What do you mean I can't go on tour? : Rethinking A Lifestyle!

Worth every second of down time

For my entire adult life, aside from a few years when I was either gestating, giving birth to or using my body to feed and nurture developing human beings, I have been on tour. 

I visit my home for periods of time, but most of the time I am engaging in the rough and ready life of hotel rooms, staying with friends, thousands of strangers, new places, language barriers, avoiding gluten, and generally being a public-facing introvert. Ambivert. Donna Marie Todd assures me I am an ambivert. 

I have been home for four months. That's right - FOUR MONTHS, and I'm not recovering from anything or distracted with babies.

At first, this was not my main concern, because Houston, we have a problem.

My brain went into shock mode for a couple of weeks -

What is going on?

How am I going to make a living?

How long is this going to last?

Luckily, I live with my business manager. Did I say "luckily"? It has its moments...especially since I am doing it full time now.

The David and I

Within two weeks, we'd moved into action mode -

- Find a virtual pathway

- How much performing do I have to do live? Can I pre-record shows?

- Is there a model where we can capitalize on this new situation so we can survive

- What is the next step?

Within a month we not only had a new business plan but a new model that was working well.

We were able to make headway on the money we'd lost when COVID stopped our season.

We started thinking about how our new model translated into the Fall.

We made plans, and begin to carry them out on a massive scale.

- National contact list - go!

- How does this software work?

- Do we need more technology?

- How do we price this?

We made plans about supporting our community - 

- Artists Standing Strong Together!

- Donating to causes we believe in from Food Banks, to Arts Councils, to Storyteller Relief Funds

- Contributing to artists whenever possible

Then something odd happened.

I was suddenly at the end of the planning and whirlwind prep. I looked up into a sea of days with nothing too much to accomplish.

If I wasn't doing anything, it had nothing to do with procrastination. I really didn't have anything to do.

I like procrastination. It means you have duties you are ignoring. What happens when you really don't have anything to do? What does that even mean?

Yes, I could rehearse or write, but I don't actually have any "real" deadlines. 

NO DEADLINES!!! 

HOW DO YOU SURVIVE WITHOUT DEADLINES???

I am not a self-regulator. I rely on my touring schedule to help me remember what day it is! 

I started freaking out a little. A type-A personality without a feeling of impending doom in the pit of my stomach because I've agreed to something that is slightly out of my wheelhouse is a dangerous thing. How can anybody live like that???

No. I was very freaked.

Then, The David took me in hand and told me that it was not healthy for me to be so unfocused.

That's when it happened.

I bought a planner. 

I haven't had one since The David took over my touring schedule almost two decades ago. 

I started writing in it almost immediately. 

I suddenly realized that counter to what I thought, I am really busy. I mean, really really busy!

Apparently, I have board meetings, group meetings, artist meetings, work meetings, programs to write and develop, and things that I need to accomplish.

There is so much more to my life than just touring!

Who knew? 

With my days spread before me like an uninked sea, it occurred to me that this would be a good time to start some good, achievable habits.

I've always had Non-fiction Thursday, but, I thought, what if I expanded this out so that I accomplished different things every single day?

So, I have a new way forward.

Monday - Check-In. This is when I will call people, spend the day on social media. maybe watch some storytelling. maybe work on my projects, maybe not! Ha

Tuesday - Recordings! - If there is something to record from intros to story sets to new stories, or education modules - this is the day I will get that done!

Wednesday - Free Day! Clean the House! Possibly do some reading for fun. Date Night!

Thursday - Non-Fiction Thursday. Blogging, admin, the stuff I won't do unless I'm forced.

Friday - My new day! Fiction Fridays! woohoo! I get to work on fiction all day! That's it! Just fiction!!!!

Saturday - 3 - 5 in Liz Weir's Barn I need that. Otherwise, work on projects Family Game Night!

Sunday - Work in the garden, sit outside, make sure you enjoy the outside...that's all I'm sayin'

I am looking forward to my new schedule. 

I better be.

I doubt I'll be touring again for the next year!

Keep your spirits up!

Wash your hands!

Wear a mask!

Social Distance!

Choose your life! 

You've got to live it anyway, you might as well live it on your own terms!

Happy Not-Touring - 

Skills of a Lifetime Are Useless: Rethinking Performing

I have a degree in theatre from Northwestern University!

I trained with Rives Collins!

I was mentored by Nancy Donoval, Sue O'Halloran, Beth Horner, Jackie Torrence, Janice Del Negro, Jim May, Syd Lieberman, Donald Davis, Jay O'Callahan, Dovie Thomason and many others!

I know how to read an audience. I know how to find the sweet spot in the story that reaches out and grabs people's hearts.

I know how to approach an audience and find a place where we can build a community together.

I know how to use stories to reach through generational and cultural barriers.

I know how to craft stories for different age groups, and adjust those stories in the blink of an eye if I feel the need to do so.

In the world of a global pandemic, none of those skills matter.

Why?

I didn't train to be a sound engineer!

I didn't train to be a video editor!

I didn't train to be a film director!

I didn't rain to design lights!

I didn't train to be a tech director!

I didn't train to design soundtracks!

I know how to tell stories.
I know how to tell stories to live audiences.

That's what I got.

Unfortunately.....

Yeah, typically it is monkeys, but I like frogs

1. I cannot see my audience.

There could be five, or five hundred people in the audience, and I cannot see them. Even if they are on the screen I cannot see them. I have to focus like a laser on the camera. If I don't, it will look like I"m not looking at anybody.

2. I cannot hear my audience.

So many of my stories are about creating communal sounds, chants, calls, and expressions, that without them, the space around me isn't full of anything. It is very odd.

3. I cannot interact with my audience.

I cannot take a quick poll of a raise of hands, point to someone who is having a particularly good time, laugh with someone, share a quick look with a particular person, or identify someone who is lost or looking confused and bring them back into the fold. In fact, I can't do anything at all when it comes to making individual personal connections.

4. I do not have a cohesive audience.

I am at my home, and every other person is somewhere in their own spaces. They cannot hear or feel or sometimes even see other people listening. They are having their own private little show, and they are not drawn in or carried along by the energy of anyone else in the audience.

I don't have one audience I have twenty or more. Each one encased in their own little room.

5. I am a floating head in a box.

I do not have the full use of my whole body. My movements have to be curtailed, I have to be aware of what the camera sees, blurring effects, my background, and anything that comes into camera view becomes immediately distracting because everything else has been carefully eliminated so as not to be distracting!


Luckily, I am not yet dead. This means I can still learn some new things. Actually, it means I must!

We are all on a learning curve.

Nobody knows what this looks like.

I have been recording stories since the second week of March. I finally got the hang of it in the last two weeks of May.

I have done more reading about lights, and movement, and the camera, and microphones, and Zoom, and Vimeo, and who knows what else in the last three months.

I have joined groups, asked for help, left groups, asked for help, started groups, asked for help, cocooned, reached out, gone into despair, recovered from despair, shouted my defiance, sheepishly apologized for being a jerk, learned programs I never knew existed, spent money I didn't know I would ever need to spend, worked through fear, anxiety, worry, and frustration.

Then, days ago, the world turned itself right-side up.

Everything started humming. I have found peace in the storytelling work.


1.  I imagine the person or the audience. I imagine how they are reacting, and I tell as if they are right there with me.

2. I make space for the reactions that I feel belong there.

3. I interact with them anyway, and anyone watching can play or not

4. Every single audience is having their own personal experience, and that is lovely

5. I am engaging in a form of media that more people have seen than storytelling. If this is a way to introduce them to my art form, then so be it.

Most of my shows are pre-recorded.

I started uploading shows to our Vimeo with password-protected content. The client can access the content and share it, but nobody else can. When their time ends, we change the password, and the show goes back under lock and key.

I felt like I was starting to get the hang of it. Then, on Tuesday, a pop quiz arrived.

One of the services I offer to libraries is a customized intro. They give a shout out to the Friends of the library or something like that. It is a promo that's just for them.

One of the things I figured out how to do was detach the audio from a clip and replaced the image. So, I got this idea.  I recorded the shout out, took out the video, and replaced it with the sponsor's logo.

I was feeling all clever. 

Apparently, the sponsor saw it and decided that they wanted something better. They have their own studio department, and they whipped up a smooth commercial for summer reading, sent it to the library, and said they wanted to replace my "commercial" with theirs.

The library sent me the sponsor's spot, said they could do the substitution. All I had to do was give them the footage of the show.

Our new business model does not allow for people who are "renting" the material to download it.

Two months ago, I would have had to wake up my son and ask him if he could do this. Six months ago I would have taken it to my daughter and asked her if she could do it.

This morning?

This morning I downloaded the commercial.

Went into my back up disc, found the original show, put it back on my laptop

Loaded the new commercial and the old footage into my editing software

Replaced the old commercial with the new one

Downloaded the new show onto my laptop

Went to Vimeo and isolated the video that needed updating

Replaced the old show with the new one without needing to change the link, and finished my breakfast.

My old skills are not much use right now, but my new ones?

My new ones are pretty awesome.

Happy Learning!

What if I Whisper?

Why won't you hear me?

What if I whisper? Will you hear me then?


One hundred years ago I tried wailing and weeping. I wept at the feet of the conquerer. I wailed for the loss of my sons and daughters. I wept for my lost lands and the nations destroyed by the colonizers. I begged and pleaded and my voice rose to the pitch of a shriek in the night as I walked in misery. You took my sadness as a trophy.

What if I whisper? Listen

I ran. I used my feet, and my cunning, and my hope against you. I banded together with others, and we fled from your hands and your eyes and your empty heart. I was not alone. We fought in silence, and our stories and our songs led us to a place of temporary peace. It felt like victory, and for a moment it was. I thought you would see us for who we were. I was wrong.

What if I whisper? Stop

I also tried defiance. I spoke when you wanted me to be quiet. I stood when you told me to sit. I sat when you told me to stand. I was silent when you wanted me to speak. I left the kitchen, and the schoolhouse and the secretarial pool, and I got the right to vote. I went to the places you told me not to go and I dared you to force me to stay where you said I must. I defied you at every turn. I am still fighting for the right to be seen.

What if I whisper? Please

I clawed my way to the light. My mother worked hard. My father worked hard. My children worked hard. We all worked for the things you would not share. We pressed and pressed and worked. We died working. We died trying. We died hoping. We knew that every single one of us was a brick in a long road. We knew that we could not build that road overnight and that it would take untold years to build it sturdy enough so that each new generation would be able to go just a bit further. You cannot crush that road. We have made this land brilliant, interesting, rich, culturally rich, musically rich, and we have built it with our hands, ideas, and work. You can ignore or belittle our legacy, but we know who we are.

What if I whisper? Acknowledge

Sometimes I lose control of my anger. It explodes in fury and hopelessness. I howl for the injustice and I lash out all around me. I demand that you see me and hear me and understand. I need you to know that if I sit too long with my hands folded and my heart torn that I will bleed beyond my body and it will ignite in flame and destruction. I shout so loud I shake the streets and the air blackens with soot as the sirens call out all around me. How can I be making all of this noise and still you cannot hear me?

What if I whisper? Understand

How do I say to you that my sons and daughters are just people?
How do I say to you that my son's lives are as important as your son's?
How do I say to you that my daughters are as worthy as yours?
How do I say to you that my life matters as much as yours does?
How do I make you see that you have no right to torture me?
How do I make you see that you have no right to starve me?
How do I make you see that you have no right to leave me without shelter?
How do I make you see that you have no right to imprison me for money?
How do I make you see that you have no right to force me to work in horrific conditions to put food on your table?
How do I make you see that you have no right to stop me and frisk me because you can?
How do I make you see that if I am driving in a car and I have done nothing, you have no right to stop me?
How do I stop you from calling the authorities when I'm just trying to do normal things?
How do I stop you from shooting me because you feel like it?
How do I get you to take your knee off of my neck?

What if I whisper? Injustice

I have wept!
I have wailed!
I have run!
I have worked!
I have fought!
I have been silent!
I have stood in peace!
I have rioted!
I have protested!
I have died!
I have been murdered!
I have knelt in silence.
I have walked in peace.
I have voted despite how hard you work to stop me.
I have spoken in the face of violence and fear.
I have written the words of protest and anger - love and peace.

Still, You Will Not Hear Me!

What if I whisper -

Your life is built on a foundation of my bones

We cannot go forward until we clear the ground and start again

I will no longer let you keep pretending you don't hear me