Category: Anniversary

June 25, 2024

19th Anniversary Celebration!

Screenshot

Music

Wayne Harris and Alex Baum

Stories

Beth McLaughlin, 34 Steps
On the second floor of her apartment building is a door that leads out to the back steps, with variegated panes of glass in yellows, whites and reds. The light that falls through there is gentle and calming. Just not today.

Algiin Ford, The Silent Assassin: My Addictive Mind
An examination of both the positive and negative impact of addictive tendencies on the collective consciousness, and both their use and misuse through conscious and unconscious mind sets.

Paul Sussman, Did She Really Say “Tantrum Yoga”?! (Excerpt)
“Why?” is not a party question – we just met!
“Why the two of us… right here… right now?” Now this is starting to get interesting…
“Is it already… too late?” She’s grabbed my hand, but I’d sure like to get over to the desserts before they’re all gone.

About the Performers

Wayne Harris is an award-winning solo performer, writer, educator, curriculum innovator and musician. A gifted artist with wide ranging interests, he has accumulated an impressive body of work over the years that includes 5 full length plays, presentations for schools, directing and designing for pageantry groups as well as various musical projects. wayneharris.net

Alex Baum is a renowned bass player, composer and recording artist. He resides in the East Bay and runs one of the premier recording studios in the country. Alex has performed with Melissa Manchester, Dan Hicks and many others.

Beth McLaughlin is a San Francisco-based writer and performer whose work has been seen at the Frigid, Rogue, Boulder, Vancouver and San Francisco Fringe Festivals, as well as at StageWerx, the Marsh and Tell It On Tuesday. Her full-length solo pieces are Here to See the World, The Readiness is All and Cocky, and she is currently working on a fourth, Silenced.

Algiin Ford is a writer/performer and a TV/film/stage actor. A member of the Formerly Incarcerated People’s Performance Project, Algiin also recently completed a run of his first full length show, Tobacco, Zig-Zags & Gum at The Marsh.

Paul Sussman has written and performed a series of solo pieces through the eyes of Neanderthals, Anabaptists, cannibals, spores and others who persist in the search for meaning. He’s entertained and provoked audiences from Fundy to Fresno.

June 27, 2023

18th Anniversary Celebration!

Collage of performer headshots: Joshua Raoul Brody, Lisa Safran, Jeremy Greco
Collage of performers' photos: Scott Cohen, Bridget Frederick, Rebecca Fisher, Cynthia Cudaback

Music

Joshua Raoul Brody, piano and vocals
Joshua will be taking requests (although he doesn’t promise to play them all.) Hint: he knows a lot of Beatles songs. Like, all of them.

Stories

Cynthia Cudaback, Lessons from a Wheelchair
I used to look back at my life, wondering if there were one thing I would change if I could. No sooner did I find that one thing than it turned out to have saved my life.

Jeremy Greco, The Big Snap
On March 17th, 2020, a lockdown was announced in San Francisco, Jeremy Greco decided to document each day by taking a picture.  From these pictures, Greco conducted a series of interviews of people from all walks of life: head of the SF Republican party John Dennis, author Nicole Galland, and many others—all of whom discussed their year of COVID, Trump, and their hopes for the future (without snapping).” 

Lisa Safran, Scenes of a Mother
An Oreo cookie kiss, a murdered Bonsai plant, a captive piano and a therapist mom are all part of Scenes of a Mother; a coming of age story in Berkeley in the ’70s. 

Scott Cohen, If It’s 7:30 in the Living Room, What Time Is It In The Kitchen?
Is an Egg McMuffin really a symbol of religious oppression?  The question will be answered in this nostalgic piece in which Scott reflects on his childhood and the lessons he learned from his loving, unconventional grandparents.  

About the Performers

Joshua Raoul Brody  has been a regular at all the Marsh venues over its 30+ year history, collaborating with Merle Kessler, The Residents, A Karen Carpenter Xmas, Marga Gomez, Josh Kornbluth, Pulp Playhouse, and countless others, as well as doing his own work. He’s also done a bunch of other stuff. Drop him a line at mail@jraoul.org to be put on his mailing list, or just to say hi.

Cynthia Cudaback, an Oakland native, grew up hiking in the Sierra Nevada and developed a passion for protecting the environment. While working on her PhD in oceanography, she met her husband and got involved in storytelling. These threads weave together in her teaching stories.  

Jeremy Greco’s first solo show, With Held, directed by Mark Kenward, was based on six months of interviews with San Francisco mail artist and writer John Held Jr.  Greco performed his most recent solo work, Keeping Up with the Jorgensons—also directed by Mark Kenward—throughout the U.S., including the 2017 San Francisco Fringe Festival (where it won a “Best of” award honors), and a Discovery Run at The Marsh. 

Lisa Safran is a Bay Area writer, improvisor, and musician. Venturing into solo performing, she began working on this piece with David Ford last year, bringing in Julia McNeal, and most recently Joyful Raven to support additional direction. Lisa has two published books, including Executive Presence—Improv Style! She also coaches leaders around the globe. 

Scott Cohen is a storyteller and comedian, but only at night.  By day, he is a mild-mannered accountant and no one knows how funny he is.    

June 22, 2022

17th Anniversary Show

Stories

  • Laura Jane Bailey, The Paris Effect (excerpt)
  • Scott Schell, Time Machine
  • Marion Lovinger, Covid, drugs and tankinis

About the Performers

Laura Jane Bailey is a Bay Area actress, director and writer. Bay Area audiences have seen her at Aurora Theatre, TheatreWorks Silicon Valley, SF Playhouse, and more. She is also a commercial and film actress—you can see her on every San Francisco Giants broadcast as “Barb,” the over-enthusiastic mom for Heffernan Insurance. LJ will be performing The Paris Effect at the SF Fringe Festival in September. https://laurajbailey.com/

Scott Schell got involved in drug use at a young age. He moved to the Bay Area in 1997 and was incarcerated a year later. He now works in the jail teaching men tools to change their attitudes and behaviors. Scott recently got involved with the Formerly Incarcerated Peoples Performance Project (FIPPP) where he has started to share his experience through solo performance. 

Marion Lovinger comes from France. She has lived 24 years in the Bay Area. She loves doing theater in French and writing solo performances in English. With an accent.

June 22, 2021

16th Anniversary – Livestreamed Performance

Stories

  • Sharon Eberhardt, The Mark of the Minotaur 
  • Tim Ereneta, The Master Craftsman
  • Brenna Kelly, Alpaca My Bags

About the Performers

Sharon Eberhardt is excited to be back on Tell It on Tuesday’s stage, even if virtually! She performed her solo shows Savage Arts and Crazy Famous at The Marsh and at Fringe Festivals in Canada and lovely Fresno, California. The Mark of the Minotaur will be on The Marsh’s livestream July 17th and 18th. sharoneberhardt.com

Tim Ereneta thinks traditional folk and fairy tales are far too interesting to be reserved for children. Of his storytelling The Washington Post has said his “methodical manner and quiet wit are a refreshing change of pace.” But don’t let his calm demeanor mislead you: Tim recently bested five other competitors to be crowned the champion of the Pittsburgh Storytelling Series’ 2021 Folktale Fight. timereneta.info

Brenna Kelly is a comedian/writer performing across the United States, Australia & New Zealand. She is the Artistic Director of Story Tree Ranch, a destination venue in Mancos, Colorado featuring storytelling, comedy & live music, and 15 acres of adventure with a light-filled Creative Arts Center. Brenna is dedicated to facilitating workshops and entertainment on kicking aside self-imposed bloated nothingness. Time to play, Create Now, No Fear! www.ConspireToInspire.us

June 30, 2020

15th Anniversary Show — Livestreamed Performance

Collage of performers: Fred Johnson, Ginger Parnes, Wayne Harris

Stories

  • Fred Johnson, Success in Minor
  • Ginger Parnes, Just on Time for my Life
  • Wayne Harris, Ronald Ruffin

About the Performers

Fred Johnson is a jazz musician and a formally incarcerated person. Sentenced to prison at age 18, a turning point for Fred was joining the San Quentin Stage Band, where he had the opportunity to play with a diverse ensemble and share the stage with legends such as Ella Fitzgerald, Sheila E, and Vic Damone. When Fred was paroled in 1995 he became involved with Harm Reduction Coalition, a national organization that promotes the health and dignity of individuals and communities impacted by drug use. Eventually, he became their director of policy, in which role he traveled the world—including testifying before the US Congress twice—to advocate for needle exchanges and HIV awareness. Since retiring, he has focused on his music, as well as acting in the two-person play Solitary Man based on letters from solitary confinement.

Ginger Parnes was three years old when her two older brothers sent her on stage at a Saturday matinee talent show at the Tower Theater in Miami. A bicycle was the prize. She sang a song…and won! Unlike many people, Ginger WOULD rather speak in public than die. So, she was thrilled when her name was drawn several times at The Moth! Better yet, this return to Tell It On Tuesday for the Fifteenth Anniversary is exciting. And, aren’t we all grateful for The Marsh and Zoom keeping us connected!

Wayne Harris is an award-winning solo performer, writer, educator, curriculum innovator and musician. Harris has written and starred in five full-length solo plays, including Train Stories, The May Day Parade, and Tyrone “Shortleg” Johnson and Some White Boys, for which he received the 2012 “Best of Fringe” award at the SF Fringe Festival. He is head of the Marsh Youth Theater Program, and has worked with the Marsh since 1996, where he was first exposed to storytelling through theater. He is also committed to music education, directing and designing performances for schools and pageantry groups. Born and raised in St. Louis, Missouri, Harris’ work has often centered on his childhood.

June 25, 2019

14th Anniversary Celebration!

Collage: Joan Bernier, logo, Natacha Ruck
Collage: Linda Moore, Potrero Hillbillies, Tommi Avicolli Mecca

Stories

  • Joan Bernier, The Captain (excerpt)
  • Natacha Ruck, You’re good for nothing. I’ll milk the cow myself.
  • Linda Moore, No place of her own
  • Tommi Avicolli Mecca, the old brown jacket

Music

The Potrero Hillbillies; Eclectic as all get-out: Joe Cunningham (guitar, vocals), Christopher Gray (vocals, vocals) and Joshua Raoul Brody (keyboards, vocals)

About the Performers

The Potrero Hillbillies first got together to scratch a shared itch: a fondness for the Kinks’ unjustly overlooked album Muswell Hillbillies. Following that, the trio attacked with gusto Joe Cunningham’s song cycle about growing up in Flint, Michigan, and most recently devoted an evening to a small fraction of the songbook of Kessler and Brody. They are eclectic as all get-out, and each of them is charmingly vague in his own way.

Joan Bernier is an actor/theater maker who lives and works in the Bay Area. www.snakeandrodtheatre.org

Natacha Ruck will lie for a good cause, and tell the truth for a bad one. She is currently workshopping an hour long solo performance with David Ford at the Marsh and runs DoTellDo.com, a storytelling services company. 

Linda Moore has said Yes! to Storytelling. It puts meaning into her life, honors her ancestors, and is her passion for sharing. Linda gets her storytelling genes from her Aunt, who told stories on her back porch at night. Engaging and warm, Linda has told stories to all ages and specializes in personal stories. Linda tells historical stories, women-focused stories, African tales, and universal stories—everyone connects knowing fear, prejudice, homelessness, love and healing.

Tommi Avicolli Mecca, playwright, storyteller, singer, and poet, started doing performances in the ’70’s in his hometown of Philadelphia. Since moving to SF in 1991, he’s had three residencies at the Jon Sims Center (producing one-act plays), a one-man show at Josie’s Cabaret, and a musical on the SF housing crisis (written with Alison Wright) at last year’s Queer Arts Festival.

June 26, 2018

13th Anniversary Performance

publicity photos collage: Trish Mulholland, Eclair de Lune, David Rodwin
Publicity photos: Ben Tucker, Kathryn Keats, Lee Archer

Stories

  • Trish Mulholland, My Radio Days
  • Kathryn Keats, The Hummingbird 
  • David Rodwin, Square One
  • Ben Tucker, More Than Meets The Eye
  • Lee Archer, I am trying to think of some way to make the title shorter because this one is way too long I think we can all agree.

Music

Eclair de Lune Gypsy Jazz Ensemble

About the Performers

Trish Mulholland was a top-rating radio announcer in Australia in the 1980s. Her show is a darkly funny flashback to this time when hair gel and punk transformed commercial radio, and radio in Australia sold out. Trish took a one-way ticket to London but wound up in unexpected places. She has been a theatre artist in the Bay Area for 20 years.

Kathryn Keats first began developing The Hummingbird at Berkeley Rep’s The Ground Floor. She is thrilled to be continuing her work with David Ford at The Marsh. 

David Rodwin is a Moth StorySLAM champion and writer/director who’s toured seven solo shows around the country including his newest, F*ck Tinder: a love story. He’s created 12 evening-length works for the stage, from the one-man, hyper-opera Virtual Motion to the huge avant-musical WARNING!: eXplicit Material. Lastly, he founded the NY-based Raw Impression, Inc./RIPFest, with which he commissioned and produced 170 ten-minute musicals and 60 short films. www.f-tinder.com

Lee Archer is a work-in-progress based in the San Francisco Bay Area. This is his first performance thingy, though he has appeared briefly at Monday Night Marsh, Marsh Madness, and Solo Sundays. He will be materializing at the 2018 Chicago Fringe Festival during Labor Day weekend.

Ben Tucker is a retired UC administrator, Stagebridge Epic Storyteller Graduate, and memoir author (A Good Run). Brother Ben has performed in local community theatre and participates in jazz and storytelling open mics. He will be a member of a Storytelling Cultural Exchange to China in October with the Eth-Noh-Tec theatre company.

June 27, 2017

12th Anniversary Celebration

Collage of performers: Houston Robertson, J. Raoul Brody, Ron Jones, Ellen Kaufman, Sandy Noltimier, Neshama Franklin

Stories

  • Ellen Kaufman, Wake-Up Call
  • Ron Jones, Naked Zombie  
  • Neshama Franklin, happy birthday from yelapa
  • Houston Robertson, Victory for the Recycled Virgin (excerpt)
  • Joshua Raoul Brody, Ruminations about a work-in-progress

Music

Sandy Noltimier (vocals, ukulele) accompanied by Joshua Raoul Brody (piano, vocals): standards, familiar and not so much.

About the Performers

Ellen Kaufman, after following a 40 year career in the health care industry, is now happily “rewired”. Although she’s been telling stories for years, she discovered storytelling as an art form in 2014 and finds it thrilling to explore her past through this creative lens.

Ron Jones grew up in San Francisco where he currently lives with Deanna, his wife of 50 some years, children, grandchildren, and a peaceful garden. He is the author of award-winning books and plays. Ron has trouble fixing things around the house and dreams of playing basketball. He shares a dark secret that explains the appeal of Donald Trump.  www.ronjoneswriter.com   

Neshama Franklin lives to tell and does so whenever she can: at the Moth (a grand slam winner), the Naked Truth, Fireside Storytelling, and Tell in on Tuesday—her 12th appearance. She works at the Fairfax Library, posts a biweekly blog of book recommendations and hosts a poetry show (both on the Marin County Free Library website), and has a biweekly radio show on KWMR’s “Turning Pages.” Check out her out on YouTube.

Houston Robertson calls herself an Octobabe. She’s a post-corporate, post PTA, and post-spousal woman who’s always wanted to be on stage. And now she is. Houston had a run of shows at the Marsh Berkeley in October 2016. 

Joshua Raoul Brody is better known as an accompanist—for improv, tango, singers and comedians—than as a sole practitioner, but this is his second appearance on the TIOT storytelling stage. (Third, if you count a piece he did with Merle “Ian Shoales” Kessler many years ago.)

June 28, 2016

11th Anniversary Celebration

Stories

  • Cheryl Kann, Mug-Up
  • Karin Werner, The Road Not Taken
  • Maureen Langan, Daughter of a Garbage Man
  • Tom Ammiano, Tales From The Crypt

Music

Jeremy and Rick, a guitar and saxophone jazz duo

About the Performers

Cheryl Kann began storytelling at an early age in front of a captivated audience of neighborhood kids and hasn’t stopped talking since. Currently writing and performing solo works to take to fringe festivals, she is also in an improv duo, “Denouement,” that performs unscripted narratives throughout the Bay Area. This is Cheryl’s first scripted solo show and she’s honored to share the stage with tonight’s performers.

Karin Werner began her life-long love of stories when she received her first library card in Cody, Wyoming. She reaches back into mythology and memory to create her own unique style. Based in Pinole, she also conducts Intergenerational Story Circles and Memoir Writing Workshops. Karin is active in the Storytelling Association of California and recently stepped down from her position as Board Chair.

Maureen Langan is a standup comic and KGO Radio talk show host (Sundays 1:00–3:00 p.m.). Daughter of a Garbage Man will debut at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in August. She splits her time between NYC and SF.

Tom Ammiano, long-time San Francisco LGBT activist, comic teacher, and elected official, is a grandfather, a queen, and a lefty. He appreciates the opportunity the Emerald City has given him to pursue his goal of public service.

Jeremy and Rick were band members for Wayne Harris’ Tyrone “Shortleg” Johnson and Some White Boys at The Marsh. They are members of the No Cover Band with regular gigs at McNally’s Pub on College Ave in Oakland, and have played as a jazz duo at Dogwood in Oakland.

June 30, 2015

10th Anniversary Celebration!

Stories

  • Jeanne Haynes, My Criminal and Me
  • David Jacobson, Homecoming (excerpt from Dog’s Misery Swamp)
  • Terri Tate, Tales of a Scintillating Sausalito Summertime Queen
  • Wayne Harris, A Blues for Ruth

Music

Sandra Wieder with Richard Owen: singer/songwriter tunes, guitar, harmonica and vocals

About the Performers

Jeanne Haynes, a hybrid storyteller and solo performer, combines these two styles for telling and teaching. Venues for her original pieces exploring the serious side of life include SF Marsh, Brava! Theater, SF Theater Festival, Bay Area Storytelling Festival and her favorite: Tell It On Tuesday. Venues for tales on the lighter side are Bay Area schools, where she has taught this art to upwards of 3,000 students. Her students also include 300+ adults in ongoing Stagebridge classes. jeannehaynes.com

David Jacobson is more than 60 percent water and owes his life to the trillions of unsung bacteria that outnumber his own cells by 10 to 1. He performed his solo show Theme Park at the Toronto, Edmonton, and San Francisco Fringe Festivals. This piece is an excerpt from Dog’s Misery Swamp, being developed with The Marsh’s Charlie Varon and The High Dive’s Mark Kenward. David first performed at TIOT in 2008.

Terri Tate’s life and voice were threatened by two bouts of oral cancer from which she had a 2% chance of survival, but her sense of humor was never in danger. Terri’s hilarious solo show, Shopping as a Spiritual Path, has moved audiences across the country to laughter, tears and standing ovations. Terri teaches personal storytelling and solo performance in the Bay Area. Her memoir, A Crooked Smile, with an introduction by Anne Lamott, is due out in the fall of 2016.

Wayne Harris (storyteller) and Randy Craig (pianist) have been working on some new stuff; and now David Ford (director) is getting involved. Add John Mcardle (bassist) and you have an evening of soulful stories set on a pallet of blues and gospel music.

Sandra Wieder is a prolific writer and performer of original and unique songs that delight and touch audiences with beautiful melodies and heartfelt, poetic lyrics. With Sandra on guitar plus vocals and Richard Owen on harmonica.