Video Extras with Anna Marie Trester (January 2015)

Video Extras with Better Said Than DoneWe’d like to introduce a new monthly series on our blog. Video Extras will give you the inside scoop on a story that was recently told at a Better Said Than Done show, straight from the storyteller’s pen – or keyboard.

This month, we’re featuring storyteller and storytelling instructor Anna Marie Trester, providing commentary on her story from our January 2015 show, Angels and Demons: stories about good, evil, and trying to choose. Watch her story below and then read on to find out how this story came to be told, more thoughts and recollections from Anna on the events of which she speaks, deleted details, and more. You can learn to tell the story of your life with Anna this Saturday, February 21; read about this workshop and our other offerings.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGaPsiir8QU&w=560&h=315] Anna: Thank you, Mary, for the opportunity to have this conversation with you, and also for your very thought-provoking questions!

So, I’ll start by answering your first question, “Do you have a routine process for developing a story to perform, or does it vary?” by answering your second one, “If you have a routine, what is it?” by using the example of the third, “What did you do to prepare to tell this story?

When I first started storytelling about four years ago, there were just certain stories within me that I felt had to be told. These were stories that I found myself telling and retelling time and again in life, and they were kinda silly, zany, and somewhat hectic, like this story about a series of embarrassing events from college called, “Hairy Ball,” or this one about a menagerie of animals I met while traveling in Paris. So, I tended to look for a theme that fit the stories that I already knew that I wanted – maybe needed – to tell.

As the years have progressed, I have learned to trust the process a bit more and I now challenge myself to find a story to fit a suggested theme, which I have found to be tremendously gratifying. These stories are a bit slower, they tend to be a bit smaller in scope, and sometimes I even surprise myself by the details that I have remembered over the years that I only find again in the course of writing.

In the case of this most recent story that I told, about temping woes, I pulled memories together from work experiences I had in 2001 and 2002. My story process generally has come to be that I like to start with a specific moment that has stuck with me over the years and then build out backwards and forwards from there. This is typically a striking image, an unforgettable interaction, a moment of discovery or awareness or change, or meeting someone important. In the case of this story, it was getting to the front of the security line when I arrived for work one morning as a lowly temp, only to realize that the voice that sounded familiar to me was the voice of psychic medium John Edward, and that I, little ol’ me, was in a position to really help someone I admired!

Mary: Is John Edward handsome in person?

Anna: He is indeed – very charismatic!

<tee hee>

Mary: Have you ever visited a psychic or watched “Long Island Medium”? If so, how do you think Theresa compares to John Edward?

Anna: I would have said that I tend to not really be a big fan of such things but, as I reflect on your questions, I realize that I have seen that show, and I have had both my cards and my palm read. Most recently, I had a reading to determine my spirit animal (it is a crow, for those of you who are wondering). And I really loved hearing these different insights – different perspectives or ways of engaging with the world. So, I guess I need to admit that I really do love thinking about this kind of stuff. And mainly with John Edward, I have to take my hat off to how good he is with people – first and foremost, he knows how to listen!

Mary: Were there any moments when you performed the story that got a different reaction than you anticipated?

Anna: I actually first told this story over a year ago as part of a storytelling show called Perfect Liars Club in Washington, DC. The reaction that I had not anticipated was that I was voted the liar by the audience! Folks thought I just could not have been telling the truth, and one of the details that they really focused on was that I arrived to my temp job after having just ridden the elevator with a celebrity and I proceeded to just sit down and start working (without telling anyone).  I realized that there was a certain amount of context that needed to be added, for example, that this was pre-Facebook and that the reality of temp life – at least as I experienced it – was very much that temps are to be seen and not heard.

So, as I edited this and reworked the story for this performance, I gave much more context and background to the realities of temp life. I added details about “being a fly on the wall” in a conversation with previous bosses, and that, like traveling to a foreign country, you really never knew what you were going to be experiencing when you showed up for work every day.

Mary: Did the story change much as you prepared?

Anna: For me, it really felt like it changed a lot. In addition to the details I added, there were significant chunks that I deleted. Ritija, one of my fellow storyellers last month, had heard the original story and she told me that, to her, it felt very much the same.

Mary: What were some of the details you cut?

Anna: A big piece of the story when I told it on stage for Perfect Liars Club was the day-to-day of being a temp at Eng Wong Taub, the firm at which I worked in One Penn Plaza. The day after my story appeared in the paper, I actually marched down to the radio station to demand some sort of thank you for having saved their show the day before; that helped to make me popular with my new colleagues at Eng Wong Taub. But, as I worked and re-worked the story, I realized that I didn’t really need that detail. Everything that I needed to convey about the feeling of shifting from being invisible to being visible was contained in that moment of, “Is that our temp being talked about on the radio?”

The opportunity to rework the story to think about how it suited the theme of devils and angels led me to really meditate on what temping meant to me, and it came down to understanding how that time in my life taught me to pay attention to the people at work around me, and try to never treat anyone as invisible.

A friend recently sent me this piece from The New York Times about the benefits of writing – and then rewriting – personal stories. In my case, I would say that the process, at least as I have come to understand it, is that through writing and rewriting and then rewriting and then rewriting, I come to understand what I am really trying to say, how my perspective and point of view are uniquely mine, and what I can do to best convey that.

Mary: Did you encounter any other famous people in the building while temping at that firm?

Anna: Funny you should ask. No, not at that particular firm, but, as you know, celebrity sightings are a favorite storytelling theme of mine.

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