Public Speaking / Presentation Skills Training – Development and Performance

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Are you tired of hiding behind mediocre power point and calling it a presentation?

We have a very short amount of time in our corporate workshops. TIME IS MONEY, right? I feel it necessary to focus on playing. Folks NEED the stage time we provide and the fun / safe space to play. To avoid some extensive babble in otherwise valuable playtime. Here is a step by step guide, using tools from both my Improv & Stand-Up Comedy books and workshops.

BUT Remember, there is no substitute for getting on stage. Get into Improv jam sessions to continue building those skills. (Join us SUNDAYS 12pm LIVE form Times Square) Try stand-up comedy to develop the writing and presentation of your original writing. Open mics and classes get you on stage and out of your comfort zone (Tuesdays on ZOOM we have a Stand-Up Comedy Class). 

PREPARE

Before getting on stage, or in front of a group in any room, to make a presentation of prepared material, you must prepare. 

  1. BRAINSTORM – Adopt a “YES! AND…” mentality in your initial creation steps. ELIMINATE the word “NO”. If it pops into your head, get it on paper. Trigger your subconscious mind with visuals and simple choices. Consider the WHO WHERE WHAT of the subject. Consider the five senses – SIGHT, SOUND, SMELL, TOUCH, TASTE. Consider the emotions involved with the subject. Suspend judgment. Don’t edit. DOn’t try to make sense. Just vomit ideas, like a volcano erupting, from your head to the page. 
  2. LOOK FOR PATTERNS – IN comedy, as well as Shakespeare, Greek Tragedy and life, we love things to come in THREEs. Start to look for patterns where you can line things up. 
  3. IMPROVISE THE MATERIAL – Discuss the material out loud. Record these sessions (AUDIO) in case someone says something GENIUS. Never trust yourself to remember the best stuff. Try giving a mock presentation just on the raw data. You will be surprised with words and phrases you probably never would have generated sitting at the keyboard. 
  4. OUTLINE THE MATERIALS  – Start to generate a possible order to the madness. 
  5. IMPROVISE THE MATERIAL – Discuss the material out loud. Record these sessions (AUDIO) in case someone says something GENIUS. Never trust yourself to remember the best stuff. 
  6. DRAFT YOUR TEXT – READ IT ALOUD
  7. REWRITE – READ IT ALOUD
  8. Repeat as needed
  9. DO YOUR HOMEWORK! Start everyday with a smile. If you want the world to smile at you, lead by example. If you LEAD with a smile every day you don’t have to pretend on game day. AND the physical action of smiling reverse engineers good feelings, squeezing the happy juices out of our glands. Before getting on stage stretch the face with a HUGE SMILE. Alternate with kissing the ugly donkey. Squish the face as if you just sucked on a lemon. Add a little humming. All combined we wake up the resonating cavities. We also oxygenated blood to the brain. It’s better than coffee. Do this before getting out of bed every day and watch the world change! SMILE everyday and it will be natural on stage. 
  10. HOMEWORKS #2: BREATHE!!! Learn to breathe. Take yoga. Do martial arts. Swim. Don’t wait till you are nervous to breathe. Breathe 24/7 and it will be natural on stage. 

PRACTICING YOUR PRESENTATION

HAVE FUN! My #1 rule for a major reason. At this point you have done all the work. Time to have fun and share. Leave ego and insecurity outside. While this is easier said than done, at times even to a veteran, here are some tips. In my stand-up comedy book I refer to this section of FINDING THE FUNNY. In the above list of steps in developing your presentation, go to this checklist every time you practice your presentation aloud. 

  1. TAPE THIS!!! We exponentially increase our rehearsal time by recording the work and watching like a football team in preparation for the superbowl. What to run in the big league, think and work like a champ. 
  2. SMILE! See above for more. Unless you are conveying something negative SMILE. 
  3. FACE THE AUDIENCE! When you turn your back to the audience, unless on purpose to throw focus, you lose their focus. 
  4. PROJECT & ANNUNCIATE! The best words are useless without being heard or understood.
  5. FOCUS & LISTEN! The biggest distraction to our own work is our own mind. Listen to the room with your eyes. 
  6. INNER MONOLOGUE & SUBTEXT  That voice of self doubt, regret, etc is loud. In theater we drown it out with the thoughts of our characters. INNER MONOLOGUE are the thoughts while listening. SUBTEXT are the thoughts while speaking. Focus on the overall goals, focus on the message of the moment. Don’t focus on the words. A musician that focuses on the notes sounds jerky or wooden. We need to see the bigger picture, the complete thought.
  7. VISUALIZE! Beyond the words in our head, create the movie of our story to keep us focused. SEE the finished product. I used to visualize deserts and fun drinks as a waiter and had the highest sales. When a client calls now, I see their team having fun playing Improv games with us or immersing in one of our interactive shows. In fact, involve ALL FIVE senses. Get your imagination rocking on all four cylinders. What are the  sounds, smells, tastes and feels?
  8. SHAPING A PRESENTATION
    a) EMOTION / ATTITUDE! Reporters report. Artists interpret. Presenters are probably somewhere in between. FEEL the FEELS as you make your presentation. How do you want your audience to feel? FEEL THAT! At various points make a conscious effort to CHANGE the attitude.
    b) ATTACK!
    c) PACE / TEMPO! What pace or tempo best matches your presentation goals. TEMPO is the actual speed. PACE is the perceived speed. Play with the use of dramatic pause. Don’t fear silence. At various points make a conscious effort to CHANGE the pace.
    d) VOLUME! How loud or soft spoken should you be? At various points make a conscious effort to CHANGE the volume.
    e) PITCH! Borrowing from our musical world, what is the note of our voice? Do we speak low or high? At various points make a conscious effort to CHANGE the pitch.
    f) SPACING! Where do you stand? Do you ever sit? Kneel? Should you walk into the crowd? Walk upstage (away from the crowd)?
    g) PLAY with all of the above in your practice pitches. Changing the Attitude, Attack, Pace, Volume, Pitch and spacing keeps our audience engaged. I will fall asleep at a heavy metal concert and then wake up when the ballad starts. Variations of all the above will inspire certain responses from your audience. Don’t over think this or over control these choices. Look for organic transitions. OR be jarring on purpose on occasion. Over time your instincts will drive these choices. 
  9. BE OK WITH FAILURE! The true secret to confidence – not ego and arrogance which are over compensations, not corrections to insecurity – is being OK with not being great. MAKE BIG MISTAKES as a philosophy frees us to take risks and truly HAVE FUN! 
  10. DON’T STOP! DON’T MAKE THE FACE! Unless you truly hurt someone, stop apologizing. WORSE, how often do you or another apologize after NAILING IT! TRUST yourself. MOST will have no idea you messed up. They don’t know the script. 

ANALYZE YOUR WORK

Before moving on, let’s take a moment to OBJECTIVELY, without ego or insecurity, discuss the good, the bad and the ugly of the previous run through. What worked? What flopped? Avoid negative or positive feelings here. Don’t beat yourself up OR pat yourself on the back. Get to work. Repeat Successes. Learn from Mistakes.NEVER fall in love with your first drafters. 

WASH RINSE REPEAT

Repeat the above as many times as you can. A veteran comic might play 200+ shows, touring clubs around the country,  in preparation for a new special. When stuck, go back to the brainstorming process. Remember the lessons of the Chinese finger torture. Often, the way through is around. Why bang our heads on a wall, when the door might be two steps to the right or left?

SHOWTIME

HAVE FUN! It’s time to stop thinking. It’s time to listen and focus. JUST DO! If you HAVE FUN, LISTEN & FOCUS, you won’t be fazed when the TECH fails or you have a brain fart. We are human. These things happen. You will not be judged by your mistakes but how you handle them. 

LASTLY, the only thing worse about worrying what folks are saying and thinking about you is worrying about what you THINK folks are saying and thinking about you. Don’t let EGO & INSECURITY destroy all the amazing work you have prepared. But when those voices creep in, DOUBLE DOWN on the inner monologue, the subtext, the attitude, etc etc etc

LASTLY (I usually have about 10 of these in classes) THINK INTO THE LIGHTS. When you get flustered, don’t stop, don’t make the face, don’t look to the ground, don’t run away etc etc etc

Pause, look out over the crowd, smile and breathe. Even in a small club, I imagine a Broadway Balcony. I project a sense of largess (beyond my overweight issues lol) I swing for the fences, alternating with being intimate with the front row. 

I HAVE FUN!

ANALYZE YOUR WORK

AH, you thought you were done!. 

  1. The hardest part for a college actor is transitioning out of school to the professional world. In school we work for months on a show for 2-10 performances, then we are done. In the real world, there is always another show, another audition, another stage in life that changes the type of roles we can play, etc 
  2. A comedian in a class, works for 4-8 sessions and finally gets in front of an audience. In the real world, we work on new material every day, more than a musician writing new songs, in most cases. We constantly rework material, brainstorm new ideas. Our audiences don’t want to hear the same jokes every show, ESPECIALLY now with the internet/social media. We are constantly generating new material and reinventing selves.
  3. EVEN IN IMPROVISATION If you have taken my workshops/classes I talk about analyzing the work after a show or class. 20 years ago I was performing 6-8 public shows/’week in Times Square. Every night on the way home, I would think – HOW COULD I HAVE MADE THAT SCENE BETTER? What would be a better rhyme? What would be a better WORLD’S WORST joke. I still review every show in my head. I review every class/workshop. HOW could I have made that better? 
  4. As a presenter, too many learn a few tips and settle on mediocrity. To get GREAT, after you finish a project, do the work – again not form a EGO / INSECURITY. Be objective. Be blunt. 

OVER ALL, I think the most successful actors, comics and presenters learn to love all three steps. Learn to LOVE the entire process:

  1. PREPARE
  2. HAVE FUN ON STAGE
  3. ANALYZE THE WORK

LASTLY

Usually the hardest sport for artists is sitting down to do the work. Sit down and write, learn a new monologue or song for auditions, study your scripts, PAINT!!!! ONCE you find that discipline, the hardest part is to know when you need a break. If you have writer’s block, go for a walk. Go take a class and develop a new skill. Read a book.

YOUR FINAL HOMEWORK ASSIGNMENT

OBSERVE your world. EVERYTHING you need to know is right outside. Be a sponge. Disengage from the devices and OBSERVE people, pets, places, etc. 

KEEP A JOURNAL! Create the text book of your life. Next time you go to brainstorm ideas, your personal library of experience and knowledge will have grown exponentially!

Walt Frasier has 25+ years of professional credits in comedy, Theater and music. He got his big break in TV performing comedy sketches on MTV’s Stankervision, Late Nite with David Letterman, TruTV’s Friends of the People, and most recently on HBO’s Pause with Sam Jay. As an actor, Frasier has appeared on NBC’s Blacklist, CBS’s Blue Bloods, USA’s Royal Pains (Filmed in Puerto Rico), Netflix’s Lilyhammer (filmed in Norway) and NICK’s Naked Brothers Band. In addition to 1000s of live performances around the world, Frasier has also appeared in numerous commercials, industrials, webisodes and reality TV shows. Arthur Avenue regulars may also recognize Walter, if you add a white beard and red suit, as he has been official Little Italy Santa for the past 15 years.

The New York Improv Theater is a one stop edutainment center for corporate team building, office / holiday parties and more. Our comedy shows and workshops deliver high impact results. Clients include Google, Mercedes Benz, META /Facebook, TikTok, JP Morgan Chase, Accenture, Morgan Stanley, Twitter, Roblox, Rimowa, EI Digital, Accenture, Datadog HQ, Milbank, BING/Microsoft, Band of America – Merrill Lynch, Home Depot, Ernst & Young, Johnson & Johnson, Louis Vuitton, Coach, UBS, BDO, AMEX, Master Card, Macy’s, 360i, IBM, GM, Kraft, UNILEAVER, HBO, Prudential, Convene, Conference Board and many more…