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When You Have to Plan Your Show

from The Being On Stage Podcast

14m 6s

When You Have to Plan Your Show

In this episode of the "Being on Stage" podcast, host Reggie Dawson uses his current experience of planning his daughter's homeschool curriculum as a springboard to discuss why planning a performance is both difficult and essential. He admits that planning is not his natural strength, but explains that the same overwhelm he feels looking at a full semester of classes is what performers feel when facing a 10-minute or hour-long set. His central advice is to step back and "piece it out," dividing the show into manageable parts rather than staring at the whole picture. He recommends locating the climax first — the moment the audience goes "whoa" — then working from that climax back to the beginning and filling the middle with build and connection. The opening should introduce the performer powerfully, and the middle should build toward the climax. He also encourages leaving room for improvisation, describing two creative selves: the planning visionary and the real-time creative. He advises planning at least half the show, writing out an outline or timeline, and considering practical elements like outfit and audience feeling. He closes by offering coaching services through his website calendar and reminding listeners to keep shining.

Transcription

2774 Words, 14274 Characters

English
Speaker 1hey rock stars reggie dawson your host here for the being on stage podcast planning sucks can i say that can we say it together planning sucks why am i saying this well for one um what first this podcast is all about performing performing on stage improving your connection with your audience building your fan base but i gotta tell you i use my i get my inspiration from everywhere today it just happens to be from my daughter uh we're switching to homeschool uh actually full homeschool we're going to teach her ourselves choose our own curriculum and all that good stuff but um the planning piece of it is is quite the nightmare i've never been the planning type of person i mean i used to plan here and there uh when i did shows and believe me lesson learned that's one of the reasons i do this podcast is to share the lessons that i've learned uh through 12 15 years of something like that at least 15 years of performing uh so i have lessons that i've learned and now i also pull lessons in from all sorts of aspects of my life and uh you know business entrepreneurship performing uh artists quotes philosophy today it's homeschooling a 14 year old so oh movie tvs we also talk about that stuff too movie and tv shows so it comes from everywhere today it happens to be from uh planning my homeschool my my sorry my high schoolers homeschool curriculum i don't know if you know anything about homeschool but here uh in florida where i live we can homeschool our student as long as she is evaluated on a yearly basis and we keep a portfolio uh showing that she has done work in the all the you know the subjects that she is required to we can transition her back into public school if we chose to um we're thinking about doing that her senior year just so she gets that full senior year experience but we don't know what the world's going to be like in three years let's be honest so planning this has been oh my god i i'm telling you i just cracked open to start planning it last night and i already wish i started it in june because it's july 24th by the way the reason why is because there are so many planners to choose from there's free planners do it yourself planners create yourself you know create your own pages buy pages uh all sorts of different stuff and there's all sorts of different ways you can do it you can block it out by day you can block it out by hour you can have mornings and afternoons you can have you know i don't i can't even describe how many options there are to plan stuff now if you're a planning type person if this is something that if you plan like i i work with a girl and she is obsessed with planners i mean she plans she she tells me she's like my friends cannot even understand the level of planning that i enjoy like they just don't get it like she's she's like that like that's she's very valley girl but anyways um yeah so planning is not really my thing but i have to do this for my daughter's high school my wife has to help and neither of us are really the let's bust out the planner and schedule our every day type of people that's one of the reasons you send your you know that's a positive i'm not one of the reasons but that's a positive of why your kid goes to school because the teachers will plan it all home school we're the teachers and it started reminding me of when i used to plan my shows and how stressful it could be to come up with something to do on stage now first first point i'm going to make on this podcast is the execution of your show your performance when you're actually on stage in front of the audience that is everything but it is half of everything if you don't have a plan and you know rehearsing what you do like if you're a singer songwriter musician dancer juggler comedian you know rehearsing what you're going to sing or what you're going to play or what you're going to say uh or how you're going to you know the choreography that's that's one thing but planning the actual performance planning the show aspect of it that's completely different and that takes that takes a little bit of work and a little bit of effort and honestly some sit down and think i'm not sure if that sentence made sense but i think you get me by now if you don't get me by now it's it's okay you will i grow on people um but yeah so i'm i'm sitting here i'm planning out this homeschool and and i'm first of all i'm looking at this huge thing like she's doing six or six classes i think we're doing the first semester um and you know five days a week and eight hours a day so it's i don't know if it's eight hours it's probably like six hours a day truthfully because you know she's not a full-time employee she's a student so i think it's like five or six hours a day actually but it's you know i'm looking at this whole big picture and it's like oh my god i have to schedule these six classes into these what if she takes more time on this class and i realized i'm probably overthinking it a little bit i'm looking at this huge picture and we do this too as a performance you know if you're if you're going on stage for 15 minutes i'm just going to start small start small 15 minutes five minutes even you're going on stage for a certain amount of time it's very easy to get overwhelmed by how am i going to fill 15 how am i going to fill 20 minutes a half an hour an hour how am i going to fill that time what am i going to do to entertain people for that length of time and it's really helpful and almost therapeutic and i'm realizing this now to take a step back and piece it out you know divide and conquer is a is a true thing and it's not just when you're working with a group it's also when you're working with yourself with yourself it's like having a project at work or something you know you don't you don't look at the whole thing you have to do you look at the end product and then you piece out how you're going to get there and you do a little bit at a time same thing with a performance same thing with this homeschool thing i got to look at it one course at a time one day at a time one thing at a time you got to look at your performance as you know if you're doing more than one number let's say you're doing 15 minutes five four numbers we'll call it that whether you're dancing whatever it's 15 minutes 10 minutes whatever 10 minutes is probably we'll do 10 minutes i'm sorry i'm indecisive today so we'll do 10 minutes so you got 10 minutes on stage piece it out you know even if you're doing just one song whether it's choreography or even if you're just doing a five minute set as a comedian or a speaker whatever it is even if it's that short piece it out what what do you want the beginning to look like how do you want the middle to feel where's your where's your power where's your climax of your set you know where's that going to fit in what how are you going to make that the climax i've always find it helpful to locate the climax and start there that's where i usually start my plan is so i would listen to a song probably two and three times and you really only you you should really it shouldn't take you long to figure out where your climax is if you can't figure out where your climax of your show is chances are you don't have one you need to create one somehow um so in music music's the best music's probably the best example i can give in music it's that point in the song where it's just like boom it's it's the it's the it's usually after the bridge uh usually the bridge leads up to the climax or it's just before the bridge it's one of those one of those two it's right around the and for those of you that don't study music it's verse chorus verse chorus bridge i think maybe whatever you get it's verse chorus verse chorus and then the bridge and then something happens usually a key change or something like that uh amplifies it and for dancers same thing you usually the dancer is performing to music so you have to use the same thing comedians it's normally like your the end of your your climax is usually the end comedians speakers same thing your climax is probably about five minutes before the end because then you start wrapping it up and everything but that that climax is that point when your audience goes whoa that's what you want that's what you want so i started my i started the climax of the show and i work backwards how am i going to get there what am i going to do in the beginning is actually i don't work backwards i go from the climax to the beginning and then i fit the two together and i usually try to have something interesting happen between there whether it's you know an interaction with the audience whether it's a certain um interaction with some anyone else or something like that it's usually the end of the show and it's usually the end of the show and it's usually the end of the show and it's usually the end of the show on stage with you but trying to have something interesting happen between your beginning and your climax like that's where things get entertaining because when you start at your beginning of your show that's that's where you want to introduce yourself so it's got to be a little powerful and then your climax is the point that really leaves them going oh my god i need more of this okay everything in between is a build is a connection between the two so you should be powerful in the beginning and then kind of start a little bit low and then kind of start a little bit lower and then continue to build towards that climax and then that's the big explosion of the whole set so as you're planning this out you you have to plan those things you have to plan what you're going to do in the beginning to introduce yourself to to this is your this is your first impression with your audience you know you you have to kind of have a little plan for how that's going to work and then i i like to plan out at least half of what's in between but i there's also something to spontaneity and it's very authentic to not have everything every second planned out now obviously if you're a dancer that may not be the case um comedian same thing may not be the case but even even comedians and speakers you know It's really good to have some sort of improvisation on stage and you'll feel it. And the best thing I can tell you is when you feel like there should be some an extra word here or maybe you should hit the note a little higher or maybe you should let the audience whatever you're whatever you're feeling as improvisation on stage. Don't shy away from it because that's your creative self in real time wanting to step out into the light. So don't don't shy away from that improvisation. You'll feel it on stage. Oh, you will absolutely if you've planned at least half of your set the way I'm telling you to. You will feel the improvisation come out on stage and I'm not saying to switch completely to improvisation, but it's OK to improv for, you know, five, 10 seconds or so and then get back to what you've planned because you have to you have two creatives in you. OK, you have the planning creative, which is the vision. And then there's also the real time creative, and that's the one that wants to come out and the improvisation. So right now I'm focused on more of the vision creative, but I also don't want you to be afraid to let that real time creative improv guy or girl or woman come out. So a few tips to help you get started in your planning is, you know, I mentioned at the beginning, step back, piece it out. Look at that climax first. Find your climax. How do you want the beginning? What are you going to fill that space in between with? Those are some questions just to ask yourself. Now, for me, when I was also planning it, I would take into consideration what I'm going to look like. So my outfit that I'm going to wear. That's that's another part of planning is what is the audience going to see on stage? What is the audience going to feel on stage? And do not be afraid to step back during rehearsal and actually sit and write. What? Sit and write. Yes. Sit and write like you're actually planning something like an outline of an essay. Almost. You remember outlines. You hated them. We all hated them. Brainstorming outlines, rough drafts, all that crap essays. That's kind of what you have to do for performing, though. You know, I used to sit at a table and just listen to listen to music. Usually the songs I was performing over and over and over again. And I would jot down like a timeline almost what was going to happen when there were gaps for improvisation. Yes, I planned my improvisation most of the time. But when I got on stage, I knew what was going to happen. And it although I was nervous and you will be, too, because being nervous, it means that you care about what you're about to do. First of all, it doesn't mean you have an acute sense of stage fright. It means that you care about what you're going to do, what you're putting out there and you should care. But although I was nervous and you will be, too, I was confident in what I was about to do because I had it planned and I'd go over it. My head and over and over and over again and everything. But it was planned and I knew what I looked like. I knew what the audience was going to see. I knew what I was going to make them feel. And it was all there. And that's what you need to do. And listen, if you need a little help planning your next show or if you want to set off and plan your career, let's work together. Hit me up on my calendar. Jump on being on stage dot com slash calendar. I'll call you. And by the time we get done talking, you'll have at least a solid plan. And some. Motivation to to get you started. You know, I want to. That's that's what I do. I coach performers to improve their. Performance. I'm going to work on my what I do slogan, but that's the gist of it. I coach performers to improve their performance on stage. That's it. Boom. So hit me up. Let's work together. Let's get this going and get you planning because that's what it's all about. Plan, plan, plan. I mean, it's not really all about planning. It's it's all about entertaining your audience and enjoying what you do. But. Planning is a big part of it. So with that, I'm going to leave you and say, keep on shining.

Podcast Summary

Key Points:

  1. Host Reggie Dawson opens by stating that planning is a frustrating but essential part of performing, inspired by his current experience planning his daughter's homeschool curriculum.
  2. He draws a parallel between the overwhelming feeling of planning a homeschool semester and the stress performers feel when planning a show of any length.
  3. The core performance lesson is to step back and "piece it out" — divide and conquer by breaking a show into smaller, manageable parts rather than being overwhelmed by the whole.
  4. He advises performers to locate the climax of their set first, then work from that climax back to the beginning and fill the middle with build and connection.
  5. The beginning of a show should introduce the performer powerfully, while the middle should build toward the climax and leave the audience wanting more.
  6. He recommends planning at least half of the show while leaving room for spontaneity and improvisation, which he calls the "real-time creative" self.
  7. Performers should plan practical elements like outfit, stage presence, and what the audience will see and feel, and should physically sit down and write out a timeline or outline.
  8. He offers coaching services through his website for performers who want help planning their next show or career.

Summary:

In this episode of the "Being on Stage" podcast, host Reggie Dawson uses his current experience of planning his daughter's homeschool curriculum as a springboard to discuss why planning a performance is both difficult and essential. He admits that planning is not his natural strength, but explains that the same overwhelm he feels looking at a full semester of classes is what performers feel when facing a 10-minute or hour-long set. His central advice is to step back and "piece it out," dividing the show into manageable parts rather than staring at the whole picture.

He recommends locating the climax first — the moment the audience goes "whoa" — then working from that climax back to the beginning and filling the middle with build and connection. The opening should introduce the performer powerfully, and the middle should build toward the climax. He also encourages leaving room for improvisation, describing two creative selves: the planning visionary and the real-time creative.

He advises planning at least half the show, writing out an outline or timeline, and considering practical elements like outfit and audience feeling. He closes by offering coaching services through his website calendar and reminding listeners to keep shining.

FAQs

Planning is half of your performance; without it, you can't effectively structure your show or connect with your audience.

Start by identifying the climax of your set. Everything else builds toward that moment.

Introduce yourself powerfully, build gradually toward the climax, and place something interesting between the beginning and the climax.

No, plan at least half, but leave room for spontaneity. Improvisation on stage can feel authentic and creative.

Think about your outfit, what the audience will see, and what emotions you want them to feel.

Step back, piece it out, and focus on one part at a time. Divide and conquer the planning process.

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Transcription

2774 words