So You Want To Do A Solo Show? E-Book

Gareth Armstrong

• Herausgeber: Nick Hern Books
• Kategorie: Ratgeber
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Seitenzahl: 172

Beschreibung

A unique guide to every aspect of putting on your own solo show: choosing the subject, raising the finance, booking the venue - and performing it! More and more actors – faced with ever longer periods of unemployment – are turning to the solo show as a way of keeping active, keeping visible, and keeping the wolf from the door! This book is essential reading for anyone contemplating such a move, and comprehensively covers every aspect of putting on your own one-person show. Being a veteran of the solo-show circuit, as a writer, performer and director, Gareth Armstrong is the ideal guide. He takes you step by step through each stage of the process: Choosing the right material – or devising your own Raising the finance Finding the venues Hiring a bookings manager and other personnel Arranging publicity Winning an audience There is a special section on that mecca for solo shows, the Edinburgh Fringe, and an extensive appendix covering funding bodies, venues, festivals and more. Throughout the book, Armstrong illustrates his points with case studies of actual solo shows by performers such as Miriam Margolyes, Linda Marlowe and Guy Masterson. 'So You Want To Do A Solo Show?? is a thorough, meticulous, hands-on, "how-to-do" manual, covering everything from the germination of an idea right through to the costing of the flyers. It is, I think, the most valuable read for any performer who has ever thought "If only I could have some control over the way my career is going"' Maureen Lipman, from her Foreword

Leseprobe

SO YOU WANT TO DO A SOLO SHOW?

Gareth Armstrong

Foreword by Maureen Lipman

NICK HERN BOOKS

London

www.nickhernbooks.co.uk

Contents

Foreword by Maureen Lipman

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Part One

What’s Your Motivation?

What’s Your Inspiration?

What’s Your Show?

1 A previously performed play

2 A play using your own life experiences

3 A play based on a real-life character or characters

4 A play based on a fictional life

5 A play revisiting a fictional creation

6 A play celebrating a literary life (by impersonation or in recital)

7 A play adapted from other media

8 A play for children

9 A play based on utilising a special skill

10 A play based on none of the above

Finally, the First Word

Part Two

Getting Your Act Together

Money

People

Timing

Rehearsals

First Night

Next Steps

Publicity

Booking Agencies

The Edinburgh Festival Fringe

Life After Edinburgh

Touring

Budgeting

Rural Touring

International Touring

Postscript

Appendices

For Frank Barrie, a gifted and generous mentor and friend

Foreword

If I had read this book before embarking on either of my two one-person shows, I might now be living in Monaco, tax-free, giddy from Louis Roederer Cristal and mopping up Princess Charlene’s tears before bedtime. So You Want To Do A Solo Show? is a thorough, meticulous, hands-on, ‘how-to-do’ manual, covering everything from the germination of an idea right through to the costing of the flyers. It is, I think, the most valuable read for any performer who has ever thought ‘If only I could have some control over the way my career is going.’

Gareth Armstrong has form. He has written, directed and performed in this odd milieu, where, as Joyce Grenfell once said, ‘If I put out my hand to give you something but you don’t reach out to take it, the circle has not been completed.’ The circle. It sounds a little ‘hakuna matata’ but that’s how it is with solo work, where the audience’s imagination is half of the dramatis personae.

I remember being so petrified before opening in ReJoyce, my show about Grenfell, that no one would want to sit through two hours of Maureen Lipman being her, that I booked two sessions with a hypnotherapist, just to get me through opening night. She was excellent, but this book might have saved me a hundred and twenty quid.

Later, I realised that the secret of stepping into the shoes of someone who is much revered is that the audience sees you, remembers her and then, quite subtly, relaxes into a version of a third-person amalgam of both of you. A taxi driver dropped me outside the Duchess Theatre one night and, seeing the words ‘Maureen Lipman in ReJoyce’ on the marquee, asked, ‘Who’s in it wiv you then, Maureen?’

‘Er… no one,’ I replied lamely. ‘Just me.’

‘’Ow long’s it last then?’ he persisted.

I told him it was about two and a quarter hours to which he responded:

‘Gor blimey, girl – that must be bleedin’ borin’, ’ adding, for good measure, ‘Don’t get me wrong – I don’t mean for you… I mean for the audience!’

Armstrong covers nerves and confidence, the strains and elation of solo work, and even gives tips on loading up and travelling after. He quantifies your costs and your supporting staff and extras, and he has input from experts in the fields of all kinds of ‘small is beautiful’ festivals and venues. In short, this is a valuable edition to your bookshelf – somewhere in between David Niven’s The Moon’s a Balloon and Stanislavsky – and may just inspire you to action, method and the sound of many hands clapping.

Maureen Lipman

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the following people for making this book possible:

All the actors who allowed me to feature their shows in the case studies that appear here. They were generous with their time, honest about their experiences and infectious in their enthusiasm.

The people who for over a decade kept my solo career on the road, and thus prompted this book: Guy Masterson of Theatre Tours International, Martin Platt of UK Arts International, Richard Jordan, Emma Hands of Indigo Entertainments, and Mark Makin of makin projects, who also provided invaluable information on the logistics of setting up solo touring and its often alarming realities.

In America, Robert Friedman battled visa controls and shrinking US arts budgets to get me to the States on more than a dozen occasions, and the UK and international staff of the British Council who took on the rest of the world.

The players who are still, or soon will be touring solo shows that I have directed, and taught me so many valuable lessons: Rohan McCullough, Issy Van Randwyck, Gerard Logan, Rhodri Miles, the doyen Roger Llewellyn, and Guy Masterson who now plays Shylock in the show I wrote for myself.

The playwright Bernie Byrnes, who not only writes exemplary one-person plays but also helped me enormously with the research for the Appendices and thus made life easier for all those aspiring solo performers out there.

The Publisher and his Commissioning Editor: Nick Hern and Matt Applewhite, who encouraged the concept, identified the shortcomings, corrected the errors and still manage to stay my very good friends.

Gareth Armstrong

Introduction

‘My idea of hell would be a one-woman show, I wouldn’t be able to do that…’

Judi Dench (And Furthermore)

Most actors, however, at some point in their careers will think about doing a solo show. It’s a very small percentage that will actually get their piece staged. A poll as to when and why actors abort their brave attempts would be very instructive. Early quitters may be put off by the responsibility, the solitary status, the sheer hard work or because an offer of more conventional work comes along. If none of these scupper your resolution, it may be money, logistics or loss of bottle. There are innumerable reasons why you’d quit, all of them justifiable, but you’d be missing a life-changing experience.

At whatever stage you are in your career, rewind to that existential moment when you decided the only life for you was on the boards. Choosing to do a solo show will remind you of the sensation of launching yourself on a thrilling adventure, it will empower you, and put you where you know you belong – centre stage. And you won’t even have had to go through the agony of an audition.

One of the features that distinguishes younger actors from many of their older colleagues is an entrepreneurial spirit, born partly of the zeitgeist but also from the changes in the profession, which have diminished and curtailed the opportunities to work in live theatre. A career path for previous generations of performers was much more straightforward than it is today. After training, getting an agent, applying for Equity membership and learning how to sign–on for unemployment benefit, most young actors would have waited for the phone to ring and hoped it was an opportunity to audition for a season of work in a regional theatre. What followed was not always the effortless rise to the stardom of their dreams, and taking part-time employment in retail or an office was a frequent recourse, but the talented would generally find a network of theatres that would engage them frequently enough for them to at least identify themselves as professional actors.

Changes in theatre politics and policy have dismantled that structure and nowadays young actors realise they have to be more proactive to get work, and ruthlessly self-promoting to keep themselves in work. They will have developed their own websites, with links to their showreels and voice-over demos. They will collaborate with each other in forming small-scale theatre companies, take options on plays or novels to adapt into film scripts, and of course devise, commission or write solo performances.

But judging from the majority of solo shows currently on offer around the country it is apparent that most are created not by actors fresh from drama school and eager to take centre stage, but by those with a degree of experience. That experience is often a decade or more working in the profession and, as significantly, not working in the profession. Frustration with the trajectory of a career is one of the principal reasons for going solo. That was certainly what triggered my interest in the genre.

The actor Frank Barrie created a one-man show, Macready, about the great nineteenth-century actor-manager, William Macready, and toured it for twenty-five years. As well as giving him employment, it brought a degree of independence, great personal satisfaction, a clutch of awards and the opportunity to travel the world. Like many of his friends impressed by his achievement, I asked him how to go about doing something similar myself. His response, ‘First find a subject you are passionate about,’ is still the best piece of advice for any would-be solo performer.

Years later, whilst playing Shylock in The Merchant of Venice, I became obsessed with the character, and was reluctant to abandon him at the end of our short run. There was nothing as challenging on my professional horizon so I decided to devote the next year to creating a one-man show about Shakespeare’s infamous Jew. I started only with the prescribed passion but I was still performing my play, Shylock, ten years later, and, as well as tackling another Shakespearean icon alone (Prospero in Stephen Davies’s play Dr Prospero), I have had a hand in creating over a dozen solo plays for other performers. What I learnt from my own creative process and from nurturing others is the subject of this book. It will try and guide you through the process of conceiving, realising and presenting your solo show. It will question your motives, your commitment, your dedication and your stamina. The only element it will take for granted is your talent.

PART ONE

What’s Your Motivation?

Paucity of other employment is the most likely reason that you are thinking of a one-person show, but you don’t have to be desperate for work to want to launch your solo career. You may already have work that you don’t find totally fulfilling. To walk the tightrope of a solo show will offer you more stimulation, an opportunity to showcase your talents and prove that you can tackle greater challenges than you are currently being offered. Fortunate enough to be under long-term contract to a major subsidised company, on a commercial tour or in a successful West End run, you may be playing small parts or understudying. It’s understandable to feel yourself marginalised or unappreciated when your contribution seems a minor one, so trying out a solo piece can be good for your self esteem.

Whilst your self-advancement or self-improvement as a professional actor is probably why you are taking this route, you might have another more altruistic motive. Drawing attention to a cause, highlighting an injustice or celebrating a neglected life might be your inspiration, and your passion and commitment will be hugely to your advantage. But you have chosen to champion your cause through a piece of theatre, not a tract or a blog or a petition. Your sincerity and good intentions won’t let you off the hook where a paying audience’s expectations are concerned. Take a leaf from the BBC’s mission statement, which is to inform, to educate – and to entertain.

One among many

What used to be a small trickle of solo shows from what was considered a slightly eccentric cadre of actors is now a veritable flood. Yours will have to be pretty special if it’s to stay afloat. You will need to possess a degree of self-confidence somewhere beyond the courage that it takes to act at all. If going in front of an audience as a member of a cast exposes you and your talent, how much more vulnerable you are when the whole audience’s attention is focused on you for the entire length of the play. Belief in yourself, and equally in your material is crucial.

Before you start the process, it’s as well to confront the reality of working on stage alone. However many people are involved in getting your show on the road, it is you who will be up there speaking the first and last lines – and every line between. If something goes awry, only you can get yourself out of a tight spot. If the audience is inattentive, unappreciative, disrespectful or asleep, you have to address that situation without anyone to help you out, back you up or crack up with over a drink after the show. You are all the audience have to hold their interest, so there are no moments offstage, no gaps where you have time to refocus, recharge your batteries or even take a leak.

The relationship between the solo performer and his or her audience is unlike any other in the theatre. It is in effect a two-hander, with the audience as the other, silent player, and, whether it’s love or hate at first sight, it’s impossible to be indifferent to that single individual who is demanding all your attention. The number of actors who balk at the notion of performing a solo show is as nothing to the number of audience members who turn tail and run at the prospect of sitting through one. They have an aversion to the genre in the same way that some people can’t stand opera or Shakespeare on stage.

If showcasing your talent in the hope of generating other work is one of your aims, the depressing fact is that casting directors are unlikely to turn up. Since going to check out actors’ work is part of their brief, this reluctance may seem unreasonable, but the reality is that devoting an evening to just you will only tick one box. Going to see a full-cast show, or a student showcase, they will argue, is a much more cost-effective use of their time. Thinking of your solo show as a stepping stone to more and better work is, frankly, optimistic. It will demonstrate your resourcefulness and versatility, but these are not necessarily the qualities most employers are looking for in an actor.

You should ask yourself whether staging a show with you as the only focus of attention is a burning desire to tell a story, or an act of self-indulgence. We acknowledge that somewhere in an actor’s psyche is the need to be noticed, to be appreciated, to be loved. But however deserving you are, any hint of narcissism or neediness will immediately put a barrier between you and your audience. You have to earn their attention, their appreciation and their respect. In a pecking order of importance it should be the play, the audience and, finally, you.

Rules that will apply to your performance whatever its subject matter:

•  Distinguish between arrogance and total self-confidence on stage.

•  Be vocally assertive without hectoring.

•  Be self-deprecatory without sycophancy.

•  Use open body language.

•  Embrace the whole audience with your eyes.

•  Make your audience laugh.

•  Move your audience.

•  Inform your audience.

•  Surprise your audience.

•  Never insult your audience’s intelligence.

•  Never, ever, risk boring them.

What’s Your Inspiration?

Watching a fellow actor tackle a solo show may have sown the seed. You may have been inspired by the solo performances of some theatrical luminaries. Perhaps you saw Ian McKellen during the year of his life he devoted to Performing Shakespeare, Antony Sher in Primo, or Vanessa Redgrave in The Year of Magical Thinking. It is unlikely that any of the above did it because they needed the money (indeed, McKellen donated the proceeds from his marathon tour to AIDS charities). It’s doubtful too that they did it to improve their profile or because they were short of other offers. They did it out of their passion for the work, and that showed onstage.

You may already have some idea of what story you want to tell and how you want to tell it. Your first major decision, if your play isn’t already in the repertoire, will be whether to devise or write the script yourself or collaborate with a writer. If the subject matter is you, it is vital that the voice remains authentically your own. A good writer will know that instinctively. For other life stories or fictional narratives you will obviously want to work with a writer who is knowledgeable or at least engaged by the subject. And just as solo performing isn’t for everyone, not all playwrights are comfortable with writing monologues.

What’s Your Show?

Your show will come under one of the following ten categories:

1 A previously performed play

2 A play using your own life experiences

3 A play based on a real-life character or characters

4 A play based on a fictional life

5 A play revisiting a fictional creation

6 A play celebrating a literary life (by impersonation or in recital)

7 A play adapted from other media

8 A play for children

9 A play based on utilising a special skill

10 A play based on none of the above

1. A Previously Performed Play

This is the most straightforward choice: to reprise a performance of a play you have seen, or stage a published play that you have read. This frees you from many of the artistic dilemmas of more complex routes. If you don’t already have a copy of the script you have in mind, if it is out of print or not available from a bookshop, you can try and access it via internet sites or direct from the publisher. If the script has not been published you should contact and request a copy from the playwright’s agent.

If you have no definite play in mind you can search online for solo plays written by playwrights whose work you admire, the sites of play publishers or the sites of producing theatres that specialise in small-scale work or new writing. More adventurously, you could contact literary agents and investigate the availability of unpublished or even unperformed solo work. There may be a neglected gem by a writer who is as eager to be performed as you are to perform. Or a revival of a once-staged but now forgotten play could be good for you and the writer. If you are receptive to looking beyond the British repertoire then use the same resources to search out North American or Australasian plays, or European plays in translation.

An invaluable resource is the website Doollee.com which is a truly comprehensive guide to modern playwriting and English plays which have been written, adapted or translated into English since 1956. By clicking on the link to ‘Characters’ and specifying one male or one female actor, you will be bombarded with solo plays of every description with further links to the playwright, their known works and how to contact them.

Be sure, before you start learning the lines and rehearsing your curtain call, that the necessary rights to your chosen text are available, and that you can afford them. Another actor may have had the same idea and already taken an option on the performing rights, the playwright or his agent may not be prepared to release the rights to you, or the fees charged may be prohibitive.

Don’t capitulate at the first rebuff if you get a rejection because polite and persistent approaches sometimes pay off, but ultimately be prepared to accept rejection and look for another play.

Be realistic about casting. Just because you long to play a part doesn’t necessarily mean you should play it. Think hard about how suitable you are for the role. Canvass some opinions from friends and fellow professionals whom you trust and look out for the literal or metaphorical raised eyebrow.

CASE STUDY

Guy Masterson,The Boy’s Own Story

Guy Masterston’s name appears in this book more than once as, in one guise or another, he is responsible for more solo shows than anyone currently working in the UK.

His first foray was as an actor needing to generate his own work and searching around for a suitable scripted one-man vehicle. The Boy’s Own Story