Speech

I did the first speech in the Storytelling manual. The directions where to pick a folktale and re-tell it without notes, with emphasis on conveying imagery, emotions, etc.

I cheated and picked The Wolves in the Walls, one of my all time favorite stories.

This speech was a bit challenging, because I had to edit down the story to the point where it could be told in about 7 minutes (I prefer to be on the low end of my allotted time limit).

I ended up cutting two days from the story (the first day, and the first day in the garden) as well as the brother and mother, which worked out reasonably well.

This was one of the first times I really had the speech down well enough that I could play with things like vocal variety and gestures in an interactive manner. The feedback I got (mostly relating to gestures, lack of eye contact and the potential for better use of space) indicate that there is still a lot of room for relatively easy improvement.

One of these days I'll get my act together and at least take (video would be awesome) myself, so I can share my speeches in their ah-and-umm laden glory.