Safety Nets: notes, scripts, prompters, confidence monitors
Shhh…I do NOT tell my speakers there will be safety nets. I do not offer “confidence monitors” or a podium upon which to place pages of text. And yet sometimes, as we near our performance date, it becomes clear that a safety net is required in order to be fully present on stage.
My marvelous acting teacher, Alice Spivak , was called a “dialogue coach” for many famous actors, singers, models, and comedians. She would be on set or in rehearsal and give coaching from the side. One of her clients, the great Diahann Carroll, took on the role of Dr. Livingstone in John Pielmeier’s play Agnes of God on Broadway. For the first weeks, Alice sat in the front row with a copy of the script on her lap. If ever Ms. Carroll lost her way, Alice would tilt up her head, her face mirroring Dr. Livingstone’s emotion, and mouth the words with exaggerated clarity, a safety net lovingly unfurled over the orchestra pit. A seasoned and professional performer knows to ask for support when it is the best choice for the performance and therefore, for the audience.
Susan McCulley has coached many of our speakers at the Charlottesville TEDx. Her background as a writer, editor, artist, and mindful movement instructor give her the skills to support speakers along the way from crafting the text, to embodying the talk. One of her speakers took the very demanding risk of memorizing the entire 18-minute text. The speaker held note cards, twisted tightly in her hands, but knew she would not have the presence of mind during the very personal and traumatic story she was telling to both hold the slide clicker and look at her notes. Like Alice before her, Susan sat in the front row, beaming love and support up at the speaker, reading her emotional and verbal cues, holding the slide clicker. Susan clicked the slides forward in sync with the text and the varied cadence of the talk. The two of them had formed such a trusting bond throughout the coaching process that Susan’s presence, her face in the front row, gave reassurance. The speaker never looked at her notes. She merely had to glance into Susan’s eyes to remember her place.
Kate’s Safety Nets in Order of Preference
1) NO SAFETY NET: We are out there on the ice, highly prepared, fluent, looking forward to whatever the audience and the moment may bring to the dance!
2) MUSIC STAND AND BINDER: A music-stand off to one side of the stage with notes that are in bullet form, printed large on both sides, numbered, in 3-ring binder. This way the pages will not get out of order and can be flipped easily showing two pages at a time. Then forget it! Just its presence is enough. But, if needed, we can meander over, flip a page or two, and continue on.
3) SPIRAL BOUND NOTE CARDS: 4X6 inch note cards in a spiral binding with notes printed large and taped into the pad. This is best for long events with many names, titles, and bios, such as emceeing an awards ceremony, moderating a panel, or hosting a conference. It is not wise to use a stack of notecards, even when numbered, it is easy to drop them or get the order confused and have to re-order them on stage. I love the spiral note cards for this reason: you simply fold the card over and your order of events is safe.
4) (FALSE) CONFIDENCE MONITOR: Confidence monitor with text not visible to the audience with ONE bullet point as a prompt per slide large enough to read from afar.*
5) PODIUM WITH BINDER: For talks of an hour or more, text might be placed on a podium with a fixed microphone (yawn). If so, it is printed large on both sides, numbered, in 3-ring binder. For these events, I use a “Reader’s Text” and the “taking it off the page” technique. I will illustrate both next week.
6) SINGLE NOTE CARD: If the speaker is quoting someone, it is fine to read the quote off of a note card unless it is a quote the speaker knows by heart.
*Warning:
Do not count on safety nets to save you. Slides go too fast or slow or come in the wrong order. Pages fall out of folders and spread like an oil slick. Lights dim and we can’t read our text. Mics run out of batteries. Confidence monitors fail to load. In the end, the best and only true safety net is you: your preparation, your ownership and love of the material, your relationship with the audience. That’s really all that matters. You’ve got everything you need. See you on the ice!