by Christine Mounts ~ August 20, 2023

“What is going on here?”- a question posed by an upstairs neighbor to some of our guests who had spilled out the front door of “First Night”, the grand opening of the American School of Storytelling on Friday August 18, 2023.

The official answer is “storytelling” or more accurately “nothing new” since storytelling is an ancient artform, indeed the Mother Art. But perhaps it’s new to our neighbors or at least “something different”- an intimate performance venue dedicated to the oral narrative arts of storytelling, poetry, and singer-songwriters.

Not theater because there is no fourth wall separating us from the audience. Not a poetry open mic at the bar on Wednesday to draw in patrons. Not the storytelling slam model that The Moth Radio Hour is renowned for. Not a writing program, not a marketing buzzword, or a gathering of liars, unless you believe fiction to be a lie despite its ability to tell the truth, often better than facts.

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