Tag: Performance

Breathing Life into Fairy Tales

Fairy Tales should be anything but dry! Join Cooper as we explore how to approach the “freeze dried soup” of classic fairy tales. How to bring them to life, take them apart, rebuild them, and have some plain old fun telling fairy tales.

  • Taught by Cooper Braun-Enos
  • Thursdays, March 16, 23, and 30
  • 7pm Central Time
  • 90-minute Zoom sessions
  • Tickets $120

 

Cooper Braun was raised by granola eating coyotes in Boulder Colorado. In 2013, he took to the storytelling stage for the first time. Cooper was featured at the Exchange Place at the National Storytelling Festival in 2017. He was awarded the 2018 JJ Reneaux Emerging Artist Award and the 2022 Regional Excellence Award by the National Storytelling Network.

Cooper’s stories remind us that fairy tales were never just for children. That traditional stories can be funny, dark, poignant, and anything but dry.

Since the beginning of the pandemic Stories with Spirit, his company with Rachel Ann Harding, has become one of the leading producers of virtual storytelling shows. Their series Fairy Tale Variations has proved wildly successful, regularly attracting audiences of over 200 from around the world.

To register:

  1. Add the number of tickets you want by clicking the ‘+’ button
  2. Click the ‘Get Tickets’ button.

Some Black Storm

The people’s rebellion of Jack Cade against the usurper King Henry VI

“…force perforce I’ll make him yield the crown, whose bookish rule has pulled fair England down.”

ABOUT THE SHOW
A wealthy insurrectionist urges thousands of British citizens from across the country to gather in London. The violence escalates, leaving royal forces outnumbered and overwhelmed. Shakespeare’s language is brought to life in this full-cast reading of a new adaptation of Henry VI, in all its rage, madness, and folly. Featuring Alison Anderson, Mahmoud Hakima, Matthew Kessen, phillip andrew bennett low, Loren Niemi, Matthew Saxe, Mickaylee Shaughnessy, and Rob Ward!

DATES
7:30pm on Friday, January 6th at the Phoenix Theater

Tickets are $12, $10 with a Fringe button discount.

SAM Online Story Circle

Dec 27th – 7:00 PM Central Loren Niemi hosts Story Arts MN  (Zoom) story Circle

Register for this free event on Eventbrite

Story Arts of Minnesota presents its online Story Circle on the fourth Tuesday of the month. This event is open to everyone.  After registering, you’ll receive an email message with the Zoom link. Registration is free, but we encourage donations to support SAM’s ongoing virtual programming.

Bring your favorite seven-minute tale and your listening ears. There is no theme and all story genres are allowed.  We welcome both experienced and new storytellers.  Please provide a content warning if your story might be challenging for listeners, and please let others know whether they have permission to retell it.

To reserve a spot to tell, email us at storyartsmn@gmail.com. You can also put your name in the virtual hat during the program. Don’t have a story to share?  We invite you to watch and listen!

@The Briar- Taxi Stories

The Briar

January 11th – Hardy Coleman, Loren Niemi and Scott Vetsch @The Briar

Doors at 6:30 PM, Performance at 7:00 PM Central, Tickets $10 at the door
The Briar 1231 Washington Street Northeast, Minneapolis, MN

An evening of funny and not-so-funny taxi stories and poems from three guys who have driven cab in Minneapolis. Here’s a  bit about Scott Vetsch followed by a little about Hardy Coleman:

Scott Vetsch has bees in his bonnet, often hearing things wrong, which sometimes makes them right. He’s a carpenter who works in old houses, a child in a man’s body, a soul in exile. He likes a good story, whichever way it comes, loves cats and crows, inhabits worlds of his own making. He’s afraid things aren’t getting better, but hopes he’s mistaken. He burns wood, craves hamburgers, and eats tofu, scoffs at money, envies the contented, and drives a truck. When he’s happy he wants beer. When he’s sad, he wonders why. He knows one thing for certain, he’s a writer in a post-literate world.

Hardy Coleman drove taxi for 8 1/2 years, until Covid and skanky customers forced him to quit.  (He did, however, get his wife driving cab.)  He’s been writing stuff longer than that.  He’s been making up stories since he was in grade school and needed a way to scare his younger brothers and sisters.

@ The Briar with Diane Jarvi

The Briar

Diane Jarvenpa is the author of five books of poetry. Her new book, Shy Lands, is forthcoming from Blue Light Press. She has received The Midwest Independent Publishers Association Award and an Artist Initiative grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board. She is a teaching artist with the Alzheimer’s Poetry Project MN and St Paul’s East Side Arts Council.

As a singer-songwriter performing under the name Diane Jarvi, she has seven solo recordings, received a McKnight MacPhail performing fellowship and awarded a Minnesota Arts and Cultural Fund grant. She was the recipient of the 50 over 50 Minnesotans award in 2020 from Pollen Midwest and AARPMN. www.dianejarvi.com

 

Loren Niemi is a poet, author, innovative storyteller and the founder of the American School of Storytelling. He received a Lifetime Achievement award from the National Storytelling Network in 2016 and a 2020 Midwest Book Award for his story collection, “What Haunts Us”. A new poetry memoir “A Breviary for the Lost” is available now. www.lorenNiemistories.com

Doors at 6:30; 7pm Show
Tickets $10 online or at the door

To register:

  1. Add the number of tickets you want by clicking the ‘+’ button
  2. Click the ‘Get Tickets’ button.

Livestream Poetry Reading

August Livestream Poetry Reading

Join us for another excellent evening of poetry and prose!
Featuring: Robin Happel, Ruth Happel, Jessica Rigney, Peggy Pearl Zambory and Loren Niemi

Debut: A Fusion of Storytelling and Play

Loren will join the ever enthusiastic Michael McCarty and Vicki Juditz for Debut, Kevin Cordi’s online fusion of new story and play on Sunday, July 31st at 2:00 PM Eastern. Tickets: $12 or donation

Debut is a fusion of storytelling, story making, play, coaching, and community. Three professional storytellers will tell a story that they are debuting. This month, the talented storytellers are Loren Neimi, Michael D. McCarty, and Vicki Juditz.   The story they tell has never been told in public.

We believe that the first telling can be a wonderful and shared experience. The motto is “There is beauty in the beginning.” This is the beginning of each tellers’ stories. However, it is told with the skill of a professional storyteller so it bound to be inviting.

Then, Story Coach (Mediator) Dr. Kevin Cordi, author of Playing with Stories: Story Crafting for Writers, Teachers, and Other Imaginative Thinkers will lead these storytellers as they play with this new story.  Kevin will use proven playful practices and audience members will experience new ways they could work with their own stories.

How Do You Read Me?

Loren & Howard

What’s in a name? When you claim an identity – Gay – Straight – Bi – Trans – do others see what you see, fee

l, who you are? What about homelessness or political affiliation? Too often we judge people by how they look, dress, walk, talk and superficial characteristics. Too often they don’t see you and their misreading of who you are makes for messy and sometimes tragic consequences. Suppose you are a homeless kid who has been taken off the street by a drag queen. What changes? Suppose you are a member of a religious order and find out that your roommate is Gay. Are you Gay by association? Do you “out” him?

In “How Do You Read Me?” storytellers Howard Lieberman and Loren Niemi look to their experience with gender fluidity, representation and the assumptions we make about others with intimate and revealing stories that are by turns insightful and questioning of those assumptions of what it means to be “other” in America. This show looks to the people underneath the surface.

Having performed together for over two decades now, the 2 Lorens have examined issues of race in “1967”, religion in “A Fool’s Errand”, and the ironies of sex and drugs in their wildly improvisational “55 Minutes of Sex, Drugs and Audience Participation.” They are not afraid to tell their stories truthfully and artfully while finding the humor and grace of being human.

Tickets are $10 in advance/ $12 at the door
Doors are at 9:30 PM, come eat and drink in the theater before the show!

Proof of vaccination with matching ID or a lab-certified negative COVID-19 PCR test with matching ID is required for entry. Please go to http://www.bryantlakebowl.com/theater for the current COVID-19 policy at the Bryant Lake Bowl Theater.

How Do You Read Me?

Loren & Howard

What’s in a name? When you claim an identity – Gay – Straight – Bi – Trans – do others see what you see, fee

l, who you are? What about homelessness or political affiliation? Too often we judge people by how they look, dress, walk, talk and superficial characteristics. Too often they don’t see you and their misreading of who you are makes for messy and sometimes tragic consequences. Suppose you are a homeless kid who has been taken off the street by a drag queen. What changes? Suppose you are a member of a religious order and find out that your roommate is Gay. Are you Gay by association? Do you “out” him?

 

In “How Do You Read Me?” storytellers Howard Lieberman and Loren Niemi look to their experience with gender fluidity, representation and the assumptions we make about others with intimate and revealing stories that are by turns insightful and questioning of those assumptions of what it means to be “other” in America. This show looks to the people underneath the surface.

Having performed together for over two decades now, the 2 Lorens have examined issues of race in “1967”, religion in “A Fool’s Errand”, and the ironies of sex and drugs in their wildly improvisational “55 Minutes of Sex, Drugs and Audience Participation.” They are not afraid to tell their stories truthfully and artfully while finding the humor and grace of being human.

Tickets are $10 in advance/ $12 at the door
Doors are at 9:30 PM, come eat and drink in the theater before the show!

Proof of vaccination with matching ID or a lab-certified negative COVID-19 PCR test with matching ID is required for entry. Please go to http://www.bryantlakebowl.com/theater for the current COVID-19 policy at the Bryant Lake Bowl Theater.