Write the opening line of your solo show.
I’m an avowed introvert. Occasionally, I’ve had to do presentations in front of people and I invariably talk to fast, too loud. I don’t emphasize enough to talk as fast as JFK and get I tend to get tangled up in my own thoughts, like Gordian knots that I hope the audience can cut through with a sword like Alexander the Great, and make some sense of in the end. In the world of call and response, I’m a great responder–I can engage in existing conversations but starting them is awkward. Headphones in public were made for people like me.
If I was to do a solo show, it would have to be around something odd. Like a Ted talk on why I love Halloween and skulls, and how it was to feel like an odd little Wednesday Addams in a world of blond Farrah Fawcett clones growing up in New Jersey. And how trying on different personas, I finally landed on one in my late forties that felt natural, even if it seems odd and a little edgy to some people. So, I’d use this little guy as my opening visual…
MY OPENING LINE;
“Like hermit crabs, we spend our lives trying on different personalities. We change our clothes, our hair, sometimes even our way of speaking or writing. We try to conform to what people thing we should be or what society dictates. I did this like everyone else. But one day, in my forties, I decided, like this crab to find a personal “house” that fit. Everyone may have not though it was pretty or normal, but it was me and it was finally a home.”
skullwoman 