Tell It On Tuesday

Stories

• Howard Petrick, V.R. Dunne (excerpt)
• Phil Surkis, I’ll Try It For A Year
• Marion Lovinger, To be or not to be, telle est la question!
• Erica Lann-Clark, Grandpa and the Nazis

Music

Stuart Rosh, guitar and vocals

This is Howard Petrick’s third show about his life in the 1960s. His critically acclaimed Breaking Rank and Never Own Anything You Have to Paint or Feed have been performed at twenty-eight theater festivals throughout North America. He has been performing since 2008 and is glad to be back at Tell It On Tuesday.

Phil Surkis is a comedian, solo performer and a producer. He regularly performs in the Solo Sundays series at Stage Werx. He both produces and performs at his comedy showcase, Grey Matter, and he is a producer on W. Kamau Bell’s talk show, Kamau Right Now!

When Marion Lovinger came from Paris to San Francisco 18 years ago, she did not imagine that one day she would be performing her own writing in English. Her background was in theater and she was used to a text provided and partners to rehearse with. Thanks to the Marsh, she discovered what she wanted the most in life: to make people laugh. And that you do not need an extraordinary life to have something to say.

Erica Lann-Clark is a storyteller, solo performer, writer and teacher.  She’s performed across the country from NYC to LA to Jonesborough, Tennessee to right here tonight. She worked as Director of Storytelling for Stagebridge from 2000 to 2006. She’s teaming up tonight with Asaf Ophir, a woodwind player. In Israel, Asaf played in musicals and in klezmer bands. In the Bay Area, Asaf plays in jazz and klezmer bands and accompanies Erica’s Jewish stories.

Stuart Rosh’s music can be heard occasionally on public radio stations and in strange places like Kentucky Fried Chicken stores in England. Under his legal name, Stuart Rojstaczer, he is mostly known as a novelist, geophysicist, and grade inflation expert. His novel, The Mathematician’s Shiva (Penguin Books), won the 2014 National Jewish Book Award for Outstanding Debut Fiction.

Stories

• Diane Barnes, My Stroke of Luck
• Tiffany Doesken, Just Like A Woman
• Elaine Magree, Holding the Edge
• Terry Stokes, Bump in the Night

Music

A Few Guys Playing Music: acoustic blues, bluegrass, and Americana

Diane Barnes is an actor and performer of solo work. Meisner trained, she also completed ACT Summer Training Congress, and studied with Anna Deveare Smith. In her first incarnation, she was a physician specializing in diagnostic radiology.

Tiffany Doesken was born and raised in San Francisco into a “non-traditional family”, which taught her to have an acceptance of the unusual. She received an MFA in Film from the San Francisco Art Institute. Her films have screened at the Mill Valley Film Festival, New York Anthology Film Archives, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts and many more both in the US and Internationally. She is currently working on a stop-motion animation film and writing solo-performance work.

Elaine Magree’s work has been seen at The Marsh, The Magic Theatre, The Working Women’s Theatre Festival, Brava, The People’s Theatre Festival, The National Women’s Theatre Festival and the 54th St Theatre in New York. She has taught theatre at community colleges, The East Bay Center for the Performing Arts and in homeless shelters, recovery programs, and women’s prison.

Terry Stokes began storytelling when he told his first alibi. He grew up listening to his father telling stories, and eventually turned in a 30 year career as an Editor in Hollywood—refining the art of cinematic storytelling by splicing bits of film together. He retired, moved to El Cerrito in 2006, and his wife encouraged him to switch to the other side of the lens, get up on his feet, and start telling stories to live audiences. Once again, he’s very pleased and honored to be back at T.I.O.T. in front of one of the best audiences in the Bay Area.

A Few Guys Playing Music is made up of Jared Karol, Sean Dougan, and Scott Underwood. Jared is a fingerstyle blues and bluegrass guitarist, and more recently a bass player in, of all things, a reggae band. He used to play in Sound of Sirens, a Marin-based Americana band, where he met Scott, an outstanding bass player who has been playing in the Bay Area for decades. Sean is a mandolin and guitar player who used to play regularly in the Bay Area and Lake Tahoe music scenes. Jared and Sean have played far and wide together, most notably in Jared’s basement and Sean’s living room.

Stories

• Ron Jones, Naked Zombie
• Rebecca Fisher, The Magnificence of the Disaster
• Bárbara Selfridge, Stalking Grace
• Ellen Kaufman, 1984 

Music

Rachel Efron: singer/songwriter/pianist

Ron Jones lives in San Francisco where he shares his life with wife Deanna, grandchildren, and a basement full of books. He has authored a dozen books three of which have been made into feature film, TV specials, and theatric plays performed internationally. He loves basketball, breakfast at Mel’s with friends, and being with his grandchildren. www.ronjoneswriter.com 

Rebecca Fisher is a director, producer and performer of solo work. She has directed shows at The Exit, SF Fringe Festival and The Marsh. She recently created the Marsh Writing Cabaret which is on the second Tuesday of every month. She is excited about performing at TIOT, a series she co-created and continues to co-produce. 

Bárbara Selfridge will always be a Grace Paley protegée, but she’s left the short story. Now she writes and performs solo pieces, which is a million times harder and not that different. See her this year at Fringe Festivals in Fresno, Winnipeg and Chicago, performing either Stalking Grace or Zero Tolerance: Sex, Math and Seizures.

Ellen Kaufman is now happily “rewired” after spending 40 years working in the health care industry. 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.

Rachel Efron is an Oakland-based singer/songwriter/pianist who offers a refreshingly new take on the classic song form. Her melodies captivate, her chord progressions have momentum born from deep-seated sensibilities in both the genres of classical and jazz, and her lyrics offer what we long for in any artist: intimate access to a wildly distinct experience of the world.

Stories

• Beth McLaughlin, Cocky
• Liz Macera, I’ve Accepted Everyone’s Death but My Own
• Andre LeMont Wilson, The Black Dude Dies First
• Scott Sanders, Apophenia, The Donner Party & Me
• Leslie Scatchard, Leap

Music

Captain Heat and the Nightshades: instrumental blend of jazzy blues and country funk

Beth McLaughlin is a writer and performer of two original full-length works, and several smaller pieces, with a background in theater and improvisation.

Liz Macera, drawing on over 40 years of experience as a nurse, explores the heartbreaks, antics, and taboos surrounding the one event waiting for us all. Liz currently works as a palliative care nurse practitioner. With this piece she hopes to open discussion about death and dying.

Andre Le Mont Wilson performs stories at festivals, story swaps, and open mics throughout the Bay Area. In The Black Dude Dies First, Wilson recounts his first performance on stage in a grammar school’s Bicentennial production in which, you know.… He is honored to perform at Tell It On Tuesday.

Scott Sanders is an ex-actor / ex-New Yorker who moved to the left coast 15 years ago and is still wrestling with cross-cultural challenges. Scott introduced graffiti / urban tagging to the Inner Mongolian territories. He’s scored multiple StorySLAM wins at The Moth and told tales for NPR’s Snap Judgement, Fireside, Porchlight, BustingOut Storytelling and LitQuake and multiple Moth Mainstage events. 

Leslie Scatchard grew up in a family where the ability to tell a funny story about your day was a valued asset at the dinner table. She went on to spend twenty years acting on stage, and found a perfect marriage of these two talents in creating and performing solo shows. Leslie is a regular at West Side Stories, a storytelling venue in Petaluma.

Stories

• Barbara Newman, At the End of the World
• Neshama Franklin, Snakey
• Harry Hall, Candice and Marian
• Jeff Greenwald, Why We Travel

Music

Michele Walther, violin and looping pedal. 
Jazz, world music, and original compositions

Barbara Newman is a doctor of family and emergency medicine, who has practiced in Africa (Sudan and Angola), India, southern Mexico, and the Caribbean. Her stories relate her experiences in these places, with all their joys, sorrows, and contradictions. She has performed at the Marsh in San Francisco and Berkeley.

Neshama Franklin has been telling stories since she could talk, got into the biz officially at her local library where she still works, tells folktales and personal tales in equal measure (they’re all “true” to her), has appeared often at The Moth, and is thrilled to be back at Tell It On Tuesday for her ninth appearance. She also has a book review blog at the Marin County Free Library website and a program on KWMR in West Marin.

Harry Hall has been pursuing storytelling for 6 years. Having played to audiences at SF Fringe 2014 and the Marsh San Francisco and Berkeley with his solo piece Blues for Charles, he expands on that narrative and gives voice to the voiceless.

Jeff Greenwald is an Oakland-based author and journalist whose books include Shopping for Buddhas and Snake Lake. He will be performing his solo show, Strange Travel Suggestions, at the San Leandro Library in March (bestofsfsolo.com)

Michele Walther is a performer, composer, arranger, and educator in the Bay Area who has toured throughout Europe and North America with Ian Anderson/Jethro Tull, Gloria Estefan, Joe Lovano, Oscar Stagnaro (Paquito D’Rivera), Resonance, Tangonero, Pablo Ablanedo Septet. she earned her M.M. at the Conservatory of Music in Basel, Switzerland, and graduated from the Berklee College of Music in Boston, majoring in jazz violin performance.

Stories

• Bertha Reilly, An Irish Version of What’s Love Got To Do With It 
• Elana Isaacs, Mashed Potatoes and the Politics of Desire
• Sharon Eberhardt, Squeaker  
• Gary Pinsky, The Origins of Re-Invention

Music

Joshua Raoul Brody, on piano, accompanies Sandy Noltimier, The Seattle Songbird: They’ll be performing standards, substandards, and non-standards.

Bertha Reilly, on retiring, got into storytelling and drama with Stagebridge and has been telling in schools and adult settings on and off since then. She grew up in Ireland and has lived in the bay area for past 40+ years. Tonight you’ll see a glimpse into a difficult childhood growing up in Ireland in the 40’s and 50’s. All true.

Elana Isaacs is a performer, improv teacher, and facilitator whose diverse experience includes mystery dinner theater on a train, being a lefty aunt to her 10- and 6-year-old Berkeley nephews, and an obsession with “ugly” dogs. 

Sharon Eberhardt has written plays for other performers and performed her solo show, Savage Arts, at The Marsh and at Canadian Fringe Festivals. She has been a member of PlayGround, Youngblood at Ensemble Studio Theatre (New York), and has had ten-minute plays performed all over the country. She is an alumna of Barnard College, has an MFA from Columbia University, and is from Buffalo, New York.

Gary Pinsky found his place in the storytelling community on the stages of Story Slam Oakland, Fireside Storytelling, The Shout and The Moth. After his debut of The Fool’s Journey, produced in David Ford’s class, he found his love for solo performance. Tonight’s story was developed with help from Martha Rynberg.

Joshua Raoul Brody plays his favorite Beatles songs AND accompanies YOU on YOURS the first Monday of every month at Café Royale. Sandy Noltimier is the S of noted a cappella-ish trio PMS.

Stories

• Jeff Byers, The Cherry Tree of the 16th Day
• Andrea Mock, The Moby Dick Diaries (excerpt)
• Malcolm Grissom, The Voices Made Me Do It
• Susan Gill, Rabbi, the Missing Bride is in Miami Beach with a Gentile Life Guard and Twenty-One Cats

Music

Seven Rains: Spencer Evans and Rana Rines, singer/songwriters
Americana, folk, rock and a splash of jazz

Jeff Byers began telling stories the first time his mother caught him with his hand in the cookie jar. Now he tells at the Asian Art Museum, in classrooms from first grade to UC Berkeley, and in various performance venues around the Bay Area. He’s also a story coach and a former board member of the Storytelling Association of California.

Andrea Mock, born and bred in Porterville, received a BA in Performance from UC Santa Cruz then moved to Berkeley to form Dancing Ear, Inc., a contemporary dance and music company. Andrea also served as playwright-in-residence at the Speakeasy Theatre from 1996 to 2002. The Moby Dick Diaries, directed by Leonard Pitt and David Ford, is adapted from a work-in-progress teen novel of the same name.

Malcolm Grissom enjoys exploring the creative process. His passion is helping others any way he can, even if only to bring joy and laughter to their lives for a little while. 


Susan Gill is proud to have spent a thirty year career as a community college English instructor. Since retirement, she has been writing and performing solo pieces under the perceptive, creative, and gentle guidance of David Ford. She will present this show again at Solo Sundays early next year and a full-length version of the show at the Rogue Festival in Fresno in March of 2016.

Spencer Evans and Rana Rines, two independent singer/songwriters, are joining forces to bring to life a new band, which draws on the musical traditions of Americana, folk, rock, and a splash of jazz.

Stories

• Vivien Cook, Smoke and Mirrors
• Bernard Vash, Grumblepuss
• Kenna Fisher, Casting Call
• Kenny Yun, Mom Spilled Guts on My Tater Tots (excerpt)

Music

Future Jazz Trio with Laura Wiley, Eric Smith, & Patrick Fahey

Vivien Cook was born and raised in the industrial city of Birmingham in England and emigrated to the US at the age of 24. She has been part of Tell It On Tuesday’s annual partnership performance, which features Stagebridge tellers. Smoke and Mirrors is an oral story which deals with how we reconcile the passage of time while still living with the ever present shadow of our younger self.

Bernard Vash is a Clown, Moving Artist, Actor, Voice and Movement Teacher.
Most recently a graduate of The Flying Actor Studio, he spent 14 years with the American Conservatory Theatre. Recently he appeared as Tiger in Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo, Otto Hermann in The Ape Woman, and Grumblepuss the Clown in Ei8ht. He is a proud member of Actor’s Equity Association.

Kenna Fisher has been called a “bold, honest, fearless” storyteller. She believes deeply in the power of telling stories to forge compassionate connections with each other and within ourselves, performing at venues throughout the Bay Area including the Marsh in San Francisco, Word Up! in Santa Cruz, The Shout in Oakland, and Bustin’ Out Storytelling in Oakland. 

Kenny Yun ‘s first two shows, Lettuce Town Lies and The Kim Jong Il Experience, ran at The Marsh where he teaches solo performance. He primarily directs comedians but loves to guide storytellers of all forms. He looks for the mythic and theatrical. kennyyun.com

Eric Smith is a musician, producer and recording artist with Edgetone Records and has worked with Brian Eno, Madonna, Warren Zevon, Mickey Hart among others. edoctorsmith.com. Patrick Fahey is mandolin virtuoso, comfortable in many genres including folk, jazz, Fado, Indian, prog-rock and world music. Laura Wiley is a jazz flutist and singer who performs with many different groups in the Bay Area. www.lauraaustinwiley.com.