miles to places in Angus. During the trip, we were told folk tales by Dr Erin Farley. She’s someone I’ve known for a long time, and last year she launched a collection of these stories.

This book has proved to be rather influential in my poetry group, the Wyverns. The group is not normally open to the general public, but we do have a history of tie-ins with the Being Human festival, so this is the one time of year we can showcase our work. Tuesday saw the launch of our seventh pamphlet at the university with accompanying readings.

In common with our previous publications, this took place in the Global Room on campus, used for social and cultural events rather than lectures. Each of the Wyvern poets stood up in turn to perform our poems, and the words were also displayed on a TV behind us for the audience to read along. The best perk, in my opinion, was the bowl of posh chocolates that was passed around the crowd to accompany the tea and coffee. Erin and a few others were in attendance, and it seemed to go down well.

In all that excitement, I simply forgot to update this blog. I only remembered early on Wednesday morning, when the moment had long passed.

After the event, the group exchanged a few emails on our discussion list. One member reported feeling exceptionally nervous about performing, which reminded me that not everyone is comfortable standing on a stage to read. I sometimes forget this because I read to an audience at least once a month, and I rarely think anything of it. While this is a subject I’ve addressed before on the blog, a casual search suggests I haven’t updated my advice since 2018.

I reckon that’s a topic to revisit next week, but in lieu of a more comprehensive entry, the best general piece of advice I can give is to treat it like learning any new skill.

Let’s say you know nothing about snooker, but you read up on the rules, buy a table on a whim and find a regular willing opponent. If you play three frames a day for twelve months, that’s well over a thousand matches. Within a year, you’ll know which moves work and don’t work, the optimum spin to place on the ball, how to block the other player effectively, and so forth.

In short, you’ll be pretty good at playing snooker by this time next year, just in time for our potential eighth pamphlet.

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Presenting to Creative Folks

Although these entries are posted in a regular fashion, they’re sometimes written days in advance, giving me time to iron out any flaws. This is not one of these entries. This is about an event from this morning.

I’m part of a local group called Amps, self-described as a community of people who make and cultivate creativity in Dundee. Every Tuesday morning, the members gather for a lighthearted online event that includes discussion questions for everyone, and one of the members typically gives a talk about their work.

It was my turn today, and I talked about the challenges of running both a poetry open-mic and a novel-writing group. I first considered the many differences between the two groups, then ended by discussing three key rules I follow when running both of them.

I’ve been working on this topic for a long time. In 2020, I was supposed to make a Pecha Kucha presentation that never went ahead, but I’d planned what I wanted to talk about. All I really needed to do was bring it up to date.

Regarding Amps as an organisation, I’d heard about them a few years back, but I didn’t join until about this time last year. I didn’t initially imagine I’d be welcome as I don’t rely on the arts to make a living, but the organisers keep a broad church.

After the presentation, there is always a short question-and-answer session, in which I was able to expand upon some of the points I made and put some preconceptions to bed. The weirdest question was whether I would consider using artificial intelligence in my writing.

I’m not always at these meetings because of work commitments, but I’ll endeavour to go whenever I’m available.

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Making an Event Flexible Without Losing the Audience

On Saturday just gone, my open-mic event Hotchpotch collaborated with I Am Loud Productions from Edinburgh.

After an open-mike segment, the three headline acts would give us their best work. With close co-operation from the venue, it was a marvellous night, and showcased the best of both organisations.

However, I did admit to I Am Loud that I was initially in two minds about whether to allow them to take over our event.

To understand my thinking, let me take you back to February this year. I received a message from a reasonably high-profile poet from the other coast of Scotland. She was putting together a book tour and wanted to include our event as place to promote it.

I was flattered she’d heard about us and thought about us, as I’d been to see her show in 2019. I realised immediately, however, this tour would not be a good fit for us. Our open-mic shows are about audience participation, with no one person featured more highly than another.

We exchanged a few e-mails and I proposed a solution of starting the book launch at 6pm, then beginning the open-mic at 7pm as usual. I would also have been prepared to host a special event separately from the open-mic. Our talks ultimately came to a halt, but I did recommend she approach another group I know, and I hear she’s going to be a headliner there soon.

So when I Am Loud wanted to collaborate, I was convinced to give the green light when I heard the open-mic element would be part of the show. This would be in a much-reduced form, with just eight slots of three minutes apiece, compared to unlimited slots of seven minutes.

In practice, though, there was a smaller audience than usual, perhaps because the regular crowd are accustomed to Wednesday events rather than those on Saturday. As such, only five of the eight slots were taken, so nobody was left disappointed.

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Callbacks and Foreshadowing

Every August, I spend time in Edinburgh at the Fringe festival, usually for a few of the many hundreds of comedy shows.

This year’s acts were as diverse as they come, including the magician Pete Firman, the musical troupe News Revue, and the brash Nick Helm. One factor they all have in common, however, is that each act references something that happened earlier in the show.

In the comedy world, a common structural element is known as a callback, in which a performer will make a reference to a joke or an event earlier in the show. The most memorable example I’ve seen was the comedian Danny Bhoy in his show Dear Epson, which opened with a letter of complaint to the eponymous company. At the end of the show, he closed with the reply he received to that letter.

Done often enough, a callback can become a running gag, making reference not just to the current show but to past shows or outside events. To this day, Jimmy Carr brings up the subject of his tax avoidance, even though it happened ten years ago.

Many stand-ups speak in a rambling manner, so such back-referencing provides a little clue that the rambling is not entirely aimless and that there’s some structure to be found.

A similar technique can be used in prose, where it’s more often known as foreshadowing. There is often a balance to be found between making it too obvious and giving away a later plot point, or making it so subtle that the reader misses it.

A story that manages to walk that line is The Lottery by Shirley Jackson for a good example. The stones mentioned casually near the start of the story play a significant part as the narrative concludes.

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Back on the Festival Circuit

On Saturday, I was invited to perform at the inaugural New Pitsligo International Spoken Word Festival. It’s not the obvious location for an international festival. It’s easy enough to reach Aberdeen by train, but to reach New Pitsligo involves at least two connecting buses, many of them via Fraserburgh.

I was given a 4pm slot to perform in the Public Hall. In practice, it was closer to 5pm because the small delays by previous acts had built up to a much longer delay during the afternoon.

I presented new material, namely found poetry, constructed from sources including a calculus textbook and e-mail subjects. It took a few of my 15 minutes to warm up the audience and win them over, but they seemed to enjoy it by the end.

I have a few other festival-type events coming up soon, including a collaboration with an Edinburgh-based poetry group and a Dundee Fringe in September, and I look forward to seeing what comes of those.

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Quick on the Draw

If we must label it a party trick, one of mine is to write a short poem about a given subject in a short space of time, typically under five minutes.

This comes into its own at poetry shows with multiple performers, where I’ve been later in the bill. I’d pen a poem for each act while they’re still on stage and read mine at the end. I’ve occasionally been asked how it’s possible to write in such a short space of time, and the answer is simple: shortcuts.

The format I use is the four-line clerihew, and the first line is always the subject, so that’s 75% of it already written. The next line rhymes with the first, and then a different rhyme appears in the other two lines. Ridiculousness is encouraged with this style, making it ideal for a quick-and-dirty verse.

But much as people are impressed by my speedy poetry abilities, I’m similarly impressed by those who can churn out a drawing within the same time.

A few weeks ago, I found myself at a life-drawing class running by a pal. These sessions typically begin with a session of two- to five-minute poses to allow the artists to warm up, but I really struggle with these. By the time I’ve laid out the frame of the pose, there’s no time left to add in the details.

I’ve asked a couple of folk for advice about how to handle this, and there are some shortcuts, just as there are with clerihews: only draw part of the pose, construct the image in an abstract way, stick to the same colour of pen or pencil, &c.

The key to mastery, however, is to keep tackling these short poses. There was a time when I couldn’t write verse, never mind in such a short time, but I stuck at it and I’m sure I can stick at the life drawing.

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Creating and Performing a Story in Six Hours

The tale in this entry happened on Tuesday evening of last week, just too late to be included on the blog.

At around 3:15pm, I received a message from a comedian pal. He was due to debut a new show that evening, but one of his warm-up acts had dropped out. He asked for anything of a spoken-word nature to fill a ten-minute gap.

I have plenty of pieces available, but Tuesday night is also when I lead National Novel Writing Month on a Discord server. Some of the members love to put together collaborative stories, so I gave them a challenge.

Starting with a line from a book, namely Clubbed to Death by Grant Hill, I invited them to add up to three lines of action or dialogue in each subsequent post, inviting them to be as humorous and/or surreal as possible. Subject to minor edits to keep the flow, the story was read out to an audience that very evening.

So here for your interest is the version created after editing.

We also have a recording of how it sounded at the venue; the technical quality isn’t great, such is the nature of live performance. Starting at 4:33, listen out for how I accidentally printed one sheet on top of another, rendering the print unreadable, but didn’t realise until I was well away from home.

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Secret Projects Abound!

I’ve recently been asked by a poetry production company to write a letter of support for a funding application. As I’ve spent most of the week composing this, I was going to make it the subject of the entry.

However, once I actually began writing, I started to doubt myself. It’s fine to announce the good news once the funding is actually awarded, but posting details of the application is a much more private affair. I’ve chosen to leave that aside for the moment.

The other topic I’m dying to write about is a non-urgent pet project I’ve had in mind for months.

However, I’ve yet to ring-fence the time to start it and – while I dislike clichés intensely – Antoine de Saint-Exupéry was spot-on when he said a goal without a plan is just a wish. The time spent writing about it could be time spent actually writing the project.

So what can I tell you about this week? The answer is a programme of events called Rep Stripped.

In 2019, Dundee Rep ran the inaugural Stripped event. Members from my open-mike group successfully applied to appear in a special hour-long poetry show alongside many other and varied acts. All the restrictions and uncertainty over the last two years has meant that 2022 is only the second edition of the programme.

For the avoidance of doubt, we’re not taking part in the Stripped programme this year, but I know people who are.

In particular, I’m looking forward to seeing Elfie Picket Theatre as I’ve met the owners a few times at their productions. Each ticket allows entry to more than one show, so I’m also looking forward to seeing what surprises are in store for us.

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Back on The Slam Wagon

Earlier this month, I visited the StAnza poetry festival in St Andrews. On previous visits, I’ve stayed overnight to allow me to visit the poetry slam, which finishes around midnight. This time, because of other commitments, I missed out on what’s normally one of my highlights.

Nonetheless, I did manage to take part in a smaller-scale slam on Saturday just gone and at a more local venue. Unusually, this was hosted and judged by comedians rather than poets, which lent the evening more of a cabaret vibe.

I’d half-forgotten I’d been invited to perform there, so I spent much of Saturday trying to re-learn a poem I’d written about three years ago. But as each performer would be invited to perform at least twice, I had to accommodate for that too.

Plan B was to find a short poem that I could remember, or at least improvise with.

Plan A was more of a risk, but also what I ended up doing. During the first round, I would write clerihews about the performers and the judges, and perform it as my second poem. It’s something I’ve done before at poetry events, but never competitively. Just as actors often take improv classes to improve their skills, I think writers can benefit from timed exercises.

Ultimately, I didn’t go through to the third round. I don’t know how that would have gone anyway, as I’d created a lighthearted atmosphere with my first two pieces, then my third one would have signalled a definite change of mood.

The top honour went deservedly to someone who’d won the StAnza slam just one week before.