Story Slam semi-finals
Mar. 15th, 2012 10:18 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
usernamenumberLast night I told "the cornbread story" at the MassMouth Story Slam semi finals.
For the finals they asked everyone to perform their stories in 4.5 mins instead of 5 like they had in the previous round. Asking for shorter versions of the winning stories seemed odd to me, but in retrospect I think it was a great idea. I sat down with the video of my last telling, trimmed it, tightened it, and practiced it, and I think I ended up with the best telling of that story yet (and I've told this thing I don't know how many times over the last 15ish years). It was one of those performances where everything just came together: I hit all of the beats I'd planned out, didn't stutter on anything, finished with 20 seconds to spare, and best of all the audience was into it, laughing with me the whole way through.
There's a panel of judges, and after every story they announce what the teller's highest score was. The highest and lowest scores are then discarded in calculating the final score, so it's basically a nice affirmative gesture to the speaker that doesn't spoil the final results. I got the only 10/10 of the night, which surprised and pleased me greatly! I hadn't gone into the semi-finals expecting to win, but the reception of my story had me thinking otherwise. There would be four winners out of ten tellers so I had good odds, after all. I was one of the last ones to go up, so it wasn't long before they announced the winners... and I didn't even place.
I'm ok with not winning, really I am, it's just that... it drives me nuts when I give a good performance that seems well-received, so I don't know *why* it doesn't succeed on other levels. M, who does an admirable job of the unenviable task of checking my ego, asked me "is it that hard to believe that they just liked four of the others better than yours?", and I see what she means, but then there's the rub: if you are a performer and your performance isn't the audience's cup of tea, does that count as a flaw in your performance? Sure, the artiste' says "hey, I do this for myself", but while obviously I get something personal out of performing, I call bullshit when people act like they just happen to be doing this thing for themselves on a stage in front of an audience. So, especially in the context of a competition... I get that the fact that I didn't get picked doesn't mean I did badly, and in fact I think I did really well, but for some reason it didn't connect with people, or at least enough* people, and I wish I had a clearer idea of why so I could either tweak things or decide that the things that would need to be changed aren't things I'm willing/able to change, so this must just not be my audience.
Then again, I feel bad for getting this far into this post without saying outright that the people who did win were all great tellers with great stories. One of them is a friend-of-friends who performed at one of the Somervaudeville shows years ago; it was one of the first times in my adult life that I'd seen true-life storytelling done as performance (with the exception of the Henry Rollins stories with which I was obsessed as a teenager), and it planted one of the first seeds of the idea to try it myself. So I really can't feel too bad given the competition, I'm just the kind of person who can't help over-thinking this sort of thing.
On the way out, M and I bought tickets to the finals so we'll be able to see the winners from our semi-finals along with the winners of the other one that will be happening tonight at Club Passim. The finals will be April 11th at the Coolidge Corner theater. It looks like they haven't posted ticket links online yet, so I'll make another post when that happens! ETA Ah, here they are.
In short: C'est la vie. Looking forward to next year. :)
For the finals they asked everyone to perform their stories in 4.5 mins instead of 5 like they had in the previous round. Asking for shorter versions of the winning stories seemed odd to me, but in retrospect I think it was a great idea. I sat down with the video of my last telling, trimmed it, tightened it, and practiced it, and I think I ended up with the best telling of that story yet (and I've told this thing I don't know how many times over the last 15ish years). It was one of those performances where everything just came together: I hit all of the beats I'd planned out, didn't stutter on anything, finished with 20 seconds to spare, and best of all the audience was into it, laughing with me the whole way through.
There's a panel of judges, and after every story they announce what the teller's highest score was. The highest and lowest scores are then discarded in calculating the final score, so it's basically a nice affirmative gesture to the speaker that doesn't spoil the final results. I got the only 10/10 of the night, which surprised and pleased me greatly! I hadn't gone into the semi-finals expecting to win, but the reception of my story had me thinking otherwise. There would be four winners out of ten tellers so I had good odds, after all. I was one of the last ones to go up, so it wasn't long before they announced the winners... and I didn't even place.
I'm ok with not winning, really I am, it's just that... it drives me nuts when I give a good performance that seems well-received, so I don't know *why* it doesn't succeed on other levels. M, who does an admirable job of the unenviable task of checking my ego, asked me "is it that hard to believe that they just liked four of the others better than yours?", and I see what she means, but then there's the rub: if you are a performer and your performance isn't the audience's cup of tea, does that count as a flaw in your performance? Sure, the artiste' says "hey, I do this for myself", but while obviously I get something personal out of performing, I call bullshit when people act like they just happen to be doing this thing for themselves on a stage in front of an audience. So, especially in the context of a competition... I get that the fact that I didn't get picked doesn't mean I did badly, and in fact I think I did really well, but for some reason it didn't connect with people, or at least enough* people, and I wish I had a clearer idea of why so I could either tweak things or decide that the things that would need to be changed aren't things I'm willing/able to change, so this must just not be my audience.
Then again, I feel bad for getting this far into this post without saying outright that the people who did win were all great tellers with great stories. One of them is a friend-of-friends who performed at one of the Somervaudeville shows years ago; it was one of the first times in my adult life that I'd seen true-life storytelling done as performance (with the exception of the Henry Rollins stories with which I was obsessed as a teenager), and it planted one of the first seeds of the idea to try it myself. So I really can't feel too bad given the competition, I'm just the kind of person who can't help over-thinking this sort of thing.
On the way out, M and I bought tickets to the finals so we'll be able to see the winners from our semi-finals along with the winners of the other one that will be happening tonight at Club Passim. The finals will be April 11th at the Coolidge Corner theater. It looks like they haven't posted ticket links online yet, so I'll make another post when that happens! ETA Ah, here they are.
In short: C'est la vie. Looking forward to next year. :)
* = On a side note, someone on Twitter responded to the tweeted version of this news with "You're the rice crispy treats!". I'm ashamed to admit that I completely failed to get that this was a reference to a song from one of my favorite musicals of all time, Title of Show, specifically this song (lyrics): "I'd rather be nine people's favorite thing than one hundred people's ninth favorite thing". Sounds a bit sour-grapes in this context, I guess, but I've always loved that sentiment and was glad to be reminded of it. More than one audience member I didn't know came up to me afterward and told me that mine was their favorite story, and obviously I was at least one judge's favorite, so I made a lot of people laugh last night and was nine(ish) people's favorite thing, and that's a fine, fine thing to be.
...still, being one hundred people's favorite thing is a good target to shoot for eventually, right? ;)
...still, being one hundred people's favorite thing is a good target to shoot for eventually, right? ;)
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no subject
Date: 2012-03-15 02:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-15 02:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-15 03:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-15 04:07 pm (UTC)(Yeah, not news. Still strikes me every time.)
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Date: 2012-03-15 02:30 pm (UTC)Also, unsurprisingly, I am unimpressed with those judges, or really on any judging criteria where you're not allowed to score anyone less than an 8 on a scale of 10 and cancer scores bonus points.
I don't know that I would have rated your story a 10, but it was certainly in the top tier of what I saw, and unless the last two were standout badass amazing, you were robbed.
no subject
Date: 2012-03-15 02:47 pm (UTC)- The first bad date story ("Palpable")
- Dan-with-the-beer's story about stealing signs
- The guy who forged his mom's signature / sick dad
- The story of a unicycling mishap, which was told after you left (by a friend of Ariella and co)
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Date: 2012-03-15 03:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-15 05:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-15 07:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-15 02:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-15 03:20 pm (UTC)As I said last night, I think you should have been one of the four to advance. You were very engaging. You told a good, tight story. And you had that audience in the palm of your hand. (Actually, I'm jealous. Personal stories are not my strong suit.)
I'm not quite sure what happened with the judging that you didn't place in the top 3 (actually, I have some ideas, but I won't share them publicly). But here's what I think happened with audience choice. You had the only 10 of the night, and you went near the end. Much of the audience probably figured you had a spot, and didn't want to waste their audience choice vote. So they voted for someone else. That's what I did, sorry. I really thought you had it.
I don't say this because I kind of know you. I know many of the people who compete in these slams. And I would say it to Norah. (Don't worry, I won't!)
Judging is fickle in these things. I competed in one of the very first slams before audience choice, and before they let you know your high score and all of that. I placed middle of the pack in a field that was pretty much all professional storytellers at that time (word hadn't spread yet). And you know, I still have people come up to me several years later who mention my story to me. (Norah actually said to me that it was stories like mine that inspired them to add audience choice.) A kind friend later told me why the judging was harsh against me, and I wish everyone could have that option when they are left scratching their heads over judging.
The longer you stay in the scene, the more tellers you will meet and the more people who will give you honest critiques.
I hope to see you at more storytelling events. You are now on my list of "I hope I never have to follow him when I tell!" ;)
no subject
Date: 2012-03-15 05:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-15 05:35 pm (UTC)Oh, also: ^^^ that.
no subject
Date: 2012-03-15 04:03 pm (UTC)The best built/crafted things in the world still need someone to want them before they can be sold... And so it may be that objectively you had a command performance, but that subjectively, they likes someone else more. It's the secret untalked about ingredient that makes up 'that X factor'.
Still, big kudos for going out there and -doing-. And for putting out a performance that you can be proud of. And for entertaining the audience.
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Date: 2012-03-15 04:49 pm (UTC)This is partly because you omitted an important part of the sentence. What I said was, "Is it that hard to believe that even thought they liked your story, they just liked four of the others better than yours?"
You keep equating "did not win" with "they did not like" or "did not connect with audience"
It's a matter of degrees, which is important.
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Date: 2012-03-15 05:24 pm (UTC)I think you are nice.
:)
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Date: 2012-03-15 07:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-15 08:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-15 09:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-16 10:47 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-15 07:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-15 08:28 pm (UTC)I suspect that like all competitive sports, there are nuances and politics and trends. The further you go with it, the more you will understand what they are and how to play to/with them.
As a performer, I think the only thing you can do is to continue to present work you can walk away from proudly. Sometimes it hits, sometimes it misses, but it's the internal validation that will last.