Better Said Than Done has class! In “Spotlight on You,” one of our storytelling worskhops, students workshop a story, learn storytelling structure, character development, and receive a few performance tips. As our classes have just recently launched, we are featuring the four Better Said Than Done storytelling teachers on our blog. This one is all about Jessica Piscitelli Robinson.
When did you tell your first story and what was that experience like?
February 2007, on the SpeakeasyDC stage. It was a great experience. I had never been in front of a large audience before. I am a writer and have read my fiction at open mics, but that was usually only for 20 or so people. This was a lot bigger. Plus I had to memorize – something I had never done before – and I was really nervous. But the audience was great. I heard a lot of laughter and a few “Bless her hearts” from the audience and so began my obsession with storytelling.
Why do you think people are drawn to storytelling?
Because it is so relatable. Everyone is telling a true, personal story. For the most part, these aren’t tall tales of impossible feats. They are stories about every day things, that every day people have experienced. I have never told a story and not had someone come up to me afterwards and say, “man, I know just how that feels.”
Worst moment on stage?
I presented a story for TEDx Glenn Echo and I froze in the middle of it. The venue was weird – it was an auditorium and it was winter and for some reason there was no heat, or it wasn’t working – the audience wasn’t prepared for a storyteller so they all looked kind of stupefied when I launched into my tale, and my story had a lot of twists and turns in it so it wasn’t an easy to follow trail. Somewhere in the middle, I caught someone in the audience looking at me funny and started thinking about how my story wasn’t going over that well and just forgot where I was. It felt like forever to me while I stumbled and tried to come up with something to fill the air until I could find my spot. On the video, it turned out to be only a few seconds of a blip and, after the show, I had a lot of people tell me they loved my story. One woman said she just wished it hadn’t been so miserably cold in the room, so that might have explained the expression of discomfort on everyone’s faces while I was talking. I hope so!
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