I had a show last night in Berkeley and it went better than expected. I performed 90 percent new material and that is always so nerve wracking because I don’t know what I have until I have an audience. Stand-up comedians tend to have a notebook on stage when they try out new material, but I am no stand-up comedian, so I memorize everything and hope for the best. Besides, reading a script on stage really slows me down. I am a tactile person, and I need to use the space as much as possible.
So, what’s next, now that I wrote and performed “Part 4” of my one-woman show “All the Great New Things to Come”? It means I finally have to start putting all the material together that I have been working on for over a year and come up with a 55-minute show for fringe festivals.
What is my show about? I wish I had a clever elevator pitch, but I don’t, so here is a list of ideas of what my show is about:
- It’s about rediscovering my San Francisco Bay Area roots. I am a fourth generation Bay Area native. In 2020, during the shelter in place mandate, I started going through a family photo album my dad had given me years ago. Not only are there pictures, but there are letters written from my Great Grandmother who was born in 1893 in San Francisco. I have now become obsessed with my family tree.
- It’s about me being obsessed with genealogy and trying to fill in the gaps of my family tree and looking for the locations where my ancestors lived in San Francisco and Oakland. Some houses are still standing, but some were destroyed in the 1906 earthquake. Some were torn down when the freeways were built. I used to fall asleep in history class in high school because I didn’t understand what it had to do with me. Now I get it.
- It’s about me trying to prove that I am not a tourist just because I go to Union Square in SF during the holidays.
But I don’t know how to market this show. It’s so Bay specific. Will anyone care outside these walls?
Over the last month I have been posting on social media like crazy and trying to understand algorithms and advertising. I really don’t know what I am doing.
Turns out, my cat videos get more views than I do.
What’s a Gen Xer to do? I used to work in Casting back in the 90s, and actors back then were not expected to be camera operators or editors, just actors. Now we all have to be cinematographers and have perfect lighting, and my apartment has terrible lighting.
Alright, time for me to get back on Ancestry.com and here’s one more pic of what you really want:
Theresa Donahoe 