Tag: 2014

Stories

• Eliza Gibson, And Now, No Flip Flops?!
• Ruth Halpern, Slo-Mo Runaway
• Jerry Franklin, Losing a Spouse Runs in the Family
• Lisa Marie Rollins, Home Fires Burn

Music

The Creak: melody-driven, harmony-rich, enthralling acoustic music
Joe Readel, guitar and vocals; Korey Kassir, fiddle, mandolin and vocals; Chris Underwood, banjo; Ryan Lim, bass; Joe Boone, guitar

Eliza Gibson wrote, directed and produced her first solo show, Dialogues with Madwomen, 20 years ago. She’s back at it again with And Now, No Flip Flops?!. Tonight is an excerpt of her new show she’s been developing with David Ford.

Ruth Halpern has been making up stories since she learned to talk. She even made up her own college major, “Forms of Narrative,” at UC Berkeley. Now she travels the world telling traditional myths and folktales to illuminate the arc of life, in workshops and performances. She believes that storytelling can teach us to be the heroes of our own lives.

Jerry Franklin is a writer and versatile performer making his Tell it on Tuesday debut. A native of Brooklyn, Jerry has been a professional actor, improv comic, and opera singer. Now he writes software documentation to support his theatre habit. This is his first solo show.

Lisa Marie Rollins is a writer, playwright, and solo performance artist. She is touring her acclaimed solo show, Ungrateful Daughter: One Black Girls Story of being adopted by a White Family… that aren’t Celebrities. She has appeared in the New York International Fringe Theater Festival, Los Angeles Women’s Theater Festival, Atlanta Black Theater Festival, San Francisco Theater Festival, Tell it on Tuesday and others. She is working on her new play, Side Effects, and is a director / developer of many Bay Area solo performance artists. 

The Creak plays an action-packed mix of music rooted in the bluegrass tradition while drawing inspiration from sources as varied as the Beatles, the Bill Evans Trio, the Hot Club of France, James Brown and Slayer. With a hard-swinging rhythm section, memorable melodies, and beautiful instrumental interplay, The Creak captivates audiences of all ages. A fixture on San Francisco’s vibrant streetcorner busking circuit, the Creak has honed their chops playing engagements at the Great American Music Hall and Cafe du Nord, appearing alongside the likes of the Brothers Comatose and the venerable Misisipi Mike. thecreak.net

Stories

• Bruce Pachtman, Half a House in Malibu
• Lashon Daley, How the Body Can Ache
• Lisa Barber and Cheryl Kann, Denouement
• Neshama Franklin, It’s Not Really So Bad

Music

Joshua Raoul Brody and Dave Tilton, Piano, Strings and Vocals

Bruce Pachtman: Tonight, you’ll be seeing an excerpt from Bruce’s new show which was co-written with W. Kamau Bell and developed in the Solo Performance Workshop. Bruce’s first solo show, Don’t Make Me Look Too Psychotic, ran for 300 performances. It was developed with Club Solo and directed by W. Kamau Bell. 

Lashon Daley was born and raised in Miami, Florida and enjoys listening to Will Smith’s song about her hometown. She received her M.F.A in Writing from Sarah Lawrence College in 2008 and plans to be an author when she grows up. She came to Berkeley to pursue an M.A. in Folklore because she believes that everyone has a story to tell.

Cheryl Kann and Lisa Barber have been studying and performing improv for over 20 years combined. They’ve performed with BATS Improv and Leela Theater, studied with Charna Halpern, Bob Dasse, Armando Diaz, and Keith Johnstone. Recently, they have found their groove with the keen eye and direction of David Ford at The Marsh, Berkeley. Lisa and Cheryl are committed to substantive theater that encourages the truth… and we all know there is comedy in truth!

Neshama Franklin lives to tell stories and her life provides rich material. She performs at libraries, around campfires, and at the Moth (won all 4 times).  She works at the Fairfax Library (blog and TV show available on Marin County Library website) and has a biweekly radio show on KWMR.  She’s utterly delighted to be back at TIOT for her 9th appearance.

Joshua Raoul Brody presents Plays His Favorite Beatles Songs AND Accompanies YOU On YOURS! the first Monday of every month (except October) at Cafe Royale, and the first stupid bloody Tuesday of every month at the Rite Spot. Both in San Francisco, 8:00 to 10:00 p.mm, and free. Joining Mr. Brody will be the esteemed Dave Tilton, master of many strings and some non-stringed instruments. Tilton and Brody will be doing their level best to confound each other.

Stories

• Houston Robertson, Victory for the Recycled Virgin (excerpt)
• Malcolm Grissom, Surviving Love

• Paul Sussman, There Goes the Hood 1.0
• Kenny Yun, Mom Spilled Guts on My Tater Tots (excerpt)

Music

Song of Sirens: Folk, Traditional, Blues

Houston Robertson brings to her solo work her experience as a writer, storyteller and motivational speaker and her love of theater. She meshes these skills with a commanding stage presence. Mark Kenward is her director. In the 1980s, Houston performed as Ribbons the Clown on the streets of San Francisco, and before transitioning to her current position as a smart, witty, age-advantaged woman, she was a human resources professional.

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. 


Paul Sussman developed his approach to melodrama and farce through years of work in financial management with Bay Area nonprofit organizations. He has written and performed a series of solo pieces through the eyes of road-ragers, insects, Anabaptists, cannibals, and others who persist in the search for meaning midst the puzzling evidence. Paul plans to study acting, voice, movement, improv and all that other stuff when things quiet down a little.

Kenny Yun is performing an excerpt from his third full-length solo-show. His previous solo works were Lettucetown Lies and The Kim Jong-IL Experience. Kenny periodically assistant teaches Charlie Varon’s workshop at The Marsh, and he directs/coaches solo performers.

Stories

• Kurt Bodden and Allison Daniel, An Awkward Sensation
• Alléne Hébert, rePATRIATion
• Bertha Reilly, Irish Tall Tales
• Prince Gomolvilas, Raid!

Music

Boundless Gratitude, guitar and vocals

Kurt Bodden and Allison Daniel present excerpts from the show they’re creating for the SF Fringe Festival this September. Kurt’s solo show, Steve Seabrook: Better Than You, ran for six months at The Marsh in San Francisco; Allison was named a “Young Master” by Puppetry International Magazine. They combine their backgrounds in physical theater, mime, puppetry, and clowning to concoct a world of the ridiculous, strange, and hilarious.

Alléne Hébert has lived and worked in the U.S., Mexico and Spain, maintaining a passion for authentic expression in any form. She returned to the Bay Area to pursue her first sources of joy—acting, independent media, and storytelling that comes from the heart.  

Bertha Reilly has been with stagebridge for maybe 20 years, telling in schools, adult settings, senior centers. She grew up in Ireland where myth, magic and reality are intertwined and has lived in the Bay Area for past 40+ years, married with 2 sons. 

Prince Gomolvilas performs alongside musician Brandon Patton in the innovative storytelling/song-singing/bingo-playing theatrical extravaganza, Jukebox Stories. The duo has had three critically acclaimed full-length shows that ran for multiple weeks at Impact Theatre in Berkeley (where it was hailed as one of the best plays of the year by both the East Bay Express and The Daily Californian), has toured around the country, and has appeared at the National Asian American Theatre Festival. Prince’s TEDx talk, “Mind the Gap,” can be found on YouTube. www.princegomolvilas.com

Whether Boundless Gratitude and his guitar are crooning a mellow ballad, rocking an up-tempo foot-tapper, or laying down a spiritual or political folk song, they still just sing the truths of life in healing, empowering and entertaining ways that listeners describe as “warm” and “calming.” For Boundless music is religion, vocation, and therapy, because of its heavenly harmonies, earthy rhythms and divinely earthy metaphors.

Stories

• Annette Roman, Animal Love (excerpt)
• Miyoko Sakatani, I’ll Look Up As I Walk
• Doug Cordell, Birth of a Cult Hero
• David Kleinberg, Hey, Hey, LBJ!

Music

Rachel Efron, Singer/Songwriter/Pianist

Annette Roman toured her solo show, Hitler’s Li’l Abomination, across 7 fringe festivals in the U.S, U.K., and Canada, from 2011 to 2013. It was a “Top 7 Pick of the Fringe” in the Orlando Weekly. The full version of Animal Love will be performed in 2014 at the Winnipeg, Victoria and San Francisco Fringe Festivals.

Miyoko Sakatani’s first career was working as an RN, and now considers performing her second “act” career. She has performed in plays and musicals on several Bay Area stages. As the sixth child of first generation (Issei) Japanese immigrant parents, she has many stories to share about her life and her rich cultural heritage. She performs regularly with Stagebridge’s touring musical comedy troupe “Never Too Late,” and with a Bay Area Ukulele band.

Doug Cordell is an Emmy-nominated writer and monologuist who has performed at venues across the U.S. His autobiographical radio stories are featured on NPR’s Snap Judgment and APM’s Marketplace, and his work was recently published in Pieces of a Decade: Brooklyn Rail Nonfiction, 2000-2010. dougcordell.com. 

David Kleinberg has been working in theater for 6 years. His ground-breaking work, The Voice: One’s Man Journey Into Sex Addiction and Recovery, was a big hit in San Francisco last year. David was the editor of the Sunday Datebook for 14 years during a 34-year newspaper career at the San Francisco Chronicle. He is also a stand-up comedian who has appeared with Robin Williams, Dana Carvey, Sinbad and Richard Lewis.

Rachel Efron presents her all-original piano-based artistic pop songs.  

Stories

• Shelley Campbell, The Center of the Labyrinth
• Marion Lovinger, Picture This!
• Garen Patterson, Back at the Cult
• Echo Brown, Black Virgins are Not for Hipsters

Music

Laura Wiley Trio: Laura Wiley on flute/vocals, John Dennis on guitar and Bruce Barrett on bass

Ellen Kaufman, after following a 40 year career in the health care industry, is now happily “rewired”.

Ron Jones grew up in San Francisco where he currently lives with Deanna, his wife of 50 some years, child

Neshama Franklin lives to tell and does so whenever she can: at the Moth (a grand slam winner), the N

Houston Robertson calls herself an Octobabe. She’s a po.

Joshua Raoul Brody is better known as an accompanist—for improv, tango, singers and comedians—than as a s

Stories

• Mark Kenward, “Nantucket”
• Karen S. Ripley, “Oh No… There’s Men On The Land”
• Charlie McClelland, “Father Knows Best”
• Muriel Johnson, “A Personal Story”

Music

Rachel Efron, Singer/Songwriter/Pianist

Mark Kenward is the creator of seven full-length solo shows. He has performed his work in over thirty cities throughout the US and Canada, including a reception for The House of Representatives in Washington, DC, and several runs at The Marsh. Tonight he performs an excerpt from Nantucket, a memoir about his years growing up on the fabled island. Nantucket will run at The Marsh Berkeley in May. markkenward.com

Karen Ripley came on to the gay comedy scene in 1977 in San Francisco. From the cover of the East Bay Express with Whoopi Goldberg, to Ms. magazine’s Top 100 Lesbian Comics.  In 2005, she won the SF Fringe’s Best Musical Comedy with Annie Larson in the original play, Show Me where it Hurts.  They teamed up again for the 2006 Diva Fest with Waiting for FEMA. She’s traveled all over the USA and the Caribbean. Her stand up is featured in Logo TV’s Wisecrack, episode 2.

Charlie McClelland was born and raised in Michigan. He was married and ran his own service station by the age of 23. In 1976, at the age of 24, he lost 90 pounds, his marriage, and his job. He then set out on an amazing adventure and got a job in the circus. At that point, there was nowhere else to go but California and the Bay Area, where he has resided and performed, on and off, since 1978.

Muriel Johnson’s mother was an actress, avid reader and an English teacher, who exposed her to a wide range of literature, instilling in Muriel a love of language and an awareness of the power of stories. Now as a mother, teacher and performer sharing personal and traditional folk tales with children and adults, Muriel’s warm, gentle presence connects with the audience as she transforms herself into different characters.

Rachel Efron presents her all-original piano-based artistic pop songs.

Stories

• Jean Ellisen, As Luck Would Have It
• Kenna Fisher, A Home Depot Winter Solstice Story
• Steve Budd, What They Said About Love
• Joe Cole, The Shadow’s Whistle

Music

Jared Karol, Acoustic Blues Guitar

Jean Ellisen, a narrative artist, has been telling stories all her life, but on purpose for the past 20 years, locally, nationally, and internationally. She inspires children to tell stories, and adults to share theirs in Storytelling Association of California’s Hearth Tales—a program she co-founded. A Bay Area native and long-time member of the Bay Area Storytelling Festival Committee, she grew up looking for luck, finding good, bad, and everything in between. And the search continues!

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, and both The Shout and Bustin’ Out Storytelling in Oakland.

Steve Budd is thrilled to be back performing at Tell It On Tuesday. He’s performed with a whole bunch of Bay Area theater companies, including the SF Playhouse, Marin Shakespeare, Impact, Custom Made, Symmetry, and Virago, and has appeared in numerous indies, commercials, and corporate videos. He’s also a standup comic and storyteller who’s told tales at The Shout, TMI, and The Vent.

Joe Cole started acting in 1980 after he moved to the Bay Area.  He has appeared in numerous national television and radio commercials as well as network TV episodes. Film credits include Murder in the First, as Marshall Gates. He has toured with Theater Unlimited and Bay Area audiences will remember him as Ollie Olson in Four Plays Of The Sea (Eugene O’Neill), onboard the historic ships at Hyde Street Pier.

Jared Karol is a veteran of the San Francisco singer/songwriter scene since the early 2000s. Playing mostly fingerstyle country blues, ragtime, and other roots-based music—originals as well as songs from the likes of Mississippi John Hurt, Hot Tuna, and the public domain—he has forged a unique sound amongst the usual crowd of strummers and crooners. After five years playing electric guitar and harmonica in the reggae band Flannel Canoe, Jared is starting to make his way back to the acoustic music he loves.