The Moth, Storytelling, and Voiceovers

You may have noticed me plugging my friend’s performances as a Moth storyteller lately.

I went to another one of her performances last week and Sweet Baby Gertrude it was amazing!

This is the Celeste Bartos Forum at the New York Public Library:

The show opened with violinist Mazz Swift blowing our minds with a hauntingly beautiful performance. Then “Live from the NYPL” founder Paul Holdengraber welcomed us, followed by Moth StorySlam champion Peter Aguero telling a great story about how he tried to entertain his mother-in-law in New York City.

Next came Pulitzer Prize-nominated author Andrew Solomon who regaled us with a tale of his reinvention of himself after high school and journey into the world of glamour.

Then came my friend! Her story of growing up in foster care and meeting the person that helped her rise above was both moving and inspiring. It was truly a delight to see someone so near & dear to me engage an audience in such a profound way. Bravo!

Then came the panel. Paul sat down with my friend, Andrew, Moth Director Catherine Burns, and Moth founder George Dawes Green for a rousing conversation about the art of storytelling.

I don’t remember the name of the last storyteller, but his story of taking his out-of-town friends to Chinatown to watch them lose a game of tic-tac-toe to a chicken (yes, a chicken) is one of the funniest things I’ve ever heard!

It was a wonderful evening and I’m very proud of my friend for her bravery, her generosity, and her new life as a Moth storyteller!

TIP OF THE WEEK: As much as I enjoyed the evening as an audience member and a supportive friend, I couldn’t help but also look at it from a voice talent’s perspective. The storytellers were wonderful & engaging, but does that mean they would make good voice talents? Does a successful voice talent need to be a good storyteller?

I gave this even more thought when I read a thread on the “Audiobook Crowd” Facebook Group. Someone asked how important is it to be skilled at acting in order to be a good audiobook narrator. What I thought was interesting was just about everyone that had acting training said it was very important and it can make a huge difference. I happen to agree. Do I agree because I think it’s true or do I agree so I can justify all the acting training I got? Yes and yes!

Being tall doesn’t make you a basketball player. Having a nice voice doesn’t make you a professional voice talent. You need training. You need coaching. You need to develop your technique. You need business acumen. Try being a doctor without a medical degree and see how that goes!

QUOTE OF THE WEEK:

I want to thank Joe Cipriano for being our guest on the Voiceover Cafe podcast last week. He’s the voice of many CBS and FOX shows (The Simpsons, 2 1/2 Men, etc.). Joe was a lot of fun and happily tolerated reading aloud what I wrote. He’s a champ, he is!

From Tom Dheere’s apartment, this is Tom Dheere: GKN News…