ADM’s Speech Team is a competitive group that competes 1-3 times a year for Large Group and 1-4 times a year for Individuals. From those two sections, you can choose to be on one or both teams. To join ADM’s Speech team, all you have to do is show your interest and go to speech placements.

Many students who have never been a part of speech are often thrown off or confused about the placement process. Mrs. Seidl wants to remind all students that “We want everybody who wants to do speech to know that we want you on the team.”

Mrs. Seidl is one of three speech coaches, and she works on Choral Reading each year, as well as One Act, Readers Theatre, Short Film, Radio News and more.

“[For placements] you come in, there’ll be a short little Google Form that you’ll fill out where you tell us what you’re kind of interested in, as well as what your schedule looks like. The rest of the speech placements take about 5 minutes. It’s a cold read of two short passages where we want you to use your verbal and non-verbal skills. We listen and think of where your voice, personality, and conflicts and where it fits with everyone else and we put you where we think you’d fit best,” Seidl said.

Speech placements took place on Tuesday, October 28th, 7:40-8:00 am, and will still be continuing on Thursday, October 30th, 7:40-8:00 am, 3:40-4:30 pm in the Media Center. If you find yourself wanting to join speech, but you missed placements, email Jacque Seidl.

Above is a flowchart showing each speech category. Descriptions of the categories can be found here for Individual events and here for Large Group events. You can also ask any speech coach to tell you more about a category; they’d be more than happy to help.

I’m a huge introvert… What Large Group would be good for me?

Speech is a great way to bring you out of that shell. “Super mega introverts would definitely thrive in short films, radio news—where you make podcasts—and TV News,” Speech Coach Emma Bedard recommends. Similarly, Mrs. Seidl recommends recorded categories.

Another benefit of choosing a recorded category is that you don’t have to be the one talking. You can choose to work strictly on editing, directing, or cinematography of it all.

What Individual would be good for me?

For an Individual introvert, recorded pieces are great. For Individual, that would leave you with only Radio News; however, any category where you get to have your piece written out in front of you is great. Prose and Poetry are two of these categories, with even more amazing things within them.

Not only do you get your piece in front of you, but you can write all over your paper if you want to, with notes on how to say things or what to do during a line and to put the cherry on top… You don’t have to write it yourself to perform it. There are thousands of online resources, and millions of books you can find your piece from.

Jaclyn Harsh is one of the speech coaches, and she focus’ on Individual speech events. She herself is a former introvert and even claimed that speech altered her life forever.

Mrs. Harsh recommends any individual event, reminding introverts that “you have yourself to rely on, you’re not relying on those relationships with other people…it’s just you and your coach working one on one.” Mrs. Harsh preferred to write her own pieces in high school.

“Sometimes I didn’t feel like my voice was heard by other people, and so I really excelled in the written pieces because it was a chance for me to be thoughtful before I spoke.” She saw that getting to think about how she would be perceived upon performing this piece was a big deal to her. “I got to say what I wanted to say to the world, and hear what I wanted them to hear about me,” Harsh said.

Some specific examples of the written categories that Mrs. Harsh recommends are Original Oratory, After Dinner, Review and Expository.

I’m a massive extrovert. What should I do?

For Large Group, One Act play is great if you really want to stand out, but also Improv, or Ensemble Acting. For Individuals, really anything is great but Acting really allows you to get out there, as well as Solo Musical Theatre. If neither of those strikes your fancy, maybe take a look at Spontaneous Speaking, After Dinner, or Improv.

“I think if you’re someone who can think on the fly, you’ve got a good, loud presence, you’d be perfect for Group Improv. Choral Reading is another one that sometimes you really have to push your comfort zone a little bit sometimes” Mrs. Seidl agreed.

On the same note, Ms. Bedard recommends Choral Reading and One Act, adding that “Ensemble acting is a really great way if you’re someone who does kind of like the smaller limelight where you’re kind of featured a little bit more than in Choral Reading and Readers theatre, since those are teams of 15, Ensemble Acting is a small scene for acting between like two to six people. You really get to be the center of attention in that.”

In the end, speech has something for everyone and when you join, you’ll not only love it, but you’ll be doing yourself a favor by helping yourself grow and step outside of your comfort zone.