Book Trailer: The Power from MovingStories.TV on Vimeo.

Directed by: Irene Duma
Voice Over: Diana Galligan

Yesterday, amid the chaos of my modern life, I got to be the voice of a woman long passed from this earth.
The job was for a book trailer. What a great idea – to make a trailer like a movie trailer, but for a book.

It was a great honour to be a woman who had lived in slavery, and had found pride and strength in the power she had.
All the training I ever had was only teaching me to reveal the human heart – now I saw that. I could feel her world flowing through me – I had no concern about doing a good job or sounding okay.

It wasn’t about “doing it right” it was about letting it flow – allowing the pride and sadness and life to flow through me. I was merely the instrument of the story. Nothing more and nothing less.

The narration was recorded for Book Shorts produced by Judith Keenan, directed by Irene Duma. The book is called “The Power: A Novel of Voodoo” by James Duggin.

book trailers

book trailer production

I play a comedic character in a murder mystery show. It’s a blast having regulary shows to work on my acting, timing and fine tune my performances. Our company does corporate shows, so we do both in town and out of town shows – much like a touring company.

One of the challenges doing an out of town show is the coordination and availability. Seven people of our cast has to be free that night, and they all need to arrange a drive up north.

This week’s venture takes us to Port Severn, Ontario. It’s about two hours north of Toronto, more rooted in the snow belt than Toronto is. The show is on February 1st, which will be a snowy cold day to go to a “cottage resort.” But it’s a getaway. A little escape holiday. We get to stay over because it’s so far out of town.

I love doing live comedy shows – it’s a gas working with the audience, playing a character and getting great reactions. I’m looking forward to the gig.

I get the great honour and opportunity of performing in front of an audience on a regular basis. With my work, I do murder mystery shows, create characters, sketch comedy, improv comedy and stand up.

Because I mostly do live comedy, there’s powerful feedback – the audience laughs or applauds. When a show goes really well, when the entire cast is “on” and really smoking or I alone am really kickin’ it, there’s not a better feeling in the world. After the show, people will come up to the cast or to me and say, “that was fantastic” or “we had a great time” or “you are fantastic”. I love that so much.
But I also crave it. Need it like a drug. Gimme more. Pink Floyd sang, “Shall we set out across this sea of faces, in search of more and more applause.” And I’d scream, yes, lets do that. More laughter and more applause.
If I follow that desire, it will lead to bad performances because I’m chasing an outcome, not finding the joy in my performance. Or the truth in it. It’s so easy to chase an outcome and be left wanting. The outcome is a result of focusing on doing my best, enjoying myself and giving my all. So easy to get clouded, and forget that. To get a bit obsessed with the laughter or doing well.

The applause is fantastic – and a highly addictive substance that can cloud my judgement. As long as I’m aware…I think I can prevent a serious addiction. Use the applause and laughter as a truth meter. If I’m truthful in my writing and performing, then people get it and like it.  Applause is just a measure of my willingness to deliver the truth in focused and crafted manner.

As one of the things I do for a living, I play a slightly ditzy, blonde bombshell, Sandy Beach, in a murder mystery show in Toronto, Canada. We often do shows for corporate groups, and as I mingle before the murder, I’m trying to size up the guys in the crowd. Pick the right guy. The open-minded and friendly guy. The office favourite – that’s who I’m looking for – someone that everyone knows. Because I need to find the right lap.

With a corporate group, especially events where people bring guests, it’s sometimes a challenge to figure out who works for the company. Who’s a guest? What do they do? They have all just arrived and are sometimes reluctant to mingle with one another, much less this pink-sparkly-dressed-bunny-ear-wearing actress.

It’s a comedy/mystery and one of the bits I do is sitting on a man’s lap after I mistakenly think my boyfriend in the show is talking about me.

If I pick the wrong lap – perhaps a guy who no one knows, is new at the company, or is someone’s husband – it’s just awkward. He looks at me. I look at him briefly, then continue to watch the show from his lap until my cue to get up. And I feel bad for creating an awkward situation. Or his wife glares at me and doesn’t appreciate my current sitting position. I avoid her for the rest of the show, looking past her with fake confidence.
But the right lap – well, that’s a different story. If I sit on the president’s lap, or the shyest guy in the company and everyone knows he’s shy…that’s the lap that will garner a big laugh from the group. My sitting will have people in stitches. I’m satisfied that I’ve made them all laugh. I wait until my cue with him enjoying me sitting there and me enjoying being there. Plus, we’re pals for the rest of the night.

A few years ago, I banished making a laundry list of “good idea” resolutions – eat better, exercise more, be more successful at my job, get out of debt, etc. Mostly, it just became a list of things I didn’t do, and now I feel bad about it. And I’m annoyed that I didn’t do what I was planning, and I gave up.
I still like the idea of making a resolution – so now I pick one thing that is more open-ended. So instead of “getting into shape”, I want something bigger that can be solved in more than one way. Like “finishing things that I’ve started that I want to finish”. So losing weight could fall into that category. And fixing my bike light. Calling an old friend that I’ve lost touch with and want to see again. Or finish the many scripts that I’ve half written and always meant to finish. It could be any of them. Any one would fulfill the resolution and keep me on it. There is no failure/success scenario – just a choice of finishing something.
It was also important to me to add “that I want to finish” so it doesn’t become another list of what I “should” do. A seminar leader I worked with used to say “don’t should on yourself”. Should is the basis of guilt, and guilt is the result of inaction for me. If I’m not working on something, I’m feeling bad about it. Like it’s the same to feel bad or to work. Guilt is another great distraction, procrastination by feelings.
2007’s resolution: not to rush. That’s it. Take care, do things well and don’t rush.

As a performer and writer, I’m always afraid that my work isn’t good, that people will hate it, that they secretly say “boy, she should keep her day job” behind my back. And smile and say it’s good to my face. So I try to do a bunch of projects at the same time, try to speed up to stay ahead of the criticism and not write and perform from the heart, because that’s risky. For me, rushing is an addiction. Overbooking is a great escape. I get to say “well, I would have done a better job, if…” and I fill in the blank with whatever is going on at the time – someone’s birthday, a wedding, a family gathering, work projects, paying debts, stress.
2007 is the year of pride. And I write this publicly so please remind me when I forget.