I have been producing house concerts for adults for approximately 3 years. I was frustrated with trying to produce concerts of my own work for adults, so I decided to offer house concerts to friends and family. The host invites the guests, provides refreshments and passes the hat. I don’t have to do any publicity, just have to arrive on time and tell my favorite stories for adults. Passing the hat is optional. This has helped build audiences for public events.
Attendance: Depends on the host–I’ve had a range of ages at these, though I do stress to the host that these are primarily aimed at adults.
Keys to success: Ask that there be a minimum of six listeners, have the host serve refreshments, make sure family pets don’t distract. These house concerts combine the intimacy of the living room with platform telling, and can be very satisfying for listeners and teller.
Miscellaneous: I see these concerts also as a way to build the mailing list for adult performances. Last year I did several house concerts just before a public performance of “Tristan and Iseult.” Though the stories I told at the house concerts were quite different from “Tristan”, many listeners came to the public performance because of the house concerts.
Author’s Bio:
Priscilla Howe’s presentations are a delightful blend of education and entertainment, with generous dollops of humor. Some of her obnoxious hand puppets come along for the ride for the younger kids, while older listeners–children and adults–hear more sophisticated stories.
Priscilla enthralls audiences with stories from books, original works and folktales from around the world for listeners of all ages. She performs at schools, libraries, festivals and house concerts.