Everyone Has Special Needs: Laying the Groundwork for a Successful Encounter

When I do public shows, I tell the audience what my plan is before I perform. 

I do this for several reasons. 

1) Many of the people in the room may have never encountered a storyteller, and this gives them some idea of what is about to happen.

2) There are always children who are hungry, antsy, upset (for whatever reason) or just plain bored before it begins. This gives everyone a chance to know how long they have to sit, and what will be required of them.

3) Sometimes I ask what kind of stories they want. Do they want me to sneak in a kind of scary story? Should we do something really silly? I adjust on the fly as I get feedback.

4) This creates a very important bond with the audience. I'm asking their permission to let me conduct a tour through the imagination, engage in conversation with talking animals, suspend their belief as I turn into various objects, emit wild noises, and generally remake the space they are in with nothing more than my voice, face and body. There is a certain amount of trust I need!  

5) Last, and most important, it gets the very diverse group of people in front of me used to seeing a woman with dreadlocks, dressed in what is often a voluminous non-mainstreamed looking outfit, moving and speaking in a stylized way, all while using grammar, inflection, diction, and language that may or may not be familiar to them.


I never do reveals. I like people to get a chance to encounter me before they have to engage in telling with me. I discovered early in my career that if I do reveals, the audience might need time to get used to me before they can listen to me, and I can lose up to fifteen minutes while they try to decide who or what I am.

I've found over the years, that every single audience has special needs. I have to meet them wherever they are.


Figuring out how to do that is the trick.

The needs are varied. They include people who need sign language interpreters, participants who cannot see, adults and older teens who present as children, or children with a wide variety of  behaviors, abilities, and responses that might be distracting...and toddlers...yes, for me toddlers and children younger than two years are the most special audience members.

Sometimes I am successful at reaching these audience members, and sometimes I am not.

Before I ever begin, I've learned that it is important for me to ask organizers if they know if there are going to be members in the audience who have needs that will be unique to them.

You might ask, 'Why are you singling them out? Why does it matter?'

It matters because the adjustments I can make will not diminish the experience for anyone else, but they might very well help these participants enjoy the stories.

Some of the adaptations I make are as follows.

1 - Be aware of jump moments and loud sounds. (I love loud sounds in stories, but not everyone does. Jumps are fun, but only if you have good recovery.)

2 - Pacing is very important. Make sure that you are allowing the participants to experience the tale at its fullest based on their needs for processing time. Tell the interpreter what you are planning to do. 

3 - Depending on your audience, adjust the amount of detail, movement, sound, or asides you offer. 


You never know who is going to be in your audience, or how they are going to react to you.


In March of 2014 I was in Fredericton, Canada. I had a show at a playhouse. Afterwards, I sold books and CDs, answered questions, and took pictures with kids...and grown ups!

There was one adorable little girl wearing something my daughter would have left the house in when she was little. She took a picture with me, and she and her mom left. Afterwards, I got a link to a blog post her mom wrote about what had gone on the morning of the show.

At the Fredericton Play House

I was humbled. It made me think of all the reasons why I do this work. It makes me consider how much work there is left to do. It made me consider my abject failures and those small triumphs someone shares with me.

I go into this new performance year...it starts in September...promising to do my best to be there for anybody who needs stories. I promise to be as patient as I can. I promise to challenge myself, and the audiences I encounter, to go as deep as we will, and share as openly as we must.

I promise to do my best to learn whatever it is people are trying to teach me.

I believe that sharing stories is the first step on the path to understanding each other...even when those stories are hard.

To all of my fellow artists - Good Luck in the 2016 - 2017 touring season!

To all of my fellow travelers on the raising children roller coaster - Good Luck and don't kill and eat them. That's illegal.

Son is in his 2nd year at RIT my daughter is at NCSSM

To all of my fellow educators, let's get with the knowledge enabling!

To all of my fellow humans who are going to be making the circuit around the sun for the next 365 days, let's see to it that as many of us arrive safely on the other side of this year as possible!







Let The New Performance Year Begin!

(Bangs the Gong)

Happy Learning!

Steeping in Havoc and Mayhem - or - What Did I Learn This Week?

                                     
(Falling water tea from my Teaposy)



I Love Being a Storyteller!  


I had great shows this week.

I relearned tons of things I already knew!

I learned tons of things I don't even realize I learned!

I had adventures.

I had challenges.

What I'm steeping in this week……

I told at an International Montessori school on Monday.  I saw the K - 3 group.  I heard a fantastic story about a family who has a seven-year-old girl.  The girl is best friends with a boy born in South Africa who has a brother from Mexico in a family where the husband is Italian and the mother is French.

The little girl got in the car after school one day and said, "Sit Down!"  (Apparently that's what they say in their family when someone has earth shattering news.)
Her mother said, "What?"
She said, "Did you know my friend was adopted?  Can you believe that?"
Her mother, trying not to laugh, says, "Really?"
"Yeah, but don't tell dad.  I want to spring it on him at dinner."
Almost a year later this same little girl gets in the car and announces, "Mom, Sit Down!"
Her mom says, "What?"
The little girl says, "His brother is adopted too!"

                                         (My biracial children in the holiday pageant many years ago)
                                           (Neither is adopted.  Just like the whole color scheme)

I relearned that if we don't tell them otherwise, children see the world through the eyes of love.  It is a place where color neither matters nor has any implications.



I had a small show with a group of  about 100 sixth graders.  Ten minutes into the first tale I made the sound of a door opening very slowly.  It is a pretty cool sound.  The kids loved it.  One kid off to the left made an approximation of the sound very loudly.  I glanced over.  The smile on his face and the shine in his eyes, and his utter lack of acknowledgement that his peers were shushing him told me all I needed to know about this young man.  I have told with many autistic kids in the past twenty six years.  Sometimes the experience is a catastrophic fail on my part, and sometimes it works out all right.  This young man had been staring around until I made that sound.  For the next half an hour, he not only mimicked any sound effect used in the story, but started making sounds when the pitch of my voice changed.  His peers were trying to ignore him, but they were starting to get annoyed.  He was also mimicking the larger movements of my hands.  In the end, I didn't make some of the more obvious sounds so that he wouldn't be shushed by his peers.  Didn't matter.  When I didn't make the obvious sound, he did!  He knew what was supposed to be happening!  When the story was over, I changed the last tale from my version of The Debate in Sign Language to the Monkey's Heart.  I announced that he and I would be telling together, and I launched into it.  That young man and I spent the last ten minutes of that story set chattering, howling and yelling in unison.  It was great.

I relearned how to listen.  I relearned that stories can be experienced in many different ways.  I relearned what it was like to see pure joy on the face of a new story listener.  I relearned how to meet the audience wherever they are.


Had my first encounter with a Leadership school.  These were inspired by Stephen Covey.  They use his philosophies to teach children how to be successful.  His quotes are all over the school.  You might know him for the book, 7 Habits of Highly Successful People.  The school was interesting.  Right before I started the show for the third through fifth graders, every single classroom teacher left the multipurpose room, leaving me with four other adults and 450 students sitting criss cross applesauce on the floor.  We had a great show, but the kids took slightly longer than they should have to come to quiet after each exciting event.  Well, what can you do?  There were no real restraints anywhere!  I know teachers are pressed for planning time, and this is when they could have it, but the third through fifth grade teachers at that school didn't have the chance to use any of the language building or vocabulary we played with in the assembly in their classrooms…they don't even know what it was.  They won't be able to talk help their kids unpack things…they don't have slightest idea what happened.  The show went well, and it was fun, but I left thinking to myself that for a school that prides itself on Leadership, it sure didn't make a great deal of sense for all the adult leaders to leave!

  Hmmmm.

I relearned that we can't see the forest for the trees sometimes!  I learned that at a Leadership School, the kids take initiative!  I learned that at a Leadership school, two kids are assigned from each class to approach a visitor and offer a handshake.  I learned that at a Leadership school, the kids are taught how to stand up, speak their names, tell their grade level and then ask their questions, or offer an answer…very impressive.  I learned that at a Leadership school, any kid can approach and offer a handshake or a word of thanks after a show.  I relearned that it is good to carry hand sanitizer in my purse.


What did you learn or relearn on your storytelling journey this week?

Happy Listening!