Horse Trade's First Annual Gotham Storyelling Festival Rescheduled for 11/7-11/12

Due to the effects of Hurricane Sandy and the current lack of power at UNDER St. Marks Horse Trade Theater Group has been forced to postpone their First Annual Gotham Storytelling Festival for November 7-12. Unfortunately due to outstanding conflicts Ophira Eisenberg, Real Characters, and Blaise Allysen Kearsley's How I Learned will not be appearing in this year's festival as previously scheduled. 

 

Folk music had the 60s in NYC, punk and performance art owned the 70s and 80s, and improv and alternative comedy ruled the 90s and 00s. Today... it's live storytelling. Dozens of story shows take place at big and small theaters around the city, with new ones popping up every month.Horse Trade Theater Group (Heidi Grumelot, Artistic Director, Erez Ziv, Managing Director) is proud to present the First Annual Gotham Storytelling Festival; collecting some of the best shows curated and produced by Horse Trade Artistic Director Heidi Grumelot and resident hosts Peter Aguero, Seth Lind and Adam Wade.

 

The festival will have a limited engagement November 7-12 at UNDER St. Marks (94 St. Marks Place). Tickets ($15/$12 students & seniors) are available online at  www.horseTRADE.info or by calling Smarttix at 212-868-4444. All workshops are $25. 

 

The ruins of the largest temple on Earth, Angkor Wat, and the crumbling remains of Dockery's relationship with his girlfriend must be simultaneously negotiated, even as his father in Vietnam suddenly unveils his family's deepest secret. High-energy and theatrical, this is a wild tale that is hilarious, heart breaking, and true, all in one devastatingly exquisite moment.

 

We're cock-rocking the NPR crowd with the best underground comedy, storytelling, burlesque and sideshow acts. This whole thing (and all of everything) is about getting together and getting EXCITED – just turn your phones off and shout it out loud.

 

The Soundtrack Series is a monthly dose of stories fueled by songs that has been featured in the New York Times, BUST, NY1, "Above and Beyond" in the New Yorker, a Critic's Pick in Time Out New York, listed by Gothamist as a Gothamlist Event of the week, and included among the "Best Events and Things to Do in NYC" by CBS News New York. Guest storytellers Nat Cassidy (Songs of Love: A Theatrical Mixtape), Amanda Duarte (No Denying Love), Dan Charnas (The Big Payback), and Bridget O'Neill (The Moth) get on the mic to tell the hilarious or heart wrenching stories and memories they forever associate with a song from their past. There's the song, the story behind the song, and the story inspired by the song. We're the third one.

 

TOLD is a monthly storytelling show hosted by Seth Lind (This American Life). Each month New York's best performers take the stage to tell true stories related to a central theme. A special guest provides interludes to glue the evening together into a collective experience.

 

Raw stories paired with raw burlesque. Curated and hosted by Peter Aguero (The Moth, The BTK Band), Bare. will rip the heart out of your chest, place iT Lovingly back in, and proceed to do it all over again. 

 

Did you ever have a story, but not have anyone to tell it to? Well, suffer no more because John Flynn is hosting an open mic storytelling show! John will pick four names from a bucket. If you are chosen, you get eight minutes to tell any story you want. No theme, just a time limit. (Seriously, guys, we love you, but we will cut you off!) It is going to be a lot of fun, probably revealing, and free of judgment. (Unless you want John to comment on your outfit, which he will do free of charge.)

 

Call it an unreality show. Since the summer of 2006, The Liar Show has taken the art of deception to theaters, cabarets and cultural centers around the U.S. and Canada and was called "A Winner" (The Scotsman) and received 4 Stars during a month-long run at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Liar has featured New Yorker Magazine contributor Andy Borowitz, Mike Daisey, called "The master storyteller" by the NY Times, and former Bill Clinton speechwriter, Mark Katz in addition to Comedy Central personalities, film directors, lapsed Mormons with a bone to pick with the Almighty, and even an NYPD gang squad detective. At each show, four performers tell Short Personal stories, but listen carefully, because one of these people is making it all up. Interrogate the cast and expose the Liar to win our unbelievable T-shirt. But as The Washington Post wrote of our show: "Prizes mean nothing compared with the sweet victory of being recognized as the savviest people in the room."

 

Top NYC storytellers breakdown their craft in a discussion of storytelling forms, hosted by Seth Lind from TOLD and This American Life. 

 

From finding awe in Hubble images to visiting the doctor, science is everywhere in our lives. Whether we wear a white lab coat or haven't seen a test tube since eighth grade, science affects and changes us. We all have a story about science, and at The Story Collider, we want to hear those stories.

 

Learn to discover 'the moment' that is your story and build around it. Peter Aguero, multi- grand slam winning storytelling artist will work with you in a small group on storytelling techniques. 

 

A GREATEST HITS 'SHOW OF SHOWS' from the monthly The Adam Wade From New Hampshire Show, which is headed into its fourth year at the UNDER St. Marks. The show stars 18 time Moth StorySLAM winner, Adam Wade. Adam tells several stories that range from his youth growing up in NH to his post college years in New York City. Adam's stories are accompanied by home movies and music. This show has received rave reviews from the New York Times and Time Out New York Magazine where it's a 'Critic's Pick'.

 

The BTK Band is NYC's hardest-drinking improvised storytelling rock band. Raconteurs regale the audience with true stories from their lives while music and lyrics are improvised to turn their stories into songs. As if Tom Waits and The Moth delivered a baby from the gaping maw of Chaos.

HORSE TRADE THEATER GROUP is a self-sustaining theater development group; with a focus on new work that has produced a massive quantity of stimulating downtown theater. Horse Trade's Resident Artist Program offers a home to a select group of Independent theater artists, pooling together a great deal of talent and energy. It is also the home of FRIGID New York – the first and only festival of its kind in New York City. In 2011 Horse Trade received the New York Innovative Theatre Ellen Stewart Stewardship Award for demonstrating a significant contribution to the Off-Off-Broadway community through service, support and leadership.