A couple weeks ago I performed (storytelling) for the 3rd year in a row for Elizabeth Ellis at the Denton Scare on the Square Ghost Story Concert. This is an annual event and usually each year different tellers are invited to tell. So to be asked three years in a row by one of greatest tellers of all time is quite an honor for me. I feel quite fortunate to even be on the same slate as her in a program. Any program.
One of the reasons Elizabeth ask me back is because I am generally ruthless when it comes to storytelling ghost stories. I am not a blood, guts and gore teller. I rely mostly on good arrangement of material in presenting the story and intensity of telling. In other words lots of drama, suspense. I use my voice (modulating intensity) and pauses to effect and with a good sound system you can literally get away with murder when telling a good chilling tale.
In this specific program we do a free concert outside that is family oriented (little kids can come) and then starting last year we did a paying concert inside the courthouse. It is presented inside one of the courtrooms and OH!!! what a great place to tell spooky tales. I fell in love with it last year.
This year I decided to take a crack at telling one of the all time great ghost stories. Something that all of us has grown up with but I have never heard a professional teller tell. I had tried to tackle the Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving once before for a program in west Texas and I hated the final product. That was about two years ago when I had done that program. I had come a long way even since then and took the proverbial bull by the horns and started working on it again.
My problem was that one of the reasons Elizabeth keeps asking me back is because I usually do really scary material and I just didn't know if I could pull this off the way I saw it. And of course I would be doing this in the courthouse where the really good material is told. This story is treated as a children's classic and so that was my concern. How it would be recieved. I don't normally do new material in a paying concert. I like to work it out and play with it a while in non paying situations. So that I can develop the material.
So that was my situation.
Until the day before the concert I still wasn't convinced that I had the right approach to telling Irving's classic tale. I had learned a while back that some stories had to be reinvented in presentation of material. Especially older stories that are some what archiac in there writing and presentation (though Hollow is probably one of the best written stories of its time). One reason for this approach is that by restructuring the story it gave the teller more freedom in how to present it. The other reason is when storytelling a classic tale such as this one it gives the teller an advantage with his audience. They may know the story but are not quite sure where your going or how you plan to get there.
Then I went back to how I had structured my Beowulf material for Beowulf Retold. In my retelling of this great classic I had seized upon a dramatic event that was near the beginning of the story that had little detail and turned it into a detailed dramatic opening to draw my audience into the drama of the story.
So after beating myself over the head for nearly two weeks playing with the material I started over. I reviewed the story and picked a turning point. The part of the story where Icabod is about to enter the Hollow. It is a turning point in the story for Icabod. It is high drama in itself. Does he enter the Hollow ( the most haunted place in all of New York) or go back to the Van Tassels after being embarrassed by Katrina. Then as Icabod sits at the entrance of the Hollow I had him reviewed some of the details of the events that had happened earlier that night. Using that material to exploit the character of Icabod, Katrina and Brombones.
I intentional made the most of my characters and their extreems (could do more with more time) just as Iriving had. I tried to include all of the important facts relating to the area and his situation. How Icabod would had been viewed by the locals and espeically the girls. After Icabod reconsiders his issues he decides that he can not go back.
With this approach in mind I went to the concert. Outside on the courthouse lawn, for the non paying concert, I was last to tell. After listening to Tim Couch do a great story that had come from a youth tale about a wolf, I decided to do my version of the wolf woman legend. Lots of fun and it worked great.
Inside I was last to perform again and I was having quite an inner battle with sticking to doing the Hollow. I am basically a chicken at heart. I hate to do bad material or good material badly. I always want to come off as good as I can. This is very important to me. Finally my time came. I still hadn't made up my mind. I walked up to the mic with my mind saying ' do the tried and true you will make a mess of Hollow ' and then the other part of me was going, "Chicken!!"
In my heart I knew I could do this and really wanted to. I just don't get many opportunities to do material like this in a situation like this. It was perfect. So I did the Legend of Sleepy Hollow and it was great. I had a blast and the audience laughed in the right places and were terrified in the others. It was fun and the presentation felt like it worked the way I had intended it to. In fact I was so happy with it I have decided to make it into a special program on my website.
My point of all this is pretty simple. I need to listen to my inner voice more often. I think that we all need to.
I love to storytell.
It has been a huge part of who I am for the last ten years. It has expanded my horizons and given me opportunities that I would had never dreamed of ten years ago. I have been called by many a Master Storyteller and maybe I am. But Master or not I still have qualms, battles, within myself about how and what kind of material to do and how to do it. I know that every time I do program I am creating inside of someone's mind. I am instilling idea's and images. To me this is an important responsibillity.
In the courthouse at Denton a few weeks ago I won a battle. I crossed a line that previously had been restricted to me. The last time I did that was in 1993, when at my son's Boy Scout camp out at Worth Ranch. I told the tale of Hugo's Crack. That night I had a battle within myself as well. Whether I should tell the tale or not. I had never done anything like that before. I did not consider myself a speaker or a storyteller. But a voice inside me said do it and I did. It changed my life forever.
Before I sign off on the blog I want to thank my dear freind Elizabeth Beamon who I have known now for over ten years and was a member of the Tarrant Area guild of Storytellers. She came out to Denton just to see me tell. She could not stay for the Courthouse gig because she needed to drive home. A better and deary freind a storyteller could not ask for. Thanks Elizabeth, God Bless.
One of the reasons Elizabeth ask me back is because I am generally ruthless when it comes to storytelling ghost stories. I am not a blood, guts and gore teller. I rely mostly on good arrangement of material in presenting the story and intensity of telling. In other words lots of drama, suspense. I use my voice (modulating intensity) and pauses to effect and with a good sound system you can literally get away with murder when telling a good chilling tale.
In this specific program we do a free concert outside that is family oriented (little kids can come) and then starting last year we did a paying concert inside the courthouse. It is presented inside one of the courtrooms and OH!!! what a great place to tell spooky tales. I fell in love with it last year.
This year I decided to take a crack at telling one of the all time great ghost stories. Something that all of us has grown up with but I have never heard a professional teller tell. I had tried to tackle the Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving once before for a program in west Texas and I hated the final product. That was about two years ago when I had done that program. I had come a long way even since then and took the proverbial bull by the horns and started working on it again.
My problem was that one of the reasons Elizabeth keeps asking me back is because I usually do really scary material and I just didn't know if I could pull this off the way I saw it. And of course I would be doing this in the courthouse where the really good material is told. This story is treated as a children's classic and so that was my concern. How it would be recieved. I don't normally do new material in a paying concert. I like to work it out and play with it a while in non paying situations. So that I can develop the material.
So that was my situation.
Until the day before the concert I still wasn't convinced that I had the right approach to telling Irving's classic tale. I had learned a while back that some stories had to be reinvented in presentation of material. Especially older stories that are some what archiac in there writing and presentation (though Hollow is probably one of the best written stories of its time). One reason for this approach is that by restructuring the story it gave the teller more freedom in how to present it. The other reason is when storytelling a classic tale such as this one it gives the teller an advantage with his audience. They may know the story but are not quite sure where your going or how you plan to get there.
Then I went back to how I had structured my Beowulf material for Beowulf Retold. In my retelling of this great classic I had seized upon a dramatic event that was near the beginning of the story that had little detail and turned it into a detailed dramatic opening to draw my audience into the drama of the story.
So after beating myself over the head for nearly two weeks playing with the material I started over. I reviewed the story and picked a turning point. The part of the story where Icabod is about to enter the Hollow. It is a turning point in the story for Icabod. It is high drama in itself. Does he enter the Hollow ( the most haunted place in all of New York) or go back to the Van Tassels after being embarrassed by Katrina. Then as Icabod sits at the entrance of the Hollow I had him reviewed some of the details of the events that had happened earlier that night. Using that material to exploit the character of Icabod, Katrina and Brombones.
I intentional made the most of my characters and their extreems (could do more with more time) just as Iriving had. I tried to include all of the important facts relating to the area and his situation. How Icabod would had been viewed by the locals and espeically the girls. After Icabod reconsiders his issues he decides that he can not go back.
With this approach in mind I went to the concert. Outside on the courthouse lawn, for the non paying concert, I was last to tell. After listening to Tim Couch do a great story that had come from a youth tale about a wolf, I decided to do my version of the wolf woman legend. Lots of fun and it worked great.
Inside I was last to perform again and I was having quite an inner battle with sticking to doing the Hollow. I am basically a chicken at heart. I hate to do bad material or good material badly. I always want to come off as good as I can. This is very important to me. Finally my time came. I still hadn't made up my mind. I walked up to the mic with my mind saying ' do the tried and true you will make a mess of Hollow ' and then the other part of me was going, "Chicken!!"
In my heart I knew I could do this and really wanted to. I just don't get many opportunities to do material like this in a situation like this. It was perfect. So I did the Legend of Sleepy Hollow and it was great. I had a blast and the audience laughed in the right places and were terrified in the others. It was fun and the presentation felt like it worked the way I had intended it to. In fact I was so happy with it I have decided to make it into a special program on my website.
My point of all this is pretty simple. I need to listen to my inner voice more often. I think that we all need to.
I love to storytell.
It has been a huge part of who I am for the last ten years. It has expanded my horizons and given me opportunities that I would had never dreamed of ten years ago. I have been called by many a Master Storyteller and maybe I am. But Master or not I still have qualms, battles, within myself about how and what kind of material to do and how to do it. I know that every time I do program I am creating inside of someone's mind. I am instilling idea's and images. To me this is an important responsibillity.
In the courthouse at Denton a few weeks ago I won a battle. I crossed a line that previously had been restricted to me. The last time I did that was in 1993, when at my son's Boy Scout camp out at Worth Ranch. I told the tale of Hugo's Crack. That night I had a battle within myself as well. Whether I should tell the tale or not. I had never done anything like that before. I did not consider myself a speaker or a storyteller. But a voice inside me said do it and I did. It changed my life forever.
Before I sign off on the blog I want to thank my dear freind Elizabeth Beamon who I have known now for over ten years and was a member of the Tarrant Area guild of Storytellers. She came out to Denton just to see me tell. She could not stay for the Courthouse gig because she needed to drive home. A better and deary freind a storyteller could not ask for. Thanks Elizabeth, God Bless.
2 comments:
http://www.myspace.com/cknsodajpp
Hi again this is Afton from Denton Old down town Square. I have 2 videos up that I took of you reading Sleepy Hollow. I hope all your fans get to check it out also
cknsoda
I found your posting the other day and I thank you for thinking enough of my work to go through the trouble of posting it.I just wish we had had a little more light. Considering the circumstances I think you did well. This is one of the reasons I created my facebook page and this blog (which you can now reach from my website) was to give fans of my work opportunities to see me performing. I appreciate your effort and time.
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