Well, kinda, I guess. From time to time I’ve led workshops on all sorts of things over the years, almost all of them having to do with theatre in one way or another. As all of you know, I enjoy the sound of my voice, and with an ego like mine, I can’t help but think that my pearls of wisdom will do the peasants before me some good in their lives. Unfortunately for those of you who want to tame my ridiculous self-image, other people keep feeding that delusion.
This week the company I work for hosted a Lighting for Worship workshop in Atlanta. We had 18 attendees from a dozen or so churches listen to a day-long series of lectures on experts in the worship lighting field. We’ve done this twice before, and I think this was the best attendance we’ve had. It’s also the largest city we’ve done one in, so that stands to reason. We’re doing it again in Greensboro next month, so that should break even more attendance records. We brought in in real experts (and me) from all over the country for this thing, and imparted some great information to the attendees, and did some good PR for us and the vendors that showed up. So I spent all day Wednesday and Thursday in work mode, focusing on what I was teaching and how to fine-tune the delivery.
Then yesterday I shifted gears entirely and worked with the newbies in the cast of the Renaissance Festival on character development. I spent an hour with them on physicality, paying attention to their surroundings, creating a backstory for their character, the difference between their role (the job) and their character (the person they’re trying to create). The goal was to get the newbies into mid-season form at the beginning of the season, to make for a better experience for the customers. I had a lot of fun and got some great compliments on my workshop, which is good since I’m already signed on for two other weekends of more advanced instruction.
Then this coming Thursday I shift into another mode entirely as I spend the evening at a local Mont Blanc pen store reading Mark Twain for a literary festival they have each year. They wanted somebody to read Twain for the people at the reception, and they agreed to pay me a little bit, so I’ll be reading selections from Tom Sawyer, Huck Finn and some of Twain’s short stories while people look at pens that cost more than my entire wardrobe.
Book sales are picking up, word of mouth is starting to spread a little and Otis pimped my book on his blog, which always helps. I’ve gotten a few responses from folks that will let me do a blog tour stop on their site, so I’ll be kicking that off in September. Probably after Annie opens, because that’s going to tie up a lot of my time in the coming weeks. But feel free to hustle on over to my Lulu storefront and buy your copy now, because the free shipping offer ends Monday, August 23rd.
you are one busy bee! need to get together and chat soon 🙂