Performing Your Work
Acting and vocal coach Adam Fotheringham writes about the power of bringing your unique imagination and presence to the stage when performing your work.
When you are in the process of writing, do you have a sense of your audience in order to give the work a life beyond the echo chamber of your own mind? Do you imagine the reader or listener present as you write? Are you listening to the words as they emerge from your creative imagination through the ears of your imagined audience? Are you watching their responses in your mind’s eye to check for impact? I am sure that most of you have a sense of your audience as you are writing - in the form of an individual reader or listener, or a larger gathering.
One of the challenges of presenting your work to an external audience is that there is a gap between you and your audience that doesn’t exist for the imagined audience in your head. The audience in your head receives a direct transmission of your work; they hear, see and feel what you hear, see, feel because there is no distance to cover. The external, three- dimensional audience on the other hand, is sitting at a physical distance and is not ‘tuned in’ like your imaginary audience. They need some help to overcome the hurdles that stand between their perception and your original creative impulses and intentions. And this is where the skills of creative presentation come into their own.
Effective presentation relies on a mostly different set of principles to those that govern creative writing, and these do not necessarily get developed as a writer develops their art and hones their craft. Simply standing in front of an audience, being visible, relaxed and present requires a specific awareness that can be learned and developed. Translating the dynamics of a piece of writing from ‘page’ to ‘stage’ calls on performance skills familiar to actors, singers and stand-up comedians but not necessarily taught to writers.
For example, is your presence in the space compelling enough to attract and maintain your audience’s attention?
Does your voice and delivery provide an appropriate vehicle for the transmission of your ideas and style of expression?
Do you give enough space in your speaking to let the words and thoughts land and resonate?
All these are essential matters that need conscious attention, otherwise they can become barriers to communication. And they are all things that, given some attention, make a huge difference.
I once worked with a highly articulate and original thinker whose ideas were radical and exciting, but who was frustrated by the lack of response at his talks. I attended one of his talks to witness him in action. He spent the duration of the talk with his gaze fixed on the back wall, high above the audience’s heads, and spoke in a staccato monotone. No wonder the audience couldn’t engage. He had no self-awareness, wasn’t connecting with his audience, and was speaking as if the ideas in themselves were enough to reward their attention.
When I fed back to him afterwards, he was amazed. His experience of himself ‘performing’ was completely out of synch with the reality - which is a much more common phenomenon than you might think!
Another client was a very timid but brilliant poet. Her voice was so quiet that only the middle of the front row could hear her, and she delivered each highly individual poem in the same halting yet exaggerated way, with her voice dipping at the end of every line. This was what she called her ‘poetry voice.’ The effect was to flatten and distort the uniqueness of each poem, and exclude most of the audience through lack of projection.
Once we had resolved the projection issue by inviting her to breathe in proportion to the size of the space, and consciously direct her speaking to the people furthest away, I invited her to tell me about each of the poems in turn rather than speak them, as if they were her ‘children’. Immediately she relaxed, and was able to describe each poem - its genesis and creation, its quality and intention - in highly distinctive and wonderfully expressive terms. We then worked on finding the unique ‘voice’ that unlocked each separate poem, rather than giving them all the generic ‘poetry voice’ treatment.
One thing I have learned over the 40 years of working on presentation with actors, singers, poets, writers and public speakers is that each individual has a unique style of presentation that needs to be found and nurtured. Focusing on achieving a generic ‘style’ or applying a learned technique at the expense of that individuality will simply bury the unique voice, so now I pay much more attention to the distinct qualities of imagination and presence belonging to each individual, and resolving the issues that impede their fullest expression.
Join Adam’s workshops on the mornings of 5th and 12th February and step into your individual power on stage. All the details you need are here.
Adam Fotheringham
Adam is an experienced actor, theatre director, performance and presentation coach. He has coached hundreds of actors, singers and public speakers, and is passionate about being a catalyst for others, opening people up to the realisation of their true potential.
He currently splits his time between working with Shakespeare in leadership development for large global organisations, and building confidence and communication skills in people who have barriers to employment.
