For the last few years I have spent some portion of the winter / early spring in Albuquerque, NM but not this winter. While I was at the National Storytelling Network conference in California last summer, I was asked why I haven’t been in the NW for a good long time now. The easy answer was, no one had asked me to come but then they did.
So I am happy to announce a three-week residency in the Seattle area with four performances and a storytelling workshop.
Friday, February 7, 2020
7:00 PM - 9:00 PM
“Bad Brother: Religion and Politics in ‘69”
Quimper Storytelling Guild @ Friends Meeting House
1841 Sheridan St. Port Townsend, WA
and
Sunday, February 16, 2020
2:00 PM - 4:00 PM
“Bad Brother: Religion and Politics in ‘69”
Hugo House 1634 11th Ave, Seattle, WA
“Bad Brother” is my most autobiographical performance, detailing my life in a Catholic religious teaching order in a time of cultural transition. As the joke goes, “... I had vows of poverty, chastity and obedience, I was good at one of them.” Central to that story is my witness to the trial of the Milwaukee 14 for burning draft files as a protest to the war in Vietnam. After 50 years, this story is still relevant to the politics of our day and the role of religion in that realm.
Then
“Finding Gregory and Other Tales”
Tuesday, February 18, 2020
7:00 PM - 9:00 PM
Port Angeles Library,
2210 S. Peabody St, Port Angeles, WA
“Finding Gregory” is the portrait of an extraordinary man I had the pleasure of working with, the search for him when he “disappeared” and a meditation on the grief of Alzheimer’s that came with my finding him. It is the universal in the personal, both funny and for the want of better words, emotionally intimate.
And finally
“Fata Morgana”
Friday, February 21, 2020
7:00 PM - 9:00 PM
Seattle Storytelling Guild @ Haller Lake United Methodist Church
13055 First Avenue NE, Seattle, WA
“Fata Morgana” is a story of the Baker, the Countessa, the Mapmaker and the Widow in which the audience chooses where I begin and how the tale ends. It straddles the middle ground between traditional folk tales and “magic Realist” fiction.
That performance will be followed on Saturday the 22, 2020 by a workshop for the Seattle Storytelling Guild on “When the Traditional and the Personal (story) Meet” from 10 - noon also at the Haller Lake United Methodist Church. This will be a “two way street” exploration with exercises on using traditional plot forms to structure our personal stories and reimagining traditional stories in the context of our times and places. If you're interested, you can register for it via Anne Brendler (acbrendler46@gmail.com)
In between and around these performances, especially the week of Feb 9th – 13th, I am available for conversations, coffee, shared tourist experiences, going to any open mics or story slams you know of, providing story or presentation coaching, or adding a “mini-house concert” where you get a few friends together to trade stories and somewhere along the line after I've told a few we pass the hat to as Dovie Thomason says, “make a few dozens of dollars”.
If you are interested in the performances come on by. If you are interested in the workshop here’s the link to the Seattle Storytellers Guild (http://seattlestorytellers.org/ssg/events/event-4135.html).
If you want to meet or have me coach or perform, email me at niemistory@gmail.com and I’ll be happy to see what we can work out. If you’re in the area while I’m there and want to hear me tell or teach or just visit, now is the time because I do not know when I will be back again.