Tell It On Tuesday

Music

Stuart Rojstaczer, American Mutt Music

Stories

Anthony Michael Jefferson, The Bumpy Road Less Traveled
The Bumpy Road Less Traveled is AJ’s journey through the harsh and at times deadly world of incarceration.  He spent twenty three years navigating the roads of being a non-gang member in prison, while yearning for his freedom, oatmeal cookies, and surfing at his break in Hermosa Beach California.

Barbara Pastorello, Long White Socks
This is a story of how a special relationship was cut affected by the repressive values of 1970’s New England.

Lauren Mayer, Don’t Mind Me, I’ll Just Sit Here In The Dark: Reclaiming and Reframing the Jewish Mother
Comedy has evolved past most ethnic humor, but Jewish Mothers are still stuck in a Borscht Belt caricature of a nagging, intrusive monster.  Lauren takes a look at the history of the caricature and why it’s important to update it.  How do we find ways to laugh that celebrate our heritage while moving past an inaccurate and harmful stereotype?

Albertina Zarazúa Padilla, Not a whole lot of people…
Sometimes we all need a “little story” medicine.

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About the Performers

Stuart Rojstaczer gets bored easily and has done lots of different stuff: geophysics prof (Duke), bestselling novelist (Mathematician’s Shiva, Penguin), memoirist (Gone for Good, Oxford) and librettist (Fordlandia, Fort Worth Opera). With his band, Stuart Rosh & The Geniuses, he’s put out four albums and has charted on the Americana Music Association Top 40.  He has lectured around the world, has appeared on CNN, ESPN and NPR, and tries to be a decent husband.

Anthony Michael Jefferson (AJ), is a Le Cordon Bleu trained Chef, actor, and activist.  He has been performing locally for the past four years.  The first role he landed was in The Box, which toured nationally.  The Box depicts the persistence of humanity despite the torture of solitary confinement.  He has performed at the Marsh SF, with the Marin Shakespeare Company, and at the Monkey House Theater in Berkeley where he is featured regularly as a storyteller.  AJ is also a Fellow in the Formerly Incarcerated People’s Performance Project. 

Barbara Pastorello was born in New England and has been living in San Francisco since the early nineties.  She has long wanted to be a storyteller.  As a child, she kept a notebook of life events she could someday talk about.  Now, after retiring from a career in finance, she has that chance.  

Lauren Mayer is a prolific songwriter, teaching artist, performer, and political satirist whose weekly topical comedy songs have attracted millions of views (and almost as many trolls). She teaches Musical Theatre at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, and is a regular panelist on Brian Copeland’s podcast, Copeland’s Corner.  Lauren is a 5-time recipient of the San Francisco Cabaret Gold Award and has released over 20 albums of award-winning comedy songs and educational music.  In her spare time, she teaches tap dancing.  Despite all the awards and accomplishments, Lauren’s mother still doesn’t understand why she didn’t go to law school. laurenmayer.com

Albertina Zarazúa Padilla is an educator and the Co-Founder of www.MiHistoria.net where she facilitates workshops and curates the online archive.  She is on the board of Luna Dance & Creativity and dances with the Elders Project of Destiny Arts Center.

Music

Sara Glaser, Americana/Folk, Acoustic guitar

Stories

Laura Jane Bailey, Super Secret Super Power
The origin story of how one average, ordinary girl realizes she has a mind-blowing new power.  What an unbelievable gift!  Or is it?  Learning to live with the super secret forces her to deal with the big, weighty issues of life—sex, violence and margaritas.

Tim Ereneta, Long Ago and Far Away
There was a time, long ago and far away, before ubiquitous information and digital bliss, when we could focus. Sink into our own imaginations. Do you remember? Tim can get you there in four words.

Jody Yeary, Drink ‘til He Drowns
When Jody gets fired, she takes the first job she can get—at a liquor store, with a drivethru window. Located outside of Tallahassee on the way to the Georgia State line, she finds herself surrounded by fascinating southern characters and bears witness to their quirky and sometimes tragic lives. Jody brings to life several memorable characters with humor punctuating the story, with poignant original songs in her BlueBilly Kentucky style.

Mark McGoldrick, Nothing Happened
So much to sort out as a kid, from botched robberies to shifted bikini tops—in times of big feelings, how do you make sense of what it means, or if nothing happened?

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About the Performers

Sara Glaser began writing songs in earnest at the turn of the century after decades of performing covers. Her debut album Cinders in the Wind, includes story songs about the California fires, a burned-out Nashville writer, a spooked singer of murder ballads, and a besotted firebug.

Laura Jane Bailey is a Bay Area actress, originally from Chicago. Bay Area productions include: The Roommate at Capital Stage in Sacramento, Luna Gale and Mud Blue Sky at Aurora Theatre, Crimes of the Heart at Theatreworks, and Equus at Boxcar Theater. LJ is also a solo artist and will be performing her award winning solo play The Paris Effect at Marin Shakespeare this May and her new work Super Secret Super Power at a fringe festival near you! laurajbailey.com

Tim Ereneta realized, after years immersed in the spontaneous stories of improvisational theatre, that his greatest inspiration came from the folk and fairy tales that have been passed down for thousands of years. He is delighted to be sharing stories from the oral tradition with you—these tales are too juicy to be reserved for children. timereneta.info

Jody Yeary, a singer-songwriter from Kentucky, Jody studied music at Florida State University and stand-up comedy in San Francisco. Her album, Fast Horses and Beautiful Women, is available on her website drjody.com. She specializes in treating addictions and helping people recover from the bad things that can happen. She is currently writing a book on stress.

Mark McGoldrick is a retired public defender. He is a co-director of the Formerly Incarcerated People’s Performance Project (FIPPP.org), where he helps bring stories from formerly-incarcerated people to stage. Mark has written and performed a couple full-length solo shows, The Golden Hammer and Countercoup, as well as several shorter pieces.

Music

Andrew Potter, singer/songwriter, guitar

Stories

Janet Thornburg, Plum Ascending
Have you ever heard the voice of your mom or dad inside your head, saying something like, “You really should do your taxes before you continue binge-watching The Great British Bake-Off”? Some call it the voice of the superego, but others consider it the voice of one of your sub-personalities. Enter the colorful inner world of Hannah, Raisin, Plum, Mauve, Rosie, and Wild Child, and see how a group of sub-personalities navigates the challenges of aging and how they reach a temporary resolution on Halloween.
 

Elaine Magree, OTHER
Elaine sets out with an ex- nun and a box of ashes to untangle the story of her mixed heritage. From the museums of Portland to The Columbia River Basin homeland, she journeys into outrage, irreverence and, finally, forgiveness.
 

Barbara Saunders, You and I While We Can
How do you keep your schooling from getting in the way of your education? You find the teachers hidden in plain sight, write your own lessons, and take the kinds of risks you know you shouldn’t. 
 

Bennet Caffee, The Catacombs (excerpt)
When twenty-one year old Bennet Caffee is admitted to a psych ward they have his name wrong as Dayle Bennet and he’s sure it’s a sign. From now on he’s just “Bennet” and he knows why he’s there. He just can’t talk about it.

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About the Performers

Andrew Potter hails from Jamestown, Rhode Island, and delivers great syncopated finger-style guitar work in blues, jazz, and folk genres. His latest album, I Haunt My Own House is co-written with his long-time cohort, Mr. Wheeler Cole. Potter’s driving syncopated guitar style and Cole’s snarky and sublime lyrics create vivid musings on family, love, hope, fate and regret.

Janet Thornburg has written and performed eight full-length solo shows in San Francisco. Most recently, she presented two new pieces, How’d You Get That Baby? (2022) and The Worry-O-Meter (2023) at The Marsh and at StageWerx Theatre in San Francisco. janetthornburg.com  

Elaine Magree is a Founder’s Fellow at 3Girls Theatre. She has acted and directed at Bay Area theatres, up and down the west coast, and in New York City. Her solo shows were twice nominated for Theatre Bay Area Awards. Her first solo show, Other, will be presented at Marin Shakespeare Company on April 5, 2024. elainemagree.com

Barbara Saunders writes about the intersection of (auto)biography, history, and myth. She has featured at Monday Night Marsh, poetry readings, and storytelling events in the Bay Area. Barbara’s writing a memoir about her youth in the hopes of accelerating the journey to her second childhood.

Bennet Caffee’s storytelling highlights his experiences with bipolar disorder. He has performed his full length show, My First Miracle – Adventures in Bipolar Disorder, to critical acclaim at numerous Fringe Festivals across the US and Canada. Presently he plans to continue touring festivals with his new show, Orange you glad to be in Miami? which premiered last August at the Nanaimo Fringe Festival.

Music

Duncan Carling, Instrumental Jazz and Blues

Stories

• Bill Zarchy,  Ecstasy at the Altar
• Natacha Ruck,  Surprise Movie Night
• Brian Leonard,  Therapist Zero

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About the Performers

Duncan Carling is a lawyer, guitarist, and exasperated parent of teenagers. In his spare time, he enjoys carbohydrates and looking at his phone. He lives in Oakland. 

Bill Zarchy circumnavigated the globe many times during his 40 years as a cinematographer, as captured in his memoir, Showdown at Shinagawa: Tales of Filming from Bombay to Brazil.  Now he likes to write novels and tell tales about his work and travels across six continents. Bill’s debut novel is Finding George Washington: A Time Travel Tale. He is a graduate of the EPIC Storytelling Program at Stagebridge in Oakland.

Natacha Ruck‘s solo show, You’re good for nothing… I’ll milk the cow myself, was developed at the Marsh and StageWerx and is headed to Fresno and Montreal this Spring.  She’s developing a new hour-long show based on her experiences as an interpreter at international film festivals.

Brian Leonard is an actor, writer, and director who lives in Oakland with his much more talented wife and much, much smarter daughter. He’s written comedy for BBC Radio, was a story consultant for Pixar, and had a long career in stand-up, appearing on numerous brick-wall shows (the San Jose Mercury says that Brian is “… one of San Francisco’s most intelligent and funniest comedians.”) His stage work includes SF Shakespeare, Center Repertory, Theaterworks, and George Coates Performance Works, among others. You can see Brian in the films Bottle Shock, Bee Season, and The Bachelor.

Music

Kadie Kelly, piano, guitar and vocals

Stories

• Cathy Bowman, Four Legs and a Funeral
• Neshama Franklin, My brilliant careers
• Ed Klaus, LetGovia: In a Box, to the Left
• Ike Torres, Tripping Balls with Washington

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About the Performers

Cathy Bowman is an award-winning cartoonist, writer and illustrator interested in the intersection of words and pictures and how we tell our stories. Before becoming an educator, she served in the Peace Corps and worked as a journalist. Born and raised in the Bay Area, she makes art, writes and teaches. 

Neshama Franklin has been telling stories ever since she could talk. She got her professional start in ’89 at Marin County Library where she still works, and  has performed  all over the place ever since. She tells both personal and folk tales. She also has a radio show on KWMR and a weekly blog at Marin County Library.  Check her out on YouTube.

Ed Klaus has a burning “create or die” passion. Naturally in tune with his emotions since a child, he paints every scene with authentic passion, whether on stage or behind the camera. He studied acting at University of Wisconsin-Madison and flexed his performance prowess on many collegiate ensembles. When he is not acting, Ed transforms into Mr Klaus, an elementary school teacher with a heart of gold.

Ike Torres is a master of blending theatre, spoken word, and comedy to create unforgettable solo shows and performances. With a unique artistic vision, Ike takes audiences on transformative journeys, challenging conventions and evoking laughter and introspection. From intimate venues to national stages, his work has captivated audiences across the country. 

Stories

Carole Klyce, Flight Risk
When Carole was 12 she was sent to live in a group home for girls. Next stop was Juvenile Correction. Run with her through six years living on her own and supporting herself. How did she do it?

Precious Hicks, Full circle moments
A story of triumph from a broken place: one that depicts how old wounds can show up as new faces and how starting your healing journey can bring you to safety.

Ben Tucker, Sentimental Journey
A road trip with Ben’s son to a family reunion in Louisiana brings back bitter sweet memories.

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About the Performers

Carole Klyce took a writing class called, Write your Life with Anne Randolf 9 years ago. With encouragement from Ann and David Ford she began writing and performing excerpts of her unusual life experience growing up on her own.
 
Precious Hicks is a life and wellness coach and mental health advocate. She was born and raised in San Francisco. Unfortunately, Precious found herself in an abusive relationship that led her to incarceration after a failed attempt at leaving. While incarcerated she discovered that many people had trauma way before prison, which led her to create her wellness business, A Pocket of Sunshine. Now she has helped hundreds of people in their journey to heal and de-stress, including incarcerated women. Precious is also a member of the Formerly Incarcerated People Performance Project which develops and presents the stories of those impacted by incarceration and the justice system.
 
Ben Tucker, a.k.a. Brother Ben, is a storyteller, singer, author and Podcaster. He tells personal stories and historical unsung hero tales. iambentucker.com. You can find his podcast on Spotify: Storytelling time with Brother Ben.

Stories

Kat Meltzer, Nature Nurture Time Travel
When we are little, we make sense of ourselves and our world as best we can. Kat Meltzer explores the origins of her lifelong battle with depression, and offers a powerful portrait of the child whose spirit helps her fight back.

Annamarie MacLeod,Reasons He Had to Die
Is it vengeance or justice? 2 historical poisoners and a mythological gorgon share their thoughts on murder.

Anthony Michael Jefferson (AJ),The Bumpy Road Less Traveled
Tragedy and triumph of faith, hope and, awareness of the spirit.

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About the Performers

Kat Meltzer (info coming soon)

Annamarie MacLeod  is a local creator of several solo shows. Her first show, Full Fathom Five, about post-partum depression and mermaids, was accepted into the SF Fringe Festival in 2020. Someday, she wants to write something funny.

Anthony Michael Jefferson (AJ) is a Le Cordon Bleu trained Chef, actor, and activist.  He has been performing locally for the past four years.  The first role he landed was in The Box, which toured nationally.  The Box depicts the persistence of humanity despite the torture of solitary confinement.  He has performed at the Marsh SF, with the Marin Shakespeare Company, and at the Monkey House Theater in Berkeley. AJ is also a Fellow in the Formerly Incarcerated People’s Performance Project. 

Stories

• Dara Kosberg, Do-Gooder
• Algiin Ford, Behold I Make All Things New
• Pearl Ong, The Aunts

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About the Performers

Dara Kosberg is a San Francisco based writer, comedian and storyteller. She’s the Program Director of Reimagine, a nonprofit that helps people face adversity and loss. As part of their community-driven arts festivals that explore the end of life, she’s produced comedy shows about grief and loss. In her free time, she’s co-writing a workplace comedy sitcom which features the character in her piece “Do-Gooder”. 

Algiin Ford is a Bay Area-based writer and actor. With over 20 years of experience as a yoga instructor and wellness professional, Algiin brings a unique physicality and performance to all of his work. Algiin’s wide-ranging theater credits include classics like Skin Of Our Teeth  and Fences, as well as experimental plays and his own original works.

Pearl Ung has been performing short autobiographical storytelling pieces since 2019, and has performed at Solo Sunday at Stage Werx in San Francisco, Monday Nights at the Marsh, Tell it On Tuesday, and the Marsh International Solo Festival (online). Critics have raved: ‘Meh’; ‘Amy Tan she’s not’; ‘Laughable’.