So Woodford Folk Festival is done and dusted and so am I.
I’ve had some of the best gigs of my life (I feel like I’ve finally found who I AM onstage!) and if nothing else, am so so thrilled that I just took the leap, as tempted as I was just to stick with my safe and known material, to improvise, improvise, improvise. I’ve made up more solo songs this week than I’ve quite possibly done in my entire career. It really felt like all the stuff I worked on with Gary Austin and Michael Pollock earlier this year (on solo improv, and with Michael, solo musical improv) has FINALLY digested and I’m feeling freer to just play and have fun with it onstage.
I did something this week which I’d never done before: I invited an audience member to join me onstage to sing a duet, i.e. they sing their part when prompted. I had no idea how it would go, but just wanted to try something new out anyway. And Woodford does have a particularly beautiful spirit when it comes to experimenting and going for it. WHY NOT?!
It went so well I ended up doing it a number of other times, on the Mystery Bus both times my audience volunteer BLEW ME AWAY with their amazingness. One guy improvised not just a word (which I’d fully given them permission to do) but an entire VERSE, in TIME and with RHYME! So so awesome!
The other things I’ve been blown away by is the stunning awesomeness that is the comedy created by the onstage AUSLAN Interpeters. AGH. More on this later, but one particular gig I did I really played up to the interpreter’s version of my words and that interaction and it seriously felt like a two-woman show.
So awesome.
I am exhausted and will write more when this is not the case (besides which, somebody’s calling me: whether it’s my laundry or my children I am not yet sure.)
Hope your New Year was lovely, wherever you were and that 2012 is off to a rocking start!
Sorry that’s so cliche, but that’s all I got left, people!
Love.
xxoo
My fellow funny lady Liz Skitch challenged me to a Mumu day. I'm hooked!
The Woodford stage mum. I want to hire her for babysitting/mentorship.
The three minute silence at Woodford, one of my favourite moments of the entire festival. (Note: this may simply be because a 3-minute silence never ever happens in our life at any other point in a given year.)
Mister 2 spraying up a storm with our gorgeous (inside and out) Stage Manager.