Tell it on Tuesday celebrates the expression of individual storytelling and solo performance. Coming together as a community to share works crafted by theater artists and storytellers, we provide an East Bay home to the solo performer.
The last Tuesday of almost every month!
Producers:
Bridget Frederick, Rebecca Fisher
Advisory Committee:
Charlie Varon, David Ford, Jeff Raz, Bruce Pachtman
TELL IT ON TUESDAY ARCHIVES
ARCHIVES - 2019
TELL IT ON TUESDAY ARCHIVES - 2019
November 19th, 2019
STORIES:
- Liz Nichols, A Spark in the Dark
- Candace Y. Johnson, VOX in a BOX
- Hannah Taylor, Planet DoReMi
- Pearl Louise, Pass the Nails and Shame the Devil
MUSIC: Mullerette: Lupe Muller (vocals/guitar), Joey Muller (keys), Winston Moody (bass), Dup Crosson (drums) and Barbie Zeldis (back vox)
A B O U T T H E P E R F O R M E R S
Mullerette, with a sound of its own, crafts atmospheric grooves that follow the interplay of a Wurlitzer 200’s vintage keyboard and a haunting female vocal. The band’s velvety sonic texture – with hints of folk, jazz and pop – stems from a long-standing collaboration between award-winning singer-songwriter Lupe Muller and keyboardist/producer Joey Muller.
Liz Nichols got lost in the Folklore & Mythology section of the public library at age ten and hasn't found her way out yet! She brings her teaching and cross-cultural background to storytelling for all ages. Liz is part of SF’s Asian Art Museum Storytellers group, and the former Director of Storytelling Programs at Stagebridge. She's also a Master Trainer in TimeSlips Creative Storytelling for people with memory loss. www.liznichols.net
Candace Y. Johnson, praised by Opera News for her vocal clarity and expressive interpretation, has concertized widely, including guest appearances at Carnegie Hall and The Manhattan Center. In 2018, Candace premiered her musical biography, VOX in a BOX, to explore themes of identity, belonging, and race, and ultimately to share how she found her authentic voice. Presently, she teaches singing at UC Berkeley, where she incorporates her research on the works of African-American composers. cjsings.com
Pearl Louise is called Miss Pearl by most folks, and you can call her that too. Originally from Louisiana, she now stays in this overpriced but gorgeous Bay Area… such it life. Enjoy it, she does.
This is the first episode of Hannah Taylor’s newest solo performance piece. In this work-in-progress, Hannah meets Natalia, a nurse practitioner, just after sunset at an Ocean Beach birthday party and they conspire. Teaming up with Rebecca Fisher and advisors, Planet DoReMi, has a little song dilly dilly, Tibetan Tingsha Bells and Hannah’s newest story.
October 29th, 2019
Stagebridge Partnership Performance
STORIES:
- Shirley Smallwood, "DWAB (Driving While Almost Black)+
- Claire Wahrhaftig, "White Like Me"
- Ida Johnson, “Weave of Wonders - An Armenian Tale”
- Ben Tucker, "Play Ball!”
- Kiran Rana, “Nasruddin Visits the City”
Albertina Zarazúa Padilla, "How? ¿Como?"
MUSIC: Bunny Numpkins and the Kill Blow Up Reaction:
Little Johnny Bowling Ball (vocals and guitar), Miles Steuding (drums), Kelsey Ahern (accordion), Lady Mondegreen (vocals) and Leslie Outhier (bass)
A B O U T T H E P E R F O R M E R S
Bunny Numpkins is from Oakland, California. They started around 2005 as a backup band for a puppet and continued on to play quirky pop, with songs about months, board games, and geographic musings.
Shirley Smallwood is a vocalist, actor and voiceover talent, and finds it very important to know her family and not lose sight of family history, as she believes we must continue to teach and inform those who come after us.
Claire Wahrhaftig, a retired former arts administrator and Director of the San Francisco Arts Commission, joined the Etho-no-tec group to swap stories with Chinese villagers in 2018.
Ida Johnson loves sharing old tales at Stagebridge programs, school classrooms, and story swaps. As a retired teacher and school librarian, she finds that a good story can be enjoyed whether you’re 7 or 87.
Ben Tucker (Brother Ben)'s stories includes personal and historical characters that touch on universal themes. His stories take you back to the front porch, kitchen table, or campfire.
Kiran Rana was born and raised in India, but in 1973 he traveled to the West, where he joined a Sufi mystical school. In 2014, after many years as a publisher of self-help books, he gave up publishing and became a full-time teacher of Sufism. At the same time he started taking storytelling and playwriting classes at Stagebridge. His stories draw on Sufi sources, folk tales, personal stories and his own writing.
Albertina Zarazúa Padilla is Co-Founder of MiHistoria.net, curator for its online story archive, and workshop facilitator. Born to a farmworker family in Monterey, California, Albertina was the first in her family to attend college. Albertina’s storytelling work with farmworker women has led to public presentations before live audiences.
Sept 24th, 2019
STORIES:
- Wynd Kaufmyn, The Betrayal That is Not Divorce
- Ashley Jaye, Channel BPD
- Abe Bernstein, Too Old To Feel This Young
- Marie O’Donnell, Hide the Booze, the Family's Comin' Over
MUSIC: Mimi Heft & Joe Christiano, Guitar and Vocals
A B O U T T H E P E R F O R M E R S
Wynd Kaufmyn, a Jewish girl from Detroit, moved to the Bay Area in 1979 to do the graduate work at UC Berkeley in Mechanical Engineering. Since then she has become (in this order) a Christian, a mother, faculty at City College of San Francisco, a wife, a non-violent activist, an anti-Zionist, a divorcee, Vice President of her union local. She wants to be an artist when she grows up.
Ashley Jaye is a Social Media Marketer by day, solo performer and actress by night. She hilariously highlights the complex racial, sexual, societal, and cultural intersections of mental illness for Black Women through original works including Dee Pearson is (more than) a Bully and A Spike Lee Joint. Twitter, Instagram, Facebook: @ashleyjayeaye; YouTube "Ashley Jaye".
Abe Bernstein is an actor, improviser, solo performer, and storyteller. His most recent stage roles were as Mortimer in "The Fantasticks," Herr Schultz in “Cabaret,” Stevenson in "Fahrenheit 451," and Man in "Here We Go." For ten years he was in Stagebridge's Playback Theatre Troupe.
Marie O’Donnell originally hails from Detroit, Michigan and has lived in San Francisco for the past 9 years, performing at various Bay Area theatres. Prior to that, she performed in comedy shows in L.A. and was a regular performer on "Late Night With David Letterman" in NY. She also went to school with Madonna, who would barely talk to her, but they were in separate departments, so it's very understandable.
August 27th, 2019
STORIES:
- Bertha Reilly, Early Days
- Enzo Lombard, Louisiana Fairytales
- Sarah Elovich, I'm All Yin
- Toni Weingarten, To Tell or Not to Tell
MUSIC: Adrian West (vocals, guitar, violin, live looping), Kevin Goldberg (bass, vocals)
Original Acoustic Rock
A B O U T T H E P E R F O R M E R S
Adrian West writes and performs music that sounds like a collaboration between Paul Simon, Talkingheads and Dave Matthews. Tonight's performance will be an intimate duo show, but the full Adrian West Band is a lively four-piece that includes alto sax and drums, and they play all over the bay area. Their music, videos and upcoming shows are all at www.adrianwest.com, and also on Facebook and Instagram under adrianwestband.
Bertha Reilly grew up in Ireland where people told stories about everything and she believed them all! She came to the U.S. in 1966 and slowly sorted the difference between truth and story. When she retired, she joined Stagebridge - almost 20 years ago. While she enjoyed just being a listener for years, she’s slowly grown into her own story.
Enzo Lombard’s aunt and uncle ran Baltimore’s first gay bar, Pepper Hill (named after their two Great Danes), the site of a police raid in 1955 which inspired police conduct laws still on the books to this day. Louisiana Fairytales. Initially written as a sequel to his off-Broadway award-winning play “Love, Humiliation & Karaoke”, directed by two time Emmy winner W Kamau Bell. Enzo and his husband currently live in San Francisco and New Orleans.
Sarah Elovich is a solo performer living in Oakland, CA. She's delighted to return to Tell It On Tuesdays in preparation for her second full-hour show, in which she explores and reinterprets Torah stories.
Toni Weingarten spent 19 years in Los Angeles writing for TV news, magazine shows, documentaries and for interactive media, and print articles and essays. These days she's happiest delivering her words in person to real live people.
July 30th, 2019
STORIES:
- Janet Thornburg, Tales of Great Ulysses
- Judith Dambowic, Welcome To The Cancer Cafe
- Sarah Matsui, Hello, Boar—You Must Be Hungry
- Melissa Hobbs, Who’s Split Pea Soup?
MUSIC: Wiley McFarland duo, Laura Wiley (vocals and flute) and David McFarland (guitar)
A B O U T T H E P E R F O R M E R S
The Wiley McFarland Duo is Laura Wiley on flute and vocals and David McFarland on guitar. Laura and David play some contemporary jazz pieces, plus their own original compositions.
At age 58, Judith Dambowic received a diagnosis of Multiple Myeloma, an incurable blood cancer, with no clear and accepted treatment path, and a limited life expectancy.
She unexpectedly began writing and performing as part of a class to help her manage the ‘new normal’. This serious yet often funny piece demonstrates her transition from provider to patient and what lessons this role reversal may have for others.
Janet Thornburg has written and performed seven solo shows. Her fiction has been widely published in literary journals, and Rhubarb Pie, a collection of her short stories, was published in 2005.
Sarah Matsui is a Taiwanese and Japanese American writer who grew up in Honolulu and has since been based in Philadelphia, Oakland, and now San Francisco. Her work has been featured in NPR Code Switch, Jacobin Magazine, and Rethinking School Magazine’s “Our 2016 Picks for Books for Social Justice Teaching: Policy.”
Melissa Hobbs is an East Bay storyteller and poet who tells stories of women of excellence in history: Sacagawea, Phoebe Apperson Hearst, Gertrude Stein and Patricia Locke. She’s preparing a story about Tahirih, the first Persian woman to remove her veil, for a performance this October at Silkroad. Her poetry books are: Under the Pomegranate Sun; and a chapbook, Athena’s Mined Gold.
June 25th, 2019
14th Anniversary Performance
STORIES:
- Tommi Avicolli Mecca, the old brown jacket
- Joan Bernier strong>, The Captain (an excerpt)
- Linda Moore, No place of her own
- Natacha Ruck, You're good for nothing. I'll milk the cow myself.
MUSIC: The Potrero Hillbillies; Eclectic as all get-out: Joe Cunningham (guitar, vocals) Christopher Gray (vocals, vocals) and Joshua Raoul Brody (keyboards, vocals)
A B O U T T H E P E R F O R M E R S
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 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.
Tommi Avicolli Mecca, playwright, storyteller, singer, and poet, started doing performances in the 70s in his hometown of Philadelphia. Since moving to SF in 91, 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 (written with Alison Wright) on the SF housing crisis at last year's Queer Arts Festival.
Joan Bernier is an actor/theater maker who lives and works in the Bay Area. www.snakeandrodtheatre.org
Linda Moore has said Yes! to Storytelling. It puts meaning into her life, it 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 specializes in personal stories. Linda does historical stories, woman, African tales, and universal stories everyone connects knowing fear, prejudice, homelessness, love and healing stories.
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.
May 28, 2019
STORIES:
- Ginger Parnes, Sausalito: Circa the 70’s
- Scott Cohen, Colorful Grandparents and Black & White Television
- Fred Johnson, Defining Success
- Houston Robertson, The Story of a Nice White Lady
MUSIC: Wiley McFarland duo, Laura Wiley (vocals and flute) and David McFarland (guitar)
A B O U T T H E P E R F O R M E R S
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. 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 under the direction of Jeanne Haynes.
By day, Scott Cohen is a mild-mannered accountant in his mid-fifties. By night, he is still mild mannered and in his fifties; but he is also a storyteller and comedian. His current project is a nostalgic and funny one-person show about his grandparents. Tonight you’ll see an excerpt.
Fred Johnson is a jazz musician and a formally incarcerated person. He is committed to addressing the policies that continue to dehumanize prisoners, guided by harm-reduction principles.
Houston Robertson, is an 82 year old retired human resources professional. She brings her experience as a writer, motivational speaker, and award-winning clown to her solo work. She’s been called a "gutsy storyteller" and “an insanely expressive and inspiring spirit”—qualities that inhabit her memoir Paper Chain Confessions (available through Amazon.com). She offers "charming, irreverent, and amusing insights" in her confessional scolding of the nice white lady.
April 30, 2019
STORIES:
- Beth Holland, Proceed to the Root
- Victoria Podesta, The Designated Daughter
- Joanne Green, Home Is Where the Hurt Is: A Comedy
- Wayne Harris, Bugles, Blaspheme and The Baptist Church
MUSIC: Stuart Rosh, Guitar and Vocals
A B O U T T H E P E R F O R M E R S
Stuart Rosh was raised in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. His music has been praised in numerous publications including Global Rhythm, Jazz.com, MSN.com, East Bay Express, Detroit Weekly, Cincinnati City Beat, and the Village Voice. With his band, The Geniuses, his first CD made the Top 40 of the Americana Music Association's weekly chart for three weeks. He's made four nationally distributed albums and can be heard on Spotify and other major streaming platforms. Stuart Rosh is also known as Stuart Rojstaczer. Under that more complicated name, he has been a geophysics professor at Duke University, a librettist (Fordlandia, an opera premiered at Fort Worth Opera Frontiers), a National Science Foundation Young Investigator (when he was young), a Geological Society of America Fellow and Distinguished Lecturer, and a Friends of American Writers and National Jewish Book Award winner for his novel, The Mathematician's Shiva (Penguin). He lives with his wife of 40 years in the Bay Area.
Beth Holland is a longtime Bay Area radio announcer who you can hear on KQED as Beth “Huizenga.” Beth grew up in New Jersey and has followed her heart and the promise of a job all around this amazing planet, backpacking through Europe making lifelong radio nerd friends; spending 3 years broadcasting on Radio Bangkok in Thailand; and the last 25 years in the Bay Area. She is also the mother to two awesome daughters and a yoga practitioner and teacher.
Victoria Podesta first performed as a solo artist in the late ‘80’s, writing and performing Far to Go at Life on the Water and The Marsh theatres in San Francisco. Had she known that title would be prophetic, she probably would have chosen another. Thirty years later, The Designated Daughter premiered at Three Cat Production’s 2017 SOLO Chicago Festival and had a sold-out Rising at The Marsh in 2018.
Joanne Green is thrilled to be performing at ‘Tell It On Tuesday.’ She has performed On and Off-Broadway and been a member of the renowned LA based Improvisation Troupe, ‘The Groundlings.’ She is the Drama Director at The Laurel School in SF and loves that her life is filled with kids, comedy and creativity! This piece is dedicated to her daughter, Olivia.
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 7 full length plays, presentations for schools, directing and designing for pageantry groups as well as various musical projects.
March 26, 2019
STORIES:
- Jeanne Lupton , Sunday Morning with Mary Ellen
- Claire Wahrhaftig, A Trip to Kovel
- Elaine Magree, PussyGrabberRevenge
- Ethan Davidson, Dragons in The Trees
MUSIC: The Blues Daddies, Music for listening and dancing
Joel Kreisberg (bass and vocals), Joe Pratt (sax, keyboards, and vocals), Natsuhiro Maruyama (drums), Art Swislocki (guitars and vocals)
A B O U T T H E P E R F O R M E R S
The Blues Daddies began in 1995 in Kensington as a Motown-Stax-Rock cover band. The “dads” had children in the same elementary school. Since then, the band has evolved in its sound and has become more agile and progressive. While still playing homage to music of the 1950’s and ‘60’s, more modern music is now part of the repertoire as well. The Blues Daddies are available for your listening and dancing pleasure.
Jeanne Lupton writes memoir for page and stage, and is happy to be back at Tell it on Tuesday with this work. She hosts a monthly reading series at Frank Bette Center for the Arts in Alameda and leads a weekly memoir writing group for seniors at her home, Strawberry Creek Lodge in Berkeley.
Claire Wahrhaftig, a native San Franciscan, closed out her career in arts administration as the Executive Director of the SF Arts Commission. She continues her study of storytelling at Stagebridge where she completed the two-year EPIC program under Kirk Waller.
Elaine Magree has written, directed/collaborted or performed new work at The Marsh, The Magic Theatre, California Shakespeare Festival, Z Space, The Working Women’s Theatre Festival, Brava, The Exit Theatre, The People’s Theatre Festival, The National Women’s Theatre Festival and The Minneapolis, Winnipeg and Victoria Fringe Festivals. She taught theatre at Solano College, SF City College, East Bay Center for The Performing Arts and in homeless shelters, recovery centers, and the Sacramento county jail. This is her third solo piece. Sometimes a wave, sometimes a photon: you can’t be in two places at once, or can you?
Ethan Davidson is the child of two science fiction writers. At the age of 14, he was sent to Belize alone to look in on the family plantation. He remained there for a year. He has lived most of his life near or in San Francisco.
February 26, 2019
STORIES:
- Gwen Carmen, “4215 Winrose Way”
- Bill Zarchy, “The Elevator in Rome”
- Sarah Matsui, “Hello, Boar-- You Must Be Hungry”
- Tony Cyprien, “The Bus Ride”
MUSIC: Doris Moskowitz: Early Jazz Standards
A B O U T T H E P E R F O R M E R S
Doris Moskowitz is the youngest daughter of Moe Moskowitz, the original owner of Moe’s Books on Telegraph Avenue. After graduating from Mills College, she began working with her dad, and now it is Doris who owns and operates Moe’s Books, keeping her father’s legacy alive. With a love of words, stories and old movies she sings and plays songs from before 1940.
Gwen Carmen is an activist, actress, educator and writer who’s work has appeared in Essence magazine, Plexus feminist news paper, Haight Ashbury literary journal during the 80’s & 90’s. She was editor/publisher of La Morena Women of Color bilingual news paper, and she will appear in showcase for new performers at The Marsh in May.
Bill Zarchy worked all over the globe during his 40 years as a cinematographer, as captured in his memoir, Showdown at Shinagawa: Tales of Filming from Bombay to Brazil. Now he writes novels and tells stories. He is a graduate of the EPIC Storytelling Program at Stagebridge in Oakland. billzarchy.com
Sarah Matsui is a Taiwanese and Japanese American writer who grew up in Honolulu and has since been based in Philadelphia, Oakland, and now San Francisco. Her work has been featured in NPR Code Switch, Jacobin Magazine, and Rethinking School Magazine’s “Our 2016 Picks for Books for Social Justice Teaching: Policy.”
Tony Cyprien was born and raised in Watts, California. Seven years ago, he moved to Berkeley where he discovered improv. He proceeded to step out on stage, ultimately performing at a Moth GrandSlam, two Moth Mainstage events, and being broadcast on National Public Radio. He has also performed with Marin Shakespeare’s Returned Citizen’s Troupe, at Monday Night Marsh and Tell It on Tuesday, at Solo Sundays, and at BATS Improv as an invited storyteller for The Gather.
January 29, 2019
STORIES:
- Lavonne Taft, Ticket to Ride
- Edwin Richards, Beyond the Safe House
- Naomi Puro, Nathan My Grandfather; A Master of Chutzpah
- Fred Pitts, The California Missions and Race Tour - Part 1
MUSIC: Kadie Kelly (pianist) & Suzanne Yada (violinist)
A B O U T T H E P E R F O R M E R S
Kadie Kelly is a classically trained pianist. She plays a mix of classical and minimalist styles and alternative covers. She is a piano teacher and Founder of Superpower of the Song, www.superpowerofthesong.com.
Suzanne Yada is a violinist and a songwriter under the name of @little spiral@ website: littlespiral.com.
LaVonne Taft has been an Audiologist for some 35 years, evaluating hearing and rehabilitation of the hearing impaired. She has transitioned from ‘hearing’ to ‘listening’ and Storytelling.”
Edwin Richards has studied with Charlie Varon at the Marsh San Francisco and is a graduate of the Meisner Technique Studio. He is grateful to Charlie and to friends and staff at the Studio for their insights and support.
Naomi Puro studied Storytelling at Stagebridge in Oakland, and has performed at Monday Night Marsh, Tell it on Tuesday, and Orinda Contra Costa Tale Spinners. She has been teaching Dance & Movement classes to Older Adults for so many years (35) that she has herself become an older adult. She is pleased to have been part of the Blue Wave that helped elect Josh Harder to Congress.
Fred Pitts is a San Francisco-based actor. He is a company member of African-American Shakespeare and Custom Made Theatre companies. This is his first attempt at a writing and performing a solo piece. He was an Emergency Medicine doctor for 18 years, and is now in recovery from that job.
Tell it On Tuesday
Bridget Frederick and Rebecca Fisher
bridget.frederick@gmail.com and rebecca@rebeccamfisher.com
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