One of my goals this year was to take a course, any course. The goal was to go somewhere, in person, meet other people, and learn a new skill that I could apply in my professional life. In a city like New York, that's pretty easy to do. A good friend recommended classes at the Magnet Theater, because they offer dozens of classes for improv comedy. I truly believe learning comedic timings and methods make for better presenters & performers, but I wasn't quite ready to be that creatively vulnerable amongst a group of people. Instead, I chose to take Adam Wade's level one Storytelling Class. If you're familiar with NPR's "The Moth" podcast, this is basically the same thing. The irony of this class choice is having to share a few stories about yourself in the first couple of weeks.
Over the course of six weeks and eighteen hours we learned what makes a story tight, how to play with language and descriptions, and we received feedback from those in the class and Adam about things we were doing well or not well to work on. I can honestly say the class of 12 or so people are incredibly talented and have given me some really great feedback over the last six weeks. I look forward to level 2, coming this summer.
At the end of the six weeks, the class performs their 6-8 minute stories in a show at the Magnet Theater Training Center. Our show will be on Saturday, April 25th at 4pm EST, and yours truly will be taking the stage amongst a few other great storytellers. The show is free, so if you're interested in checking it out, we'd love to have you. More information can be found here in this Facebook Event.
