DIY Performance Series, Part 2: 'Hey Kids, Let's Put On A Show!!"

Welcome to Step 2 in my DIY Performance Series, ‘Hey Kids, Let’s Put On A Show!!!’

Ok, so--you’ve decided you’re ready to write/organize/produce your own show/concert/art.

...where the heck do you even start???

While a young Mickey Rooney could simply announce, “Hey kids, let’s put on a show!” and have everything fall neatly into place, most DIYer’s quickly find that launching their own productions isn’t so easy. DIY art in general can be hard to wrap your brain around, because it’s difficult to even know where to start. In this section of my Series, I’ll show you how to clearly break down any project into simple concepts. At its most basic level, every DIY show requires three things: a Theme or Concept, a Niche or Specialty, and Material.

DIY art starts with a spark of excitement, an idea that bubbles around your brain before bursting with inspiration. Maybe it’s a concert of music by a specific composer, or maybe it’s a performance art piece inspired by a chewing gum commercial. Whatever your inspiration, this ‘spark’ is your DIY Theme or Concept. Regardless of how excited you are to get started creating, you’re going to have to take some time to sit down and flesh that puppy out a bit. I know, it sounds like I’m having an ‘Analogue Girl’ moment, but hear me out. The act of physically writing out a goal or a concept has been proven over and over again to psychologically help you to brainstorm on a larger scale--so think of doubling your already-imagined success, and let that be your motivation. Don’t halfass this step, no matter how clearly you think you’ve already developed your Concept in your head--if everyone took the time to clearly write out their core Concept and really considered it, the world might have been spared horrendous artistic atrocities such as Critters 2 (UGH). So take a moment and physically write down a sentence or two that clearly outlines what it is you’re trying to create before moving on. We’ll end up using this later on, so keep ahold of it.

Now you know the general Concept or Theme of your show, let’s move on defining your Niche or Specialty. Your Specialty and your Theme have to go hand-in-hand, or your final production will be unbalanced. To identify your Niche or Specialty, we have to ask: who exactly ARE you?

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not advocating for a deep psychological self-examination. I’m asking to identify WHO YOU ARE AS AN ARTIST. What is your niche or specialty? What can you offer that makes you singularly unique? Or, to put it plainly, what are you so goddamn good at that people hire you to do it over and over again?? This should be a no-brainer, almost like an automatic response if you’re a professional performer. Remember that list you made during Step 1 of your special skills and strengths? Trot that sucker out again and take another gander at it. You should constantly be assessing and re-assessing yourself as a performer, since you’ll be growing and changing throughout your career. If you’re not a professional performer, or if you truly have no idea what your specialty might be, just go down your resume and start looking for trends in the roles you’ve played. Are they comedic in nature, or are they dramatic? Do you usually play ingenues, or are you better at character roles? Is there a particular style of music that you seem to perform a lot, or a certain composer who really calls to you? Once you know what your specialty or niche is, you can start to plan a performance that plays to your strengths. As simple as this concept seems, it’s often overlooked by DIY performers--and when a performer hasn’t taken the time to think through this step, it’s painfully obvious in the resulting production.

Let’s flip that coin over and take a look at the other side. What are you NOT so great at? This is where you might have to be a little brave and a little brutal with yourself. DIY art DEMANDS that you be 100% completely honest with yourself in your self-analysis. You cannot allow imposter syndrome or your ego to stand in the way of executing your art. You need to recognize skill sets that need polishing with the same ruthlessness that you identify what makes you unique and marketable. If you’re wanting to produce your own work, but you’re not a great director, then you need to own up to this fact and work hiring a director into your budget (more about budgeting later on!). If you desperately want to produce a comedic show, but you yourself aren’t a strong comedian, you might have to consider hiring a coach to help strengthen that aspect of your performance...or even consider hiring a better artist for the job.

This is where your ego can very quickly get entangled in your Concept. Everyone has sat through at least one bad performance in which certain aspects (say, the lighting design, or the costuming, or the direction, etc) were CLEARLY lacking; as an audience member, didn’t you leave this performance with a bad taste in your mouth? How likely are you to go see another DIY production by the same artist or company after one bad experience? Would you as the producing artist rather the piece be successful, or would you rather perform something regardless of the detriment it might cause the final product? This is a serious question to consider. Not everyone can be good at everything---but if the idea of someone else performing your material truly KILLS you, then now is the time to fess up to your faults and brainstorm creative ways to work around them BEFORE investing into a project that just won’t work. It’s no use spending the time, energy and funds to create your own art if you can’t create something that’s worthwhile---something that excites not only you, but your audiences as well. Sometimes you may need a little time to process this. You might need to do a little experimentation to really get the mental wheels turning, or you might need to sit down with a teacher or someone you trust-- someone who is familiar with your work and who can help you honestly assess your weaknesses. Collaboration is a beautiful tool in the DIY world when done correctly (more on collaboration in general to come!). Try making a list of everything you might need some outside help on--and count on budgeting for it later.

Now that you know your DIY Theme and you’ve matched it to your Niche/Specialty, you can start putting together the basic building blocks of your creative tool kit: the Material you’re going to stick together to create your actual show.

Maybe you recently read a script that you’re obsessed with producing, or maybe you heard a piece of music that you’re dying to feature in a concert. Or maybe what you’re looking to express doesn’t exist anywhere yet, but you’re currently writing it into reality. No matter what your passion project may be, DIY shows are generally comprised of Pre-existing Material, and New Material.

Pre-existing Material encompasses everything that currently exists. This includes but is in no way limited to books, movies, folk tales, or true stories that you learned talking to people you ran into in the grocery store. Pre-existing Material is an easy camp for first-time DIY producers to play in, since it gives you a platform with an already-solid foundation. Looking to put together a concert? You’re looking at using Pre-existing Material. Want to make an adapted screenplay of your favorite anime? Pre-existing Material, kids. Using Pre-existing Material allows you to be completely familiar with the scope and storyline of the work you will be presenting, which in turn gives you a better idea as to the size of the production and team you’ll need to work with. A word of caution to this tale: you must ensure that the Pre-Existing Material you’re looking to work with is not currently under copyright or illegally obtained, or things can get ugly REAL quick. Profiting off another artist’s work is not only morally wrong, it’s legally prosecutable. One of my favorite moments in my current-TV-series-obsession, ‘The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt’, features the character Titus, a stage-starved performer who is sick of auditioning and getting rejected. Titus decides that he is going to launch his own knock-off version of The Lion King...and promptly gets served a cease-and-desist order by the ONLY member of his audience within the opening song’s first few measures. What’s funny in a TV show is actually scary in real life--nobody wants to receive a court summons EVER. Unless your material is 100% original, take the time NOW to ensure that you’re familiar with what is and isn’t legally considered copyright infringement. If you’re putting together a series of pre-existing songs, be sure to pay for ALL of the original scores, and keep your receipts on hand just in case. If the artist who created your source material is living, try contacting them through their website to obtain written permission to carry your project forward. Do absolutely everything you can to ensure that you have documented proof of permission; when in doubt, go over and above to cover your butt. Should you find yourself still questioning the legality of your project, try contacting the Lawyers for the Creative Arts, a non-profit in the Chicagoland area. More information about them can be found here: https://law-arts.org/legal-services. An quick overviewing course on copyright infringement for artists can be found on the Chicago Artists Resource page: http://www.chicagoartistsresource.org/survival-guide/legal.

New Material is just that: it’s completely new. Want to finally feature that funny improv character you’ve been creating in your head? New Material is here to help. Don’t be fooled by its seemingly innocent and easy namesake. While New Material may dazzle you with its exciting and endless possibilities, it’s actually incredibly challenging to create. There are people out there who never can quite seem to get past the inception phase of New Material and actually put something onto paper to map it all out...or worse, something that bears any semblance to its original intention. Remember your Theme/Concept, the one we mapped out in two or three sentences? Post it somewhere close to your computer or writing notebook, and take a glance at it from time to time while you’re creating, just to be sure you stay on target. It sounds crazy, but a LOT of baby DIY’ers run into trouble keeping on target with their material. Give yourself plenty of time to write, rewrite, edit, and rewrite again.

That last sentence was super important, so I’m going to reiterate it: IF YOU ARE CREATING NEW MATERIAL, PLEASE LEAVE YOURSELF PLENTY OF TIME TO WRITE AND REWRITE EVERYTHING. Most New Material requires a lot of time, thought and energy to be invested into it before the actual DIY production can take place...and I mean, A LOT. This isn’t something you can pick up, create and put down as a single flawless creation (unless you’re a genius like Mozart...). New Material demands that you invest in it, that you fearlessly open it up to audiences and garner feedback, that you constantly tweak and adjust and fiddle with it. The first one-woman show I ever wrote took me two weeks to write, from start to finish. At bare minimum, I would set a timer for an hour a day to write and edit; that’s at least fourteen hours’ worth of work. After its first workshop, I performed for family and friends to garner feedback. I then rewrote entire portions of the show, swapping out songs and switching up events. In the end, I work-shopped it for over a year and a half before it’s first big public performance. I have now rewritten it over seven times from start to finish... and honestly, I end up revising or tinkering with some aspect of it every time I perform it. THIS is the level of dedication New Material requires. When this amount of effort hasn’t been invested into New Material, the results are painfully obvious. Ever been to see your friend do some stand-up they claim is hilarious, only to watch them fall flat with an audience? That’s somebody attempting to launch New Material and finding that it didn’t hit its mark--- and 9 times out of 10, it’s because they didn’t do their New Material homework. A great example of this is my own Face-Plant Moment: after the success of my first one-woman show, I got a little cocky. I applied to a local performance venue to produce another show, one which I was currently writing--and to my delight, I was contracted to perform it later on that month. Delight quickly turned to horror when I realized I had less than a month to finish writing the show! In my excitement, I had somehow forgotten the amount of energy and attention that the first show required. There was no way I could back out of a signed contract, but also no way that my current show could be as successful as my first show. I simply hadn’t factored in enough time to set myself up for success. Even with the incredible amount of (panicked) attention that I poured into writing, the ending result was rough--- a too-long production that got luke-warm reviews and left a bitter taste in my mouth. Lesson learned: tweaking your new material is a lengthy, time-consuming, exhausting and sometimes frustrating process, but it’s absolutely necessary.

In the end, your DIY production is just that---’do it yourself’. YOU determine what the end result is going to look like, what’s going to comprise it, and how much effort you want to invest into it. To quote the Knight Templar from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, “You must choose...but CHOOSE WISELY.” The choices you make now not only affect your production’s course, but the size of the budget you’re going to need to successfully pull it off.

Oh, YAS Kween, I said that scary, scary word: BUDGET. No matter what size of production you’re planning, you are going to need some skrilla to cover your costs. Even if you don’t think you’re going to have ANY costs, believe me---there WILL be costs. Nothing in this world is free, and that counts doubly for anything involving the arts.

So, how do you budget for a production that has never existed before? What sort of financial options do you have? Stay tuned for DIY Part 3: ‘Brother Can You Spare a Dime??”