Reaching into the vault for more gold from our 2011 AFO Festival, we found this sublime excerpt from our inaugural panel, WHY SOLO PERFORMANCE MATTERS.

Watch Deb Margolin (GOOD MORNING ANITA HILL…), Gioia De Cari (TRUTH VALUES) and Broadway/off-Broadway producer Eva Price express themselves with passion and pure poetry — as when Deb observes, “The empowered performer is a writer. If you can take a look at those aspects of your humanity which when focused on ramify outward and shed light on the whole human condition, then you don’t need money, you don’t need a fancy situation, you can create spectacle that’s deep and resonant and not self-indulgent.”

And watch for the moment of pure hilarity that seizes Gioia with incapacitating laughter.

Corinne Woods is AFO’s Production Manager, an island of calm and sanity in the frenzy of the Festival, and maven of all technical issues in the lead up to the Festival.  But, like all the AFO staff, she wears a lot of additional hats.

She is in charge of keeping this website up and current (as well as serving as our resident IT consultant). And she has taken in the lead in our fundraising efforts, leading our frequent in-house meetings on how to build AFO into a sustainable (read: strong and solvent) nonprofit organization.

Corinne is passionately and completely committed to theater, often using her nonexistent spare time to stage manage non-Festival shows. And with her sharp eye on all things solo, she often brings shows and events to our attention we might have otherwise missed.

Corinne is currently the “Final Chapter” of our Meet the Staff series (myself, Megan Kolb and Kate Hare complete the present AFO staff) – and I can’t think of a more splendid conclusion!

Can you believe it?  Solo performance has spawned what Charles Isherwood called “the biggest theater story since Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark began its long and wayward stumble toward a much-postponed opening night last June.”

Solo performance has never been hit with such a bright spotlight. Unfortunately, it’s not a flattering spotlight, focused as it is on the controversy surrounding Mike Daisey and The Agony And the Ecstasy Of Steve Jobs.

Mike Daisey is a giant of solo performance.  He’s on the AFO Advisory Board.  And he has done a truly heroic job making Apple’s abusive labor practices in China news. The problem is Mike has appeared on TV news shows and in print saying things that aren’t strictly true.

But now this story has it’s second act, because Mike has just posted a wonderfully thoughtful, eloquent, and humble apology on his website.  It is worth quoting at some length:

“When I said onstage that I had personally experienced things I in fact did not, I failed to honor the contract I’d established with my audiences over many years and many shows. In doing so, I not only violated their trust, I also made worse art.”

He continues, “And I would like to apologize to my colleagues in the theater, especially those who work in non-fiction and documentary fields. What you do is essential to our civic discourse. If I have made your path more difficult, or the truth of your work harder for audiences to discern, I am sorry.

“To human rights advocates and those who have been doing the hard work of bringing attention to these kinds of labor issues for years, if my failures have made your jobs harder, I apologize. If I had done my job properly, with the skills I have honed for years, I could have avoided this. Instead, I blinded myself, and lost sight of the people I wanted most to help.”

You can read the full text here. Please do! It is highly recommended, hard-won guidance for all of us in solo performance, from someone who has been through the fire of what the New York Times called “the most incendiary story of the theater season.”

In this clip from the DIRECTING THE SOLO SHOW panel at the 2011 Festival, three pairs of performers and directors describe how they found each other and decided to work together.

Finding the right director is absolutely critical for a performer or writer/performer, and here the powerhouse teams of Jenni Wolfson and Jen Nails (RASH), PJ Walsh and Dion Flynn (Over There – Comedy is His Best Weapon) and Iyaba Iba Mandingo and Brent Buell (unFRAMED) recount how their collaborations began – and flourished.

It’s hard to explain what Megan Kolb does at AFO. Her title is Associate Producer, but that just tells you she associates with the producer.  What she does, in fact, is almost everything — helping create our Festival programming…managing the venue during the Festival…artist relations throughout the year….

It’s a lot easier to say what Megan doesn’t do, and that’s ever flag in her commitment to making the Festival all it can be.

Luckily, Megan is really good at speaking for herself – so I can let her explain all the invaluable talents she brings to All For One.

I’ve come to realize the All For One Theater Festival is the gift that keeps on giving – as  evidenced by the videos from it that we’ve started going through.

Today I’m posting a clip from our PRODUCING AND CONTRACTING FOR YOUR SOLO SHOW panel, which was perhaps our most popular. It features Broadway/off-Broadway producer Jane Dubin, solo show guru Matt Hoverman, solo star PJ Walsh, and is moderated by entertainment attorney Peter Breger.  Though it’s under ten minutes, it contain a number of helpful insights very much worth sharing.

I hope you’ll enjoy – and watch this space for the next panel excerpt, from DIRECTING THE SOLO SHOW.

All For One has been blessed with much good fortune – but our biggest blessing is without a doubt our awesome staff.

The staff is doubly amazing because 1) it gets so much done and 2) it is small.

Who is this astonishing cadre of unparalleled professionals?  One by one, I shall have them step out from behind the curtain.

Ladies and Gentlemen, allow me to introduce to you the inimitable Kate Hare, our Communications Director.

Well, we threw a Festival. People came. And thankfully, enjoyed. Whew. But all that is so last year.

The first week in January found the AFO team at a conclave that was formerly a Total Mystery to us; the annual Association of Performing Arts Presenters Conference, or “APAP|NYC,” where vast hoards of presenters come seeking shows to fill their hungry stages.

As newbies (or “First Time Exhibitors”) at APAP, we were thrilled when the President and CEO of APAP, Mario Garcia Durham, who’s seen it all, stopped by our booth and said, “You look great!”

We were further delighted to find there appears to be a receptive marketplace for the 15 full-length shows that appeared in our 2011 Festival.  Which is good, because we are determined to share them with cities and campuses across the country.

At APAP we fielded a lot of inquires and shared the fabulous new trailers we shot for all our shows, which you can see at http://afofest.org/videos. And we began many relationships that we believe will lead to show bookings in the months to come. Stay tuned…..

Andrew Martin calls Iyaba Ibo Mandingo “a sensational talent that should be seen and savored wherever he next appears.”

unFRAMED is Priceless – NiteLifeExchange.com

I have never been so thankful in my life, or owed so many people thanks, as on this Thanksgiving.

Thank you All, who with your talents, insights, caring, hard work, support and friendship made the first All For One Theater Festival a triumphant celebration and sharing of the power of solo performance.

Deb Margolin called us Festival folk a “sudden found family,” and I give thanks that the Festival allowed us to find each other!Now that we have, I look forward to the sharing and celebration to come.