SKALD time. Chicago. Go. Now.

I've already posted how much I love SKALD, Chicago's premiere storytelling festival, despite never having seen it.

It's this week. If you're in the area, go see it.

Then report back. Since I'm in California, I'm going to miss the performances. I'd love to hear about it.

The closest I have to eyes on the scene is Don Hall, and while he tells it like it is, he is also, in fact, SKALD's producer.

Ticket info, directions, etc., here.

2nd Story: A Great Idea

A follow up to my previous post.

Normally, I wouldn't rise to the bait of an anonymous poster, but she called me on my snark, and this made me realize something that Sean has commented on before: from my blog postings, the reader can't tell what I actually feel about a subject. So here's an update.

Over in Chicago, Serendipity Theatre Company's got a good thing going with 2nd story, a monthly series and annual festival featuring personal storytelling at a popular wine bar. It sells out. It gets good press. It develops writers' performance skills and actors' writing skills. It celebrates the art of the well-told story.

And storytelling plus wine? That's a damn good idea. I wish more o.g. storytelling events featured wine.

Would that any venue I tell stories in is featured in a Zagat guide.

Jealous much? Yes, I am.

Because the old school storytelling community has missed the boat on this one. Dropped the ball. I looked at the roster of 2nd Story's storytellers. I looked at the behind-the-scenes organizers. I looked at the sponsors. Don't see any of the old guard. I can see storytellers skipping over WNEP's Skald (it's off-Loop, it's fringe, it's under-the-radar). I don't see how they could have missed this one.

(Am I missing something from two thousand miles away, just relying on Google? Yes, yes I am. Fill me in, Chicagoland people)

In my previous post, my use of the word "cringeworthy" wasn't a swipe at Ms. Stielstra, for her definition of storytelling. It was a swipe at the Chicago Storytelling Guild, who are either invisible or irrelevant in the Chicago arts community.

My remarks on the wine tasting at 2nd Story wasn't meant to be a swipe at the event. I just don't understand (not being an experienced wine taster or frequenter of wine bars myself) how the wine tasting and the storytelling go together. An organized wine tasting seems to me much more formal and stuffy than the communal, relaxed vibe that the storytelling can bring out. But I haven't been there. It works for 2nd Story.

2nd Story shows two things about the American Storytelling Revival:
1. That the Jonesborough, Tennessee-centric movement that started 35 years ago has narrowed its vision and become so inward-focused that it misses opportunities to connect with new audiences. (I've been saying this on the blog since the beginning)
2. The Revival of Storytelling will continue without them. The theatre and literary community, in recognizing the power of the personal story, are celebrating the art of storytelling. Hell, the business community, from "knowledge management" experts to marketing and branding gurus are carrying the storytelling torch, too (to my chagrin).

So, I apologize for not being clear.

But just we know, going forward: I've got my own biases and preferences:

I don't particularly care for personal memoir as a genre. (As if that's not clear already from my numerous entries on the toopic)

And reading a story out loud off of a piece of paper is storyreading, not storytelling, and isn't a performance art. And putting it on YouTube doesn't make it a better experience.

I like wine.

2nd Story: Story, Music, and Wine Festival

"12 days. 54 stories. 46 storytellers. And 5000 glasses of wine."

Now that's a storytelling festival I'd like to see!

Where? Chicago.
When? Last month. Just missed it. (They do have a monthly series)
What the--?

The best stories I’ve ever heard come from hanging out with friends over a good bottle of wine. That’s when people really start talking, really get to the meat of their experiences—the wild beauty of it all, the destruction and the hope. That's the feeling we're going for: the crowd at Webster’s Wine Bar has the intimacy of my own living room and the crazy, wine-warm secrets that have been told there.”
—Megan Stielstra, Director of Story Development

Check out the video from the local news station:


I wouldn't call a wine bar the ideal venue for storytelling, but-- according to the bar's website, surveys like Zagat's give it a rating as a top night spot right up there with the Green Mill (one of Al Capone's former speakeasys and home of the infamous poetry slam). In that company, I wouldn't mind having that venue on my resume.

Oh, it's personal storytelling. Nevermind.

Cringeworthy moment 53 seconds in:
CLTV Reporter asks: "Is there a storytelling scene in Chicago?"
Festival director: "There's a really active theatre scene, and there's a really active literary scene, and what we try to do is-- kind of-- meet in between."

Okay, granted, this is an entertainment reporter, not Woodward & Bernstein, but the fact that this answer got a pass is telling: it means that there is no Chicago storytelling scene.

(I Googled "Chicago Storytelling" and hey, the Chicago Storytelling Guild came up first. But its site hasn't been updated since 2006. So in the unlikely event of a fact checker from CLTV trying to find background on storytelling... they'd skip right past the old guard and take 2nd story at its word.)

Although the video interview emphasized the performance, browsing through the other video clips on their site and on MySpace, I found the festival gives a pass to the writers... there's a lot of "storyreading" going on too. Maybe after the third glass of pinot you don't mind that the evening's entertainment is engrossed in a piece of paper held in her hand and is reading AT YOU.

(Sorry, the snark is slipping out. My guess is that the actors all memorize their stories and the writers have their crib notes in their hands.)

Learn more at their web site,
or their MySpace page,
or this TimeOut Chicago article.

This feature at CenterStage got me laughing. As if a wine bar wasn't a difficult enough venue, the festival takes a break between each teller to have everyone taste another wine. I guess you have to be there. Just the image, though, of the juxtaposition of the seriousness of which you're presenting flights of wine with the literal spotlight on the personal storyteller is giving me a spot of cognitive dissonance.

Still, I'd love to see this once. Anyone seen it?

Is the Met the Future?

(I sent this to the Storytell list, in response to Gregory's post (below), but then thought it was too good to let disappear behind the gate of a closed listserv)

Author and storyteller Gregory Leifel (in his post, here) mentioned the Met (that's the Metropolitan Opera Association of New York City), which now has high definition live performances beamed via satellite to movie theaters in the U.S., Canada, and Europe.

The Washington Post also notes that the Met is not content to share its performances in movie theaters:

One hundred additional live performances will be broadcast either over the Internet or on digital radio, with another 1,500 broadcasts from the past 75 years -- the Met's entire recorded history -- to be made available soon through an audio-on-demand service.

"It's only possible because the unions have put their faith in our ability to deliver what we promised them -- a means to build the audience and secure the health of the Met -- and, indeed, the health of opera as an art form," Gelb said in an interview. "Our audience is aging fast, and this technology will help us galvanize a new generation."

These transmissions will be possible because of a just-concluded arrangement with the Met's orchestra, chorus, ballet and stagehands, who voted in favor of a new media agreement after extensive negotiations this summer.

In the past, unions have demanded substantial upfront payments to all parties involved in performances -- making recordings, broadcasts and telecasts prohibitively expensive. Gelb calls the new revenue-sharing arrangement a "shift to a more fluid concept of media, in keeping with the infinite possibilities offered by modern technology."

(Tim Page, "Live Opera to Come to Movie Theaters", Washington Post, September 7, 2006)

More recent articles note that the first year was a success, that the Met is tripling the number of screens, and expects to reach one million viewers for the 2007-2008 season. (Ann Midget, "Met Opera to Expand in Theaters Across Globe," New York Times, August 9, 2007)

Can you imagine? An arts institution, 128 years old, confronts the reality of its marginalization by breaking out of its home, and brings what it does best out into the world. This, despite having multiple unions to deal with, and no doubt demanding donors.

This doesn't mean the Met will stop producing live opera. It can't. All the digital delivery systems in the world won't help you if you're not producing quality content.
Now I will grant you that there are no storytelling festivals with the endowment, the donor base, the general manager, or the history of the Metropolitan Opera.

But think of the storytelling festivals you've attended, or heard about.

Is their audience base shrinking or growing?
Is their audience aging?
Is the Festival locked into a specific venue and place, even if access to that venue limits the audience that can attend? (By capacity, or geographic distance, or obscurity, or lack of accomodations for out of town visitors)
Does it get any media attention (tv, radio)? And if it does, how deep is it? Is it a mention on the community calendar, two minutes on the news, or an hour long profile?

I know there are many logistical and economic hurdles keeping storytelling from being beamed live via satellite to movie theaters. I'm not advocating that, although it's a grand vision.

But how about radio?
How about television?

You can't claim that broadcasting a festival (either live, or after the fact) is technologically unfeasible.

And in this day and age, it is no more onerous to record and make available digitally live recordings from festivals than it is to do radio and television, and, I would submit, it's probably less expensive upfront and revenue generating over time. (Okay, I'll grant you, in many regions doing so would be ahead of the curve of what your audiences are looking for)

Sure, there are logistical hurdles. Working with partners new to the Festival environment (broadcast engineers, lighting and sound technicians).
Paperwork, legal releases. Revenue sharing arrangements.

My prediction: a savvy Festival, with a focused plan and diligent execution, could place itself as the premiere "brand" for storytelling in the mind of the public (even eclipsing those Festivals with longer histories or more clout in the storytelling community).

My further prediction: a startup venue will leap frog past all existing Festivals and do this within ten years. (The planning and technical execution you could do in two years, but it would take a few years to build the reputation... (and overcome the backlash from the existing storytelling community (and possible, some National organizations) that decry the "media"-ization of their beloved art form)). That's not to say this will come out of nowhere. Just that too many existing Festivals now are making the same mistake that the railroads did with the advent of the automobile and highway system: they focused on rails and trains, and not on the transportation business. Look around. You can see some new models of producing popping up. Keep an eye on them.

What are your predictions?

At the Fringe

One of the many reasons this blog is off to a slow start is that I'm gearing up for a show at the 2007 San Francisco Fringe Festival.

My show, You Go First, is not a storytelling show. Instead, I'm diving back into my roots in improvisation for this one.

One of the challenges of performing at a Fringe Festival is that you are your own producer (unless you've convinced someone else to take that role). The Festival gives you a stage, a person to help with the box office, a person to help out during the 60 minutes you are actually in the physical theater, and includes a description of your show in a program. But everything else (like filling the seats, promoting the show, making the costumes, securing rights, hiring musicians) is your own responsibility.

Having an improvised show (no set, no costumes, no props) simplifies things a bit. Cuts down on rehearsal time, too. (I'm relying on the performers decades-long experience in the craft, natural talent, and trust to pull this off onstage).

But there's a lot of details to attend to (in addition to a full time job, a family, the start of a new school year, etc.)... so I've been neglecting the blog. Been doing a "soft open." Once I'm up and running I'll announce the blog and let people know it's here.

As for Storytelling and Fringe Festivals... I have presented both a workshop and a poster session at the National Storytelling Conference on "Storytelling at the Fringe," as a way of explaining what a Fringe is, why storytellers would want to be there, and even help organize the National Storytelling Conference Fringe. I'll post more about that later.

If you're not familiar with Fringe Festivals, Slash Coleman has a new blog, "Fringe or Die," that is a nuts-and-bolts introduction of how to do it. He explains what Fringe Festivals are here.