by Greg “Cactus Patch” Chalmers

Can you simplify your show into one sentence? When screenwriters sum up their entire script into one or two sentences, it is called an elevator speech. Those one or two sentences take less than a minute to share with someone, about the same time to travel between a couple of floors on an elevator ride. Having an elevator speech for your show can help you sell your show to new clients, but can do so much more.

Recently, my youngest son showed another way to use an Elevator speech. I had booked a school show. The client wanted us to emphasize friendliness, honesty, integrity, and confidence. They asked for the mad scientist show that my oldest son and I do this show together. I perform as Dr. Gregor Von Gregor, the mad scientist, and my son plays the part of my magic loving assistant Eekgor.

The Doctor hates magic, and thus the fun begins. Because of our schedules, we had little time to get a new show put together. So, my son and I took routines from several shows we have done in the past to create a new show. We had performed the individual pieces many times before, but we still need to shape the routines into a show that showcased friendliness, honesty, integrity, and confidence.

In the middle of writing our show, we got stuck. We turned to my youngest son for help. He is interested in screenwriting and making movies. He has read lots of books on the subject and has some great insight into creating good stories, and our story was stuck. It surprised me when he asked, “What is your elevator speech?” I didn’t understand. It took a couple of tries before he got through to me. But I have to confess I was slow about the whole thing. He explained to me what an elevator speech was. I told him I did not know what my show was going to be, so how could I tell him what it was about? He shook his head and asked, “Dad, what do you want your elevator speech to be?”

I said I did not know, I just knew I needed to have friendliness, honesty, integrity, and confidence in the mad scientist show. I could see I was frustrating him. He was frustrating me. That is your elevator speech! He finally exclaimed.

I thought an elevator speech had to be flashy and eye-catching and dramatic. It can’t be that simple, I thought, but it was that simple.

Our elevator speech for this show was this: The Doctor and Eekgor explore friendliness, honesty, integrity and confidence. After that, the piece fell into place.

We had a direction.

We changed the order of the elements and revisited a couple to emphasize. We started with honesty, because the routine we like to establish our relationship and shows how both characters feel about magic. It already has a little lying in it. The focus is on our version of the multiplying wands.

After the wand routine, Eekgor shows integrity and confesses to the Doctor that he accidentally broke one of the Doctor’s inventions while practicing magic. The Doctor forgives him. We worked friendliness in with more of an elaborate joke than a magic routine. Eekgor goes to check on our genetically altered guard cat.

He returns wearing a shredded lab coat and proclaiming Mr. Fluffy was friendly because she gave him a hug with her claws. We soon find out the cat isn’t feeling friendly but hungry. Finally, the Doctor’s confidence slips away as they try to repair the broken invention. But Eekgor comes to the rescue by reminding the Doctor for past successes in the process of this. The Doctor discovers his invention is it broken. He just forgot the step to turn it on. As the Doctor does this, Eekgor accidentally pushes the start button while the Doctor is working on the machine. They end with the classic chase off ending.

The show was a success, thanks to my youngest son’s wisdom and direction. The elevator speech helped us focus and theme our show. It also helped us as we transitioned between the routines in our show because it gave us mile markers to hit. It kept us on track with the story line and kept us from adding extra jokes and routines that might distract from the theme our elevator speech gave us.

Using the elevator speech in this manner allowed us to create a solid show that was fun, easy to understand and much more elegant than many of the shows we have done in the past. Perhaps you too can use an elevator speech to write your shows and give them purpose and continuity.