Our next show is October 21 at 7pm. The theme is The Kindness of Strangers – Stories of unexpected help
I’m willing to admit that I might be the only one who enjoys it when Oscar winners get played off the stage for thanking too many people in their acceptance speeches. I love it when someone thanks the best boy and the dolly grip. When else are the gaffers and second unit directors going to get a shoutout on national television? I don’t know whose job it is to make sure a sandbag doesn’t fall from the rafters onto George Clooney’s head but that guy definitely needs to get a thank you from someone.
That’s why this month’s theme is “The Kindness of Strangers.” I know somebody somewhere has helped you at some point. They might have taken a chance and hired you when you didn’t have all the experience the want ad called for. They might have offered you a place to stay when you had nowhere else to go. They might have given you a random compliment when all you needed was one person to say you were doing a good job. Each one of us has been helped by a stranger who didn’t have to.
Remember to practice your story out loud on as many people as possible and time yourself when you’re doing it. All stories have to be under 8 minutes. Stories can be as short as you want but not over 8 minutes. If your story goes long, someone else who practiced for weeks might not get a chance to tell. Stories also have to be clean in both language and content. Send me an email or give me a call if you have any questions about that.
The rest of the rules and guidelines are below:
Workshops are a great way to get feedback on a story you’re working on. Here is one I highly recommend: https://www.meetup.com/Fresh-Ground-Stories-Storytelling-Workshop/
I’m also happy to help people with their stories. Send me an email and we can set up a phone call.
If you like to work alone, this is the best book I’ve ever seen on personal storytelling:
We’ll be on Zoom again unless the indoor mask mandate changes. Now is a great time for our out-of-town tellers to share more stories with us!
I’ll send out the Zoom link to everyone on the Monday before the show which is October 18.
I hope to see a bunch of you at the show on October 21!
Paul
freshgroundstories@gmail.com
Fresh Ground Stories 