This week’s story comes from Aaron Urist. Aaron is a standup comedian from Denver Colorado, the co-host of Crush City, a monthly comedy showcase at The Savoy, and he will be appearing at the High Plains Comedy Festival later this month. Being in his presence is like finding a $20 bill in your jacket on the first cold of autumn—again, and again, and again. Aaron’s story was recorded live on May 20, 2015 at Buntport Theater in Denver, Colorado. The theme of the evening was “Nature vs. Nurture.”
Our next live event in Denver takes place at Buntport Theater on 19 August 2015 at 8:00pm. In honor of the High Plains Comedy Festival, we will be featuring stories exclusively by stand-up comedians. The theme of the evening will be “Crushed.” And mark your calendars—the debut of The Narrators San Diego is 8 September 2015 at Tiger!Tiger! Tavern.
Special thanks to Erin Rollman for engineering help on this episode. Our theme music is by our friend Whalehawk (aka the Grammy-nominated musician Jake Sanders).
We have an exciting announcement to share with you!
We have found a Southern California home for The Narrators. Starting September 8, The Narrators San Diego will take place the 2nd Tuesday of each month at Tiger!Tiger! Tavern on beautiful El Cajon Boulevard at 8pm. As always, The Narrators is a free event.
If you are reading this and thinking to yourself “WTF is a The Narrators?”, please take a moment to click around up that top header, specifically the ABOUT page, which will fill you in on what exactly it is that we do, and then maybe wander on over to the Home page and fill your ears with the sweet sounds of storytelling (maybe even subscribe to the podcast!). Then, if you have stamina and a clear heart, make a dash for the FAQ page and find out how you can get involved. Then pat yourself on the back and pour a glass of chocolate milk to celebrate, because you will have become an expert on The Narrators.
But I digress. We are honored to be working with the good people at Tiger!Tiger!, who also operate the Blind Lady Ale House in Normal Heights and Panama 66 at the San Diego Art Museum in Balboa Park. Aside from their fantastic craft beers and delicious food, these establishments serve as important community centers hosting local music, films, game nights, poetry readings, and now storytelling.
If you live in San Diego and would like to be part of the Narrators, please join us the 2nd Tuesday of every month at Tiger!Tiger! starting this September. If you don’t live in San Diego, please spread the word to your SoCal friends and family.
Mary Robertson and Robert Rutherford settled into Southern Californian living and are ready to hear your stories!
Most importantly, we’re looking for storytellers! We’re looking for people to tell 5-10 minute true stories based on a changing monthly theme. September’s theme is “Firsts”. You do not need to be a professional writer or performer to participate. We love writers, actors, comedians, musicians and other people who identify as artists, but we especially encourage those of you who do not normally do this kind of thing to get involved.
The Narrators is committed to representing multiple voices and experiences and creating a safer space for all of us to be ourselves. We very much want to hear from people of color, queer people, people living with disabilities, immigrants to the U.S., military veterans, the very old and the very young—you get the idea. You can get in touch through our website, on our Facebook page, or email robert@thenarrators.org.
We have an exciting announcement to share with you! We have found a Southern California home for The Narrators. Starting September 8, The Narrators San Diego will take place every 2nd Tuesday of the month at Tiger! Tiger! Tavern on beautiful El Cajon Boulevard at 8pm. Click here for more information.
Today’s story comes from Emma Weisfeld and was recorded live at Buntport Theater on 20 May 2015. The theme of the evening was “Nature vs. Nurture.”
Our next live event in Denver takes place at Buntport Theater on 19 August 2015 at 8:00pm. In honor of the High Plains Comedy Festival, we will be featuring stories exclusively by stand-up comedians. The theme of the evening will be “Crushed.” See you there!
Special thanks to Erin Rollman for engineering help on this episode. Our theme music is by our friend Whalehawk (aka the Grammy-nominated musician Jake Sanders).
Back in April, The Narrators collaborated with the Musica Sacra, a 35-piece chamber orchestra here in Denver. They gave us three pieces of music and asked our storytellers to write something inspired by the music. In exchange, we gave them three stories and they chose three pieces of music to accompany them. We wrote and edited and memorized and rehearsed and revised and then rehearsed some more… paragraphs were shifted out of their natural order to work with the music, and the orchestral arrangements were shuffled and modified to jive with the beats of the story. It was a dramatic departure from our usual low-key routine. The end result was beautiful, watching our storytellers transform their personal experiences into these sweeping, powerful performances.
This week’s story comes from that show. Ellen K. Graham is a playwright and long-time favorite of The Narrators. Her story was paired Ralph Vaughan Williams’ “The Lark Ascending,” which for copyright reasons we do not play in its entirety. This story was originally recorded at Augustana Arts on 24 April 2015. The theme of the evening was “Two-Way Street.”
Our theme music is by our friend Whalehawk (aka the Grammy-nominated musician Jake Sanders).
We’re honored to participate in the first ever Fucking Fabulous Fiction Fest, a literary festival and variety show produced by BookBar and the indie band High Fiction. For one night only, The Oriental Theater will host a low-brow, highly accessible celebration of all things literary including local authors, book-related music, beer, improvisation and various forms of live performance. Specifically, there will be performances from The Narrators, Stories on Stage, Bar Choir and The Novelistas, as well as an adult Spelling Bee, literary costume contest, tarot card reading, community poetry, and burlesque. Author appearances, performances, and book signings will include Gregory Hill, Jenny Shank, Matthew Taylor, Ian D, Tuyet Nguyen and much, much more.
Lobby events, including book sales, signings, merchandise, and beer sales will begin at 7:00 p.m. Stage events begin at 8:00 p.m. Fiction Beer and Grimm Brothers Brewing will be on tap for the evening. Food trucks will be available.
The Oriental Theater
4335 W 44th Avenue, Denver CO
31 July 2015, 8pm (Doors at 7pm)
$12
Here in Denver, a notable number of artists and entertainers have left town to stake new claims in California, including a handful of our all-time favorite storytellers and the original two hosts of The Narrators Denver, Andrew Orvedahl and Robert Rutherford.
I’ve been thinking a lot about California. A few weeks ago, my own family and I took a short vacation to San Diego. We stayed with Robert and he gave us an amazing insider’s tour of the city—we went behind the scenes at the natural history museum where he works and saw a new species of desert spider; we ate ridiculously delicious fish tacos in the parking lot of a grocery store; we climbed over jagged coastal rocks in La Jolla, looking for crabs and octopi in the tidepools. And he showed me Tiger! Tiger! Tavern, where The Narrators San Diego will debut in September.
While we strolled around Balboa Park, I could imagine myself settling down amidst all the true, natural beauty of Southern California. I could definitely move there and live on a schedule ruled by the tides.
But, every now and then, I would catch flashes of the other Southern California: the Botox-injected foreheads, the $700 alligator purses, the real estate flyers for “affordable” million-dollar studio apartments. Even with my critical faculties softened by the sand glimmering between my toes and palm trees nodding encouragingly overhead, I could easily spot the seams, the artifice, duplicity and disparity of this place.
Let’s be clear: I don’t think the face-lifted vanity of Southern California is pervasive—I’d argue it’s not even popular—but that plastic, two-faced facet of California culture was definitely visible.
Today’s story comes from Haley Driscoll. She is a standup comedian who is adored by the Denver comedy scene and one of those folks who recently relocated to Los Angeles. Her departure, like all the others, was this bittersweet moment of joy for her future and pity for our loss. But I never once worried about Haley moving to LA and becoming two-faced—and that’s because of the the story you’re about to hear.
This story was originally recorded on 21 November 2013 at the Deer Pile in Denver, Colorado. The theme of the evening was “The Fall.” Our theme music is by our friend Whalehawk (aka the Grammy-nominated musician Jake Sanders).
