Story Club Minneapolis is a live monthly storytelling show featuring both an open mic segment and a curated set of performers from all over the Twin Cities arts scene and beyond. Story Club showcases true, autobiographical stories -- especially stories that are bold, vulnerable, unexpected, and connected to the complexity of our cultural environment. No two Story Club evenings are ever alike, but each month when we wrap up the show, we feel like we’ve witnessed a new, unique little community coming together.
So! Starting at 6pm, audience members are invited to put their names in the hat for the opportunity to tell an up-to-7-minute story onstage (Requirements? Has to be a story, has to be true, has to be about you!). When the show begins at 7, three or four tellers are drawn at random to perform, and they'll be followed by our featured guests. Does this make you want to tell a story? GOOD! (Do it! Do it! Do it!)
Story Club’s host and producer is actor/writer/storyteller Amy Salloway! She’s the creator of the award-winning autobiographical touring solo plays Does This Monologue Make Me Look Fat?, So Kiss Me Already, Herschel Gertz!, and Circumference, as well as the two-person show Entwined. She’s contributed true personal stories to programs on MPR and CBC, and has been both a storyteller and story coach for the hit national podcast RISK! You can take memoir and creative writing classes from Amy through Minneapolis Community Education, and storytelling workshops through The Story Studio. Find out more at Amy’s Facebook page Awkward Moment Productions.
March’s featured performers are Lyssa Sparrow and Mary Gossett!
Mary Gossett is excited to be a featured performer at Story Club Minneapolis! Though newer to the stage, Mary has experienced the power of story in her personal life and her 7 year career in social services. By day, Mary is a social worker for people with chronic illness and disabilities; by night, she’s a choir director at a little Lutheran Church in Robbinsdale. Mary has room-high stacks of journals chronicling her life experiences that she’s hoped to turn into a memoir. Two years ago, she first tried some of that material out in the open mic part of Story Club, and today, she loves the stage as a venue to share stories that build solidarity and community.
Lyssa Sparrow is a Minneapolis based artist, advocate, and educator known for her Minnesota Fringe show First Year Queer. Lyssa creates performances around queerness, mental health, consent, and sexual assault with the goal of de-stigmatizing taboo topics. She graduated with a B.F.A in Theater Performance from Viterbo University in La Crosse, WI and spent a semester abroad in London studying theater in non-traditional spaces for the purpose of social change. She was a Creative Changemaker Apprentice under The DIAL Group. Lyssa has worked with Patrick’s Cabaret, 20% Theater, Theater Unbound, Nimbus, Raw Sugar, OutSpoken, Gadfly Theater, Freshwater, Wonderlust, and was a featured storyteller for the Risk! Podcast. Lyssa is also a certified sexual assault and domestic violence crisis advocate and sex education teacher.