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We've fallen in love with The Moth and its regular podcast -- discovered through its being featured on This American Life a few times -- and are excited to see they're kicking off a regular StorySLAM in Chicago, beginning with tonight's event at Martyr's.
For those of you unfamiliar with The Moth, it's basically an evening where people take the stage to perform stories from memory around a particular theme. No scripts, no props, just a storyteller, their audience, and a stage. When it's successful this often results in tales that are often funny, gripping and touching, all at the same time. Some of our recent favorites from the podcast that should give you a good idea about what to expect are James Braly's "Gut Instinct" about the temptation of infidelity while in exotic locales and Alex Draper's experiences with the superstars of Bollywood in "You Are A Great King."
Tonight's show is built around the theme of "School" and begins at 8 p.m. at Martyr's, 3855 North Lincoln, $7, 21+
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Dang! I would totally go to this if I weren't going to Where the Wild Things Are premiere.
It'll be a monthly thing so you can check it out later!
I want to see this but I'm a little disappointed. I can write something but they won't let you read off paper and my memory is for shit. Dang. This performance poetry/story thing is gettin' out of hand.
Actually that's what I like about it. It's not just another group of writers reading their stuff verbatim and hoping their words wow. And neither is it a bunch of poets depending on performance to give their words impact. It's an entertaining marriage of the two!
What do you mean it's not "a bunch of poets depending on performance"? It sounds like almost the same thing, but instead of poetry it's stories. And in fact it's a little more exclusionary in that there a rule that you can't bring anything on stage. In the poetry scene, you can bring whatever you want up on stage to read from (paper, a laptop, and iPod or iPhone) and take your chances. I've see (and even been one) poets who read from paper and still blow away the crowd. If it's The Moth's rule, so be it. But trust me, eventually this will become more about performance than stories. It's what happened/is happening to staged poetry.
Personally, the time I'd spend memorizing I'd rather spend on more writing.
Had you listened to any of the examples i linked to you'd see the emphasis is on storytelling that feels organic, not staged. If what these folks say is merely rote memorization of tightly scripted pieces I'd be very surprised and would have to take my hat off to them as actors.
And I'm very familiar with the poetry scene, hosting the Mental Graffiti night at The Note in the late '90s / early '00s and growing close to many members of the scene. The Moth merely takes the things from that scene and makes it -- in my humble opinion -- more rewarding. It's purely a matter of taste.
And I'm very familiar with the poetry scene, hosting the Mental Graffiti night at The Note in the late '90s / early '00s and growing close to many members of the scene.
Been there, done that. Early '90s on forward, a number of slam teams, published in a couple of books, a short play at Goodman, "performed" in various places in the U.S. and even London. Recently did another show (non-poetry) here in Chicago. All on paper. Yeah, I'm familiar with the scene here too. Very familiar. I stand by what I said. I've seen readings from authors here (most notably events like Columbia College's Rock and Roll Literature events at the Metro) where authors reading from their printed page sound just as "organic" as anything else. Sometimes moreso. But yeah, I guess it's personal taste.
Oh, and I'm sure we've crossed paths more than once...
I'm with Stealth on this one. I prefer a focus on writing craft rather than show. But then, I've never been a big fan of the slam scene. If the craft is there, the story will feel spontaneous and organic.