Writers read at Vision Division

Comic operetta writer, Gilbert of Gilbert and Sullivan fame was inspiring me from his memorial on the wall of the church as I prepared to introduce an evening of entertaining stories and poems written by members of Harrow Writers' Circle.
The vicar, James Mercer welcomed us to All Saints Church and told us he hoped the Festival called Vision Division would encourage us to see the church as a community centre where we could come back for religious or secular events. Harrow Writers' Circle Chairman, Oscar Monteiro, explained that The Harrow Writers' Circle had previously been writing in a backwater and we were delighted to have been invited to perform by the vicar and artist Steve Nash who was organizing the week-long art exhibition. Oscar handed over to me as mc and I asked the audience to turn off their phones because the echo was such that we would all share their conversations with Aunt Agatha. I told them if there was a fire I would run to my nearest exit behind me and those nearby should follow me. However, providing the fire was not in their way, people at the back should not follow me, much as I love to be the leader, but pick their nearest exit at the main entrance door of the church. I also told them that the 2010 writers' calendar sold at the back would be signed by us in the interval and books by us were on sale and could be bought through our website. 'Now, for the readings!'

I said, 'I asked John the title of his short story but he said it was a secret. I told him, "I'm the master of ceremonies for the evening, so you must tell me the title. He said, It's a secret. Indeed the tile of the shot story was, 'A Secret'.

Whilst John read his short story about The Secret, the Bearfoot Performers, dressed as an angel, a drunk, and other characters, silently moved into new positions around All Saints Church.

Writing for a reader or a film-goer is different to planning a performance on stage.

We had started our evening, as is done by most theatre performances, with five minutes of reading without essential plotlines nor clues in the first five minutes, so a latecomer could enter without having missed much, and without us needing to worry that interruptions had distracted other members of the audience from anything important. I did warn the audience, 'Listen out for the punchline!'

Fortunately the church, like most churches and concert halls, is designed so that a speaker at the front can be heard at the back. At our rehearsal the microphones had failed so we had not been able to practise reading with a microphone.

The comic poem-play about Adam and Eve, written by another John (this time not from South Africa but Scotland), was visually one of the most memorable pieces. Julia, played God, a female God, in the pulpit. Down below were Adam (the first John), Eve (Julianna) Our chairman, Oscar, played the hissing serpent. Jenny was the angel. As I sat down in my chair, looking down the central aisle to where the vicar, James Mercer, was watching from the back, it occurred to me that in medieval times mystery plays would have been performed to dramatise the stories of the bible for the benefit of those who could not read.

I am a member of two local branches of Toastmasters International, a co-operative self-help group which trains speakers and it's a pity that we never practise using microphones. Members tend to argue that we should practise projecting our voices, which is essential in the many cases where microphones are not available or when they fail. But on this occasion the omni-directional microphones may be left on when several speakers are on stage. We needed two or three people to adjust the height and directions of microphone to help other speakers and signal if they were too near or too far from the microphone.

My first poem on the Wedding Gatecrasher was a dramatic piece involving my voice getting louder and my moving about the stage - which resulted in my moving towards the microphone and ctreating booming and shrieking. John (third John, Irish John).

My biggest challenge as master of ceremonies was keeping talking as the readers came forward to the microphone or climbed the steps up to the pulpit. Some speakers like to hear themselves being introduced and don't want to interrupt and distract the audience from the announcement by walking forwards. So then the announcer has to wait. But if the applause dies down
You could argue that you should wait, not keep repeating the speaker's name and calls for applause, but let the speaker stand in total silence, shuffling papers. But I tried that and soon found it created awkward silences and distraction from people at the back who were looking at the artwork rather than listening to the writers reading. So it seemed better not to let the audience get restless and chat, but hold their attention. I was relieved to learn afterwards that nobody realized that I was filling in whilst speakers walked forwards, but made it all seem natural.

One change took place between the dress rehearsal the evening before and the actual performance. Julianna's story, the Gatekeeper, is from the viewpoint of a man, and several people including Julianna agreed that it was clearer to the listeners when a man was talking about a woman if it was read by a man. So a friend of Julianna's called Charles read from the pulpit.

What did we learn? I learned:
1 You need to have one person whose specific job is publicity.
2 You need to allocate somebody to seliing books.
3 You need posters to sell the books.
4 You need leaflets for people to take away.
5 Posters in supermarkets get removed or covered up by other people who need room for their advertisements.
I'll add photos to this post later.
See previous post for details of exhibition and clubs.

* NB Some of the writers wish to remain anonymous on the internet, so I have used first names throughout.
Our calendar for 2010 with poems by twelve of our poets can be bought at meetings where you can ask authors to sign, or ordered through the website for Harrow Writers' Circle.