Rose Moth Story Slam—RP24
For Rosapalooza 2024, there have been suggestions that, with all the storytelling genes in this extended family, we might want to devote Friday evening (July 12) at Heilman Hall to creating our own personal Rose Moth Story Slam. I’ve volunteered to head it up if it happens, so the purpose of this note is to assess the level of interest. How many among us think they have a good first-person story in them and would be brave enough to tell it onstage to a friendly crowd?
The idea would be to emulate a Moth Story Slam, and if you don’t know what that is, spend some time at themoth.org listening to a half-dozen of the performances there. We’re not talking about vague reminiscences about great-Grandma’s pecan pie, or reading “The Day After Christmas,” or informational presentations about the Rose Coat of Arms or how to plant daffodils. (There will be opportunities for all of those elsewhere during the weekend.) These would be first-person, true stories — something that happened to or involved you personally — that have a beginning, middle and end, as well as a point. Might be humorous, might be serious, might be both. Five minutes is a good length; 10 is pushing listeners’ patience. The hope for the evening would be that, with 10 or so stories from a multigenerational group of storytellers, we’d end up with both an entertaining program and an interesting snapshot of the extended family.
So email me at [email protected] by Feb. 20 if you’d consider stepping in front of the microphone or know a relative (yes, in-laws etc. are included) who ought to be pressured, cajoled or bullied into doing so. If there’s enough interest, we’ll do some further brainstorming in a group chat.
Neil Genzlinger