I’m a last-minute add to the RISK! Show’s roster next week. The show’s theme is “Somewhere in America.” I’m developing an early piece into something suitable for the show. It will be funny, but also serious. Here are show details and a link to buy tickets. There’s also a Facebook event page.
Details: Thursday, July 25th at 9:30pm. Location is Peoples Improv Theatre, 123 East 24th Street, New York, NY on the Main Stage. They have a very nice bar there and everyone is friendly.
This is kind of a big deal for me because RISK is the podcast that started me on the road to pursuing live storytelling in the first place. I discovered it one late night in December of 2010, as I lay awake with terrible insomnia. I was looking through podcasts in the iTunes store and there was this weird show called RISK! and I thought, “I wonder what this is,” with no inkling of the world it would open up for me and the creative path it would send me down.
Lying there in the dark, with voices filling my head, I learned that: you could write a story, and then you could get up on stage and perform it. Or sit in front of a microphone and tell it. It could be very short. Or it could be very long. But people wanted to hear them. Some stories made me think, “Well, I could do a better job than that…,” while others made me think, “I would like to one day be that good at writing and telling a story…” Either way, I was inspired to try it out. I’ve been on the podcast several times, but this is my first time performing in the live show. I’m very honored and excited to be included in a show that has so much personal meaning for me.
Also, I will be sharing the stage with Lauren Lumsden, a creative colleague of mine from the Storytelling Level 2 workshop taught by Michelle Walson and David Crabb. Lauren is a charming and funny performer and a very good writer. There will be several other storytellers there too, with a diverse range of styles and subject matter. RISK is always full of surprises, so don’t miss this show!