MATT AND JENI ARE UNPREPARED: STORYTELLING ON A HIGHWIRE Comes to Playhouse on Park

Join record 61-time Moth StorySLAM winner Matthew Dicks and Moth storyteller Jeni Bonaldo on Friday, November 8th at 7:30pm for an evening of heartfelt, hilarious storytelling improvised, crafted, and told right on the spot! Matt and Jeni will be telling BRAND NEW STORIES based on prompts from the audience, the internet, and each other.  Watch as these two professional storytellers entertain you on the fly, poke fun at each other, and teach you a little bit about crafting and telling your own stories.  And you’ll have a chance to vote on who told the best stories! Hosted by Speak Up executive director Elysha Dicks. 

Matthew Dicks is an elementary school teacher in the West Hartford Public Schools and author of six novels, including Memoirs of an Imaginary Friend and Twenty-one Truths About Love, as well as the nonfiction titles Storyworthy: Engage, Teach, Persuade, and Change Your Life Through the Power of Storytelling, Someday Is Today: 22 Simple, Actionable Ways to Propel Her Creative Life, and Stories Sell: Storyworthy Strategies to Grow Your Business and Bramd.  Matthew is a 61-time Moth StorySLAM and 10-time GrandSLAM champion whose stories have been featured on The Moth Radio Hour and This American Life. He’s the founder of Speak Up, a Hartford-based storytelling organization. 

Jeni Bonaldo lives in Bethany, Connecticut, with her husband, Mike, and their daughters, Ella and Charlie. She has been teaching English and Creative Writing at Amity High School for 20 years. She has told stories for The Moth, Speak Up, Tell Me Another Story, The Mouth-Off, Songs and Stories, and The International Festival of Arts and Ideas in New Haven. You can also find her on the Speak Up storytelling podcast. She is also a writer and is currently seeking representation for her first novel. She hopes that one of the millions of agents she has queried will see that it isn't terrible and worth publishing. She’s performed storytelling improv with Matt before, but she’s still really angry with him for making her do it.  

Elysha Dicks is the co-founder, Executive Director, and host of Speak Up and also the co-host of the Speak Up Storytelling Podcast. Elysha is a kindergarten teacher who spends her days singing songs about the weather and teaching kids to read and count to 100. Elysha likes dark roasts, hates cilantro, and can regularly be found strumming her ukulele or baking a challah. 

Playhouse on Park is located at 244 Park Road, West Hartford, CT 06119. Managed under the direction of Playhouse Theatre Group, Inc., Playhouse on Park is Greater Hartford’s award-winning destination for the performing arts. Playhouse on Park offers a wide range of thought-provoking, inspiring and thoroughly enjoyable professional theatre productions that leave audiences often smiling, sometimes crying, and always talking about what they have just experienced. For more information about this performance, other productions or to purchase tickets visit www.PlayhouseOnPark.org or call 860-523-5900 x 10

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