Tell It On Tuesday

Stories

• Kenny Yun, Hyphen Murican
• Terri Tate, A Scintillating Sausalito Summertime Queen
• Abdul Kenyatta, Strictly Harlem

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About the Performers

Kenny Yun is a Bay Area solo performer, teacher, and director. He has taught solo theatre with Charlie Varon for over a decade. He is the Director in Residence at StageWerx. kennyyun.com

Terri Tate believes that accessing, embracing and sharing our stories is a path to becoming fully who we are. She’s taught personal storytelling for twenty-five years and now holds safe, supportive memoir classes online. Terri coaches solo performers & memoir writers. Her solo show, Shopping as a Spiritual Path, won Best of the Fringe at the San Francisco Fringe Festival. Terri’s memoir, A Crooked Smile, with an introduction by Anne Lamott, is available from Sounds True. www.territate.com

Abdul Kenyatta is a storyteller. He performs and directs shows for the San Francisco International Art Festival. His stories have appeared on NPR’s Snap Judgment. He has performed on numerous stages around the world and appeared at the Marsh in Berkeley and San Francisco with excerpts of his solo performance pieces Back in the Day and Strictly Harlem. Since 2012, he has been the Executive Director of The Speakeasy Storytelling Series.

Stories

• Paul Sussman, Beyond Belief  (excerpt) 
• Liz Nichols, Excuse me, sir, do we look OK to you?
• Bennet Caffee, If anyone else told me that story…

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About the Performers

Paul Sussman has written and performed a series of solo pieces through the eyes of Neanderthals, road-ragers, insects, Anabaptists, cannibals, and others who persist in the search for meaning amidst the puzzling evidence. He developed his approach to melodrama and farce through years of work in financial management with Bay Area nonprofit organizations. In recognition of the 2019 premiere of his first full-length show, The Wrong Kind of Pessimism, he now refers to himself in the third person.   

Liz Nichols is happy to be back on the TIOT stage. She has been telling stories for over two decades, on stage, in schools, and at the Asian Art Museum. Liz usually tells the folktales and myths she fell in love with as a child. But this time she’s sharing a hero’s journey of a more personal nature—which scares and excites her in equal measure.

Bennet Caffee began sharing stories of his misadventures with bipolar disorder at the Marsh ten years ago, under the guidance of David Ford and Charlie Varon. His first stories highlighted the “fun part” of his disorder. He then began revealing the darker side of his disorder and his eventual surrender to medical management. From these stories came his full length show My First Miracle, which he’s performed at the Orlando, Boulder and Rogue Fringe Festivals.

Stories

• Jeremy Greco, The Big Snap
• Kirk Waller, Diary of a Mad Black Man: Troy Talk
• Lisa Rothman, Work From Home: Well That’s Fun

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About the Performers

Jeremy Greco’s first solo show, With Held, was based on six months of interviews with San Francisco mail artist and writer John Held Jr. He performed his most recent solo work, Keeping Up with the Jorgensons, at the 2017 San Francisco Fringe Festival (“Best of” award honors), New York’s United Solo Theater Festival in 2018, a Discovery Run at The Marsh Theater in San Francisco, Whitefire Theatre’s Solofest 2019 in L.A., and at the Dallas Solo Fest. Both shows were directed by Mark Kenward.

Kirk Waller is fresh off of the Pittsburg Community Theatre’s production of August Wilson’s Fences and Troy Maxson is still lingering, trying to break out. Kirk tells stories, acts, sings (doesn’t dance any more) plays instruments and bakes cakes!

Lisa Rothman’s critically acclaimed shows include Date Night at Pet Emergency and Dragon in the Drop-Off Lane have sold out. She works from her home with Oakland along with her husband where his desk is in the hallway, right in front of the bathroom door. Benefit performances of Work From Home: Well That’s Fun —the show that layout inspired—have raised $30,000 for worthy organizations. Lisa also does an online version for organizations with remote teams at places like Oracle and Facebook. 

Stories

• David Rathod, Night Flight 
• Barbara Brady, Modess…because
• Mark McGoldrick, Dog People (an excerpt) 

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About the Performers

David Rathod is a filmmaker who lives and works in San Francisco. He’s directed music videos, films, documentaries, commercials, and made a few hundred promotional films for companies. Having grown up in India, he’s exploring his connection to that crucial part of his life. And for fun, he makes cycling videos, which can be found on YouTube.

Barbara Brady is a writer, singer and performer, based in the San Francisco Bay Area. Her 2022 schedule includes the Rogue Performance Festival (Fresno, CA) in March and Orlando Fringe Festival in May,.

Mark McGoldrick has presented two acclaimed full-length shows at The Marsh (The Golden Hammer, 2005 (reprised in 2016); and Countercoup, 2007 (reprised in 2021 on Zoom). He recently retired from the Alameda County Public Defender’s Office where he represented poor people in the criminal courts for 27 years. In 2022, he assumed part time duties at the Formerly Incarcerated People’s Performance Project (FIPPP). Mark’s stories often concern the world of indigent criminal defense and disability. He broke his neck in the early 1980s and uses a wheelchair. You can watch Countercoup, available on demand, on The MarshStream. 

Stories

• Neshama Franklin, Folding Chairs, No Music
• Tim Ereneta, All Shall Be Well
• Pamela Ann Keane, Juicy

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About the Performers

Neshama Franklin started telling as soon as she could talk, made her professional debut as a storytelling witch at the library where she still works, and is going strong three decades later. Check out her work on YouTube. She also has a weekly book blog at marinlibrary.org and does a biweekly radio show on KWMR.org where she reviews books and tells stories.

Tim Ereneta thinks traditional folk and fairy tales are far too interesting to be reserved for children. His storytelling has been called “sophisticated and badass” (Rives Collins, Associate Professor of Theatre at Northwestern University). Earlier this year, Tim was crowned champion of the Pittsburgh Storytelling Series’ 2021 Folktale Fight. timereneta.info

Pamela Ann Keane is going into her 5th year performing with the Marin Shakespeare Company Returned Citizens Theatre Troupe (RCTT), and her 3rd year performing with Formerly Incarcerated People‘s Performance Project (FIPPP).

Stories

• Edward J. Klaus, Happy Mother’s Day
• Amy Bouchard, Amadeus Never Gives Me the Blues
• Ginger Parnes, Wonderful Wonderful Copenhagen

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About the Performers

Edward J Klaus 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 ensemble pieces. When he is not acting, Edward transforms into an elementary school teacher with a heart of gold.

Amy Bouchard has performed with numerous opera and theatre companies. She discovered The Marsh in the fall of 2020 and began developing her first full-length solo show about her grandmother’s singing career with music from the Great American Songbook. Learn more at www.amybouchard.net

Ginger Parne’s was thrilled (in the pre-Covid past) when her name was drawn at The Moth and also to have been a Tell It On Tuesday performer three times! Zoom has enabled her to continue doing storytelling and comedy showcases throughout the past year and a half.

Stories

• Pearl Ong, She’s No Lady
• Janet Thornburg, Elfin Mischief
• Ben Tucker, Don’t Complain

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About the Performers

Pearl Ong is a long time San Francisco resident.  In her dotage she has decided that she has stories to tell. She has previously performed on Solo Sundays at StageWerx.

Janet Thornburg has written and performed eight solo shows. During the Pandemic, she has performed Zoom pieces about the insurrection of her coffee cups and another about the paradoxes of saving lives and being saved. Today’s selection is from her current project, the story of her first weeks in San Francisco.

Ben Tucker (Brother Ben) is a storyteller, singer, and author. He tells personal and historical stories, fairytales and folktales. You can find out more about Brother Ben at: iambentucker.com.

Livestreamed Performance

Stories

• Linda Joy, Only, Always and Forever
• Ron Jones, BREANNA & BIRDS
• Jeanne Lupton, Old Sitting Woman

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About the Performers

Linda Joy has been creating and performing monologues and personal stories since 2005 in California, Washington and Arizona. Relocating to the Bay Area in 2016, she studied with David Ford, took improv at BATS and storytelling at Stagebridge where she performed in their Valentines Show at Piedmont Center for the Arts. She was commissioned by The Marsh to create a piece, On The Brink, for its Times Unseen Festival in the Fall of 2018. Linda claims the Southern California coastal strip from La Jolla to Encinitas as home but has lived in major cities, suburbs and rural areas in 16 states and in Japan. Beginning college at the University of San Diego as a theater major, Linda performed both in campus productions and in community theater. Later, she earned an EdD in Language, Culture and Cognition and a PhD in Sociology from Northwestern University and became a Professor.

Ron Jones is a San Francisco writer. He shares his Haight Ashbury home with his wife, grandchildren, and singing garden. Three of his stories – Acorn People, The Wave, and B Ball have been made into award winning TV dramas. Kids Called Crazy was nominated for a Pulitzer and Say Ray was honored as a Before Columbus American Book of the Year. Ron Jones is best known for his story about a Palo Alto classroom experiment on the appeal of fascism. Novelized by Todd Strasser and made into a German Feature film Die Welle ,adapted for theaters worldwide, an extension of this story is available in a Netflix series We Are The Wave. Inspiration for Ron’s work comes from teaching 30 years with the physically and mentally disabled at The Janet Pomeroy Center and volunteering with The Marsh Youth Theater. ronjoneswriter.com

Jeanne Lupton has told several times at Tell it on Tuesday and is delighted to be back with new work about her ongoing recovery from mental illness. She is a well-published tanka poet (5-line Japanese form) and participates in the local and international poetry scenes. She leads a weekly memoir group for seniors.

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