Questions to ask during a post-project interview with an artist?

May 14, 2013 4:39 PM

What are some interesting and provocative questions I could ask an entertainer upon his completion of an ambitious year-long project?

A good friend and fellow performer of stand-up comedy has recently completed a self-invented year-long project that had a focus on generating and performing a great quantity of material. (A good analog to his project would probably be Jonathan Coulton's "Thing a Week" runs) I'm going to sit down with my friend and record a brief interview about his experience, and I'd love some suggestions of questions to pose him to supplement the ones I've thought of.

Ultimately, I hope the interview will be a nice keepsake for him and I want to encourage him to speak honestly and with feeling about both the successes and struggles of the project, and how he's changed during.

Thanks in advance for any question ideas you can share, as well as your tips on interviewing in general.

posted by chudmonkey to Society & Culture (3 answers total)

I've worked on projects that length too and reflecting on my own experience, what I would want to know is, at what point did you want to quit and what kept you going? Because man, there were times when I was like, EFF THIS. I learned a lot from the experience, though, and perhaps your friend did too.
posted by deliciae at 4:46 PM on May 14, 2013 [2 favorites]

A line of questioning that works for almost anything, but would be especially good for this I think, is "Before you started X, what did you imagine X would be like? What were you picturing in your head when you fantasized about it? At what point did you realize you were wrong? How did X surprise you?"
posted by Mender at 6:34 PM on May 14, 2013

Did people say or do things that they thought were supportive, but actually was not?
What did you feel was the most supportive comments or actions?
posted by Sophont at 10:21 PM on May 14, 2013