A little over four years ago, I swallowed my fear as the theatre lights dimmed, the audience hushed and a spotlight hit me with the force of a speeding train. I was all alone onstage. This was it: I had nowhere to run. Showtime!
That was me in July 2016, presenting What?! You’re A Medium?!, my one-woman show at the Toronto Fringe Festival. I played to more empty chairs than people – maybe two dozen curious souls were spread out across the seats for my first performance. Thankfully, my numbers trickled upwards over the nine-performance run and I finished with respectable attendance figures. One theatre critic even gave my show a B-.
During the play, I touched on my life, described how I worked, and delivered maybe a dozen messages. My fear that hecklers would run me crying offstage and into my dressing room never materialized, thank you spirit, even though one patron did loudly pooh-pooh me outside.
After the last performance, I heaved a sigh of relief. Thank goodness, I’ve gotten the acting bug out of my system. I was looking to go back to a more normal life of giving messages one-on-one instead of one-on-hundred.
“Y’know,” said my husband, the show’s co-writer and offstage voice of my spirit guide, “with all the stuff you talked about, your show would make an interesting book. It’s too bad we never thought of recording it.”
Ah, au contraire, I thought. My daughter had videotaped the next-to-last performance to possibly put on YouTube.
That never happened, but hubby took the audio, embellished it with pieces he remembered from other shows (no two performances were ever the same), added other stories from my life and – voila! My new book, just published and aptly titled What?! You’re A Medium?!
I’m still amazed it took four years to birth this literary child. Over the years, we’d started it, put it aside, started it up again, went on to other projects… and so it goes. You don’t know how many times we’d be out walking or driving, and after chatting for a bit on some subject, one of us would turn to the other and say, “Y’know, that would be a great story for the book.”
Well, the universe works at its own time and if 2020 is known for anything – anything memorable, that is – it’s the publication of my third book. I hope you like it.
Maybe I’ll get Meryl Streep to do the audiobook. I wonder what she’d say if I called her up? Maybe that’ll be a story for the next book…
If you wwould like to purchase a paper copy or ebook version of WHAT?I Your’e A Medium?!, click here.
If you have any questions or comments on this subject or on any other spiritual matter, feel free to write me at mail @ carolynmolnar.com. And please visit me again!