Indy Theatre Habit

Last Saturday night I went to the Easter vigil service at my church.  I hadn’t been to church in a while.  I was struck by the similarities between church and theatre.  However, I wanted to cheer and applaud at the end of the offertory anthem and Episcopalians don’t do that.  Ah, well.

On Tuesday night I was the guest storyteller for a Family Literacy Night for ENL (English as a New Language) families in my local school system.  Actually, I only read aloud a picture book.  I didn’t tell a story.  I gave up trying to explain the difference, though, and just had a good time. 

And, as it turned out, reading aloud was a better fit for this particular audience anyway, especially since I was able to use a document reader to project the pages of the book onto a large screen.  There were over 100 parents, teachers, and students of all ages.  They were all very excited to be there.  We turned the lights off, which helped focus everyone’s attention, and people who didn’t understand the words could still enjoy the pictures. 

The book that the event organizers wanted me to share was Wild About Books, written by Judy Sierra with pictures by Marc Brown.  The story is written in the style of Dr. Seuss.  I.e. – it is rhymed, which was another reason to read it aloud rather than learn and tell it.  A rhymed story basically has to be memorized and recited rather than learned and told if you’re not going to read it aloud.

However, I did do some of the same preparation as I would if I had been learning the story to tell:  I typed up the text as a way of making myself more familiar with it.  I also practiced reading it aloud several times during the days leading up to the event.  I didn’t get a chance to practice with the document reader and microphone ahead of time, and I had never worked with a document reader before, so I wanted to be as comfortable as possible with the book itself.

It went pretty well, if I do say so myself. 

Later in the evening I gave a virtual tour of my library to a smaller group using a Power Point slide show.  That was a first for me, too.  But again, I practiced ahead of time, and then let go of needing it to be perfect.  It went pretty well, too.

Tonight (or rather last night, now – it’s after midnight) I was supposed to go see “Well” again at the Phoenix Theatre, but I woke up sick and stayed home instead.  It runs through April 6, so I will have another chance to see it again.  Tomorrow night (or rather, tonight, Friday night) is the world premiere of “Midwestern Hemisphere,” written by Lou Harry and Eric Pfeffinger and produced by HART.  I am not going to miss that for any reason, so I guess I had better go back to bed now.