What a lovely night last Wednesday was!
L-R: Michael Thorner, Djordje Krstich, Kate Hodgson, Chris Ryan Graham, Marsha Shandur, Claire Farmer.
By happy co-incidence, each of the stories was wildly different from the next, and all of them wonderful. Djordje Krstich had an action-packed – and, frankly, a bit terrifying – story about a first meeting with the supplier for his Ipanema Valley company*. Kate Hodgson told us about a surprisingly moving episode, where she wrestled Russian lady bodyguards, to get a book signed by Mikhail Gorbachev. She would love you to check out her next Public Speaking workshop here. Our official musical turn of the evening was Michael Thorner, who told a story about (and then played) the most densely chorded song I’ve ever heard, ‘Til I Die by Brian Wilson. It was instrumental (pardon the pun) to Michael’s growth as a musician, and you can hear a version of it Michael recorded here. Gorgeous stuff.
After the break, Chris Ryan Graham shared a beautifully sad and thought-provoking family story, which taught us that you should never assume you know how happy someone is, based only on your own expectations. You can find the peacefully minimalist website for his company here. The evening was rounded off by Claire Farmer, who had us snorting with laughter at her recollection of trying to woo an unrequited university love by singing him a song she’d written him, on stage, even though she’s not a singer.
Although, a quick poll that I ran after she finished, showed that most of us in the room agreed that the snatch of that song she played us was genuinely brilliant. Maybe we would have felt differently, were we the object of her affections, age 19, in a sticky bar.
I was so happy to see a lot of new faces at this month’s show! If you haven’t already, you can sign up to the mailing list to hear about upcoming shows in advance. I promise you’ll only get one or two emails a month from me.
The next two shows are on June 26th and July 31st at . I’m still looking for a musician for June and July, and for two non-musician story-tellers for July. If you think you might have a story to tell – even if you’ve never done anything like this in your life before – I’d love to hear from you. I’ll meet up with you beforehand to go through a story or two, you’ll have plenty of time to rehearse, and it will be a lovely experience for you, I promise.
Just drop me, Marsha, a line at truestoriestoronto@gmail.com
Thanks for being interested in TSTLTO. It really is an utter joy to run and to go to.
Until next time,
Marsha
Host and Head of True Stories Told Live Toronto
[*As an Editor’s note, I’d like to tell you, off the record, that the banana brownies they sell are insanely addictive]
True Stories (Told Live) Toronto 
Leave a Reply