Hello Chicago storylovers and storytellers! We hope to see you all for this coming Wednesday for November’s Here’s the Story! This month, we are graced with an incredibly talented lineup of invited tellers… solo performers, monologists, and professional storytellers, who hold storytelling as an important art, and have given the form much time and attention. They are also people who we just really happen to like… teachers, writers, actors, designers and activists… who make people’s lives better in a myriad of different ways on a daily basis.
As the season changes, we hope you will make plans to join us once a month, to gather round and snuggle in through the fall and winter, and enjoy an amazing, FREE evening of culture and laughter and delicious food and warm community. These events really are special. We’ve created them to be for and by and of all of you: the fantastic creators and thinkers who work and live in this incredible city together. We want you to have a place to be together to listen and be inspired by one another’s experiences and thinking. And, to get to just be in good company.
Here is some of the excellent company you’ll be in on Wednesday, the 9th:
Amanda Rountree has been performing since 1992, teaching since 1998, and directing since 2002. She relocated to Chicago in 2007 from Seattle where she was a performer and instructor with Unexpected Productions and a performer and co-artistic director of Playback Theater Northwest. Amanda has entertained audiences in seven countries and countless North American cities utilizing a wide variety of styles, disciplines, and formats. In addition to being a company member of WNEP Theatre, she can sometimes be seen performing her original solo pieces around town, with The Beast Women Cabaret, This Much is True Storytelling, and The Kates. She is a resident teaching artist for Lifeline Theatre and the Second City Training Center. Her one-woman show, The Good, the Bad, and the Monkey is currently running through November 17 at Stage 773. amandarountree.com
Ric Walker is an actor, improvisor, writer and teacher. He can regularly be seen performing with The Improvised Shakespeare Company at iO, occasionally with The Second City and writing, podcasting, publishing telling stories with 2nd Story. Ric is delighted to be able to participate in his first Here’s The Story event. Because of his love for puns, Ric is lobbying to change the name to Hears the Story… anybody with me?
A professional hair designer, Mathew Stella has been in multiple projects for stage, screen and commercials. Most recently, he was chosen to perform at The 2nd Annual Chicago Fringe Festival, where all 5 of his performances of his Solo show- AT 5’2″ & 125 LBS- were sold out over Labor Day weekend. AT 5’2″ & 125 LBS. is an adult tale about growing up Italian. The piece revolves around his Italian upbringing and his tumultuous but loving relationship with his father , ‘Little Nicky’. Mat is submitting his work to other Fringe Festivals and working on producing the full version of AT 5’2″ & 125 LBS. in Chicago in the spring of 2012.
Stephanie Douglass is an actor, writer, activist, and farmer who divides her time between the soil and the stage. Over the past several years, Stephanie has farmed communally and built gardens in the Middle East, trained local workers in food and compost toilet sanitation in Ethiopia, and taught in Chicago’s alternative school system. She was head writer for OLN’s extreme sports show “Outside Magazine’s Ultimate Top Ten,” and recently danced Butoh for the opening of a retrospective of fifty years of Beirut theatre. Currently, Stephanie is interning at Uncommon Ground’s rooftop organic farm and working with Green Warrior Permaculture, developing projects in Ethiopia, Bali, and Uganda. In New York, she is a co-founder and dramaturg for award-winning theatre company The TEAM, and in Chicago, she performs with the fabulous ladies of Eleanor and writes with The Lords of Hell.
Jason has just returned from walking across Spain on the extraordinary pilgrimage of the Camino de Santiago. In other news, Jason is also an actor, director and writer. His off-kilter sense of humor and unique theatrical flair has been showcased throughout Chicago, including the Chicago Fringe Festival where he presented the acclaimed The Steve Show. He can currently be seen starring in the independent movie Who Is Steve Shubert? Please heck out www.whoissteveshubert.com. Buen camino!!
And, as always, there are five open slots for you to fill with your own stories! So please come, bring your friends, bring food for the potluck if you wish,and bring your stories!
Also, we have hand-screened tshirts featuring the donated work of some of your favorite local artists, at every event! So bring $10 if you’d like to take one home with you.
Here’s the Story happens the 2nd Wednesday of each month at Stage 773 at 1225 West Belmont, just a few blocks west of the Red/Purple/Brown line. Doors open at 7:30, show starts at 8, and usually runs to a bit after 10.
See you there!
