We are putting together the 2015 season of SpeakeasyDC’s 2nd Tuesday monthly. Find out how you can vote and help pick our 2015 show themes READ MORE

Episode #46: Karen Lee tells a true story about a crush gone awry. Hear more

The topic of this month’s open mic show is perfect for September – because isn’t the start of the school year really a time for renewal, upheaval and radical change? Read more

Guest post by Lisa King

Holidays are the worst right after you get divorced. Everything reminds you of traditions you don’t have or places you don’t go anymore. My ex wasn’t a big fan of turkey dinner, so for Thanksgiving, I would cook a prime rib roast at his parents’ who lived about 15 minutes away.  Family and friends would gather for a day of watching the Macy’s parade, football, and eating. Read more

Episode #43 of SpeakeasyDC’s podcast features a story by and conversation with Mike Kane about two art students who go head-to-head on the basketball court. Read, hear & watch more

When I heard Speakeasy DC was looking for blog contributors, I asked Meredith if I could whine about my insecurities surrounding my stage anxiety. “Mike Kane already does that” said the Meredith inside my head (it’s cool, Mike and I are friends. Kinda). Then I asked if I could write about what goes on inside my head during a performance. “Sure, but it’s not like anybody will read it” said the Mike Kane inside my head. And it’s not like I’m a professional storyteller or anything – will that matter? “I don’t care. Now get over here and change your daughter” said the wife inside my living room. Read more

You could feel the same kind of electricity in the air as right before the best concert of your life–the one that had you camping out all night just to get a ticket. It was July 10, and the show’s theme was Band Camp: Stories about Music, Raves, and Rock & Roll. Read more

Have you ever had a credit card bill that was due at the end of the month?  And rather than logging on to get an idea of the damage you’ll be facing, you panic and just decide to ignore it?  Like, you literally sit down, launch your web browser and start typing in the URL for your credit card’s website, then delete it and just head to Facebook instead? Read more

If you’ve ever attended a SpeakesyDC open mic, you know that feeling when the emcee says, “okay, coming to the stage is a first-time storyteller…” It’s a feeling of excitement, dread, concern and suspense.  Will they be awesome?  Is this person the new storyteller that everyone will be talking about on the way out of the show later that evening?  Or will the nerves of this first-timer get the better of them, make them a fidgety mess, and tell a boring story that brings the show to a halt? Read more

A quick recap of my life right now: There’s an open mic in August under the theme of Baked: Stories About Summer.  I have acid reflux pretty much around the clock at this point because I signed up for that open mic even though my “story” is in shambles. Read more

Since the moment you read the first word in this blog post (yes, the word “since” just 15 words ago), Sunday, July 22 just got a few seconds closer.   And that means that the run-through for SpeakeasyDC’s open mic just got a few seconds closer.  And instead of spending every waking moment honing this “story” of mine (and I put “story” in quotations because calling my yard sale piece a story at this point would be like calling the new Katy Perry concert movie a “documentary.”  I mean, yes, it’s in the theaters, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves) I’m sitting here wasting my time counting the number of words between “since” and “just.” Read more

Her email came on Saturday.

Subject: Confirmation & Next Steps for Aug 14 Speakeasy

The email came from none other than Stephanie Garibaldi, SpeakeasyDC’s Director of Education.  And she minced no words in her opening lines of the email:

Dear Mike,

Congrats! Read more

There’s two questions I get when I tell people I do storytelling.  One question: “What is that?”  The other question: “How’d you get into that?” Read more

On Friday the 15th, I’ll be in a SpeakeasyDC show called “Second Story: A Night of Fabulous Works in Progress.”  Those of you have read my stuff before know that I don’t think anything I do is fabulous, so I don’t want to focus too much on the latter half of the name of the show.  No, the part I want to talk about is “Second Story.” Read more

1)     Your listener responds with nothing more than monosyllabic noises during your story.

Most people can’t resist adding their own feedback, whether it be little phrases like, “oh no, she di-int!”  or a question like, “Wow, so what did you do??!”  If the responses you’re receiving are more like droning sounds of “uh,” and “mmm,” or “oh,” these are not good signs. Read more

On the night of your performance at a Speakeasy 2nd Tuesday, one of the folks working there will bring an appearance release and put it in front of you.   If you sign it, you are giving SpeakeasyDC permission to record you while you perform your story. Read more

I work on a reality television show.  And every time we pitch a story to the network, their first question, without fail, is always “what’s at stake?” What’s at stake if the character doesn’t succeed?

That’s what makes stories interesting. Read more

Expectations ran high through the audience as small-but-mighty SpeakeasyDC leader Amy Saidman stepped up to the mic to kick off Tuesday’s show on “A Hero’s Journey: Stories about Tests and Quests.” With a theme like that, people figured that in addition to hearing smart, funny, and surprising true stories, they were bound to hear stories that were also powerful, moving, and perhaps even life-changing. They were not disappointed. Read more

Walking into Town the night of the Open Mic (now called Second Tuesdays), I already knew that I was performing first.  Stephanie Garibaldi, the show’s host, had called me the night before and asked how I would feel about it.

How would I feel?  I would feel terrible.  I would feel like you had no faith in my story and you were putting me up first in order to get my story out of the way.  That’s how I would feel. Read more

So where was I?  Oh right, I needed a performance piece stage-ready by April 10 and I had nothing.

So, Sunday, 3/25 was the SpeakeasyDC-required rehearsal for the April 10 open mic.  As of that Saturday (yes, less than 24 hours before rehearsal) I still didn’t have a story.  But I’m a deadline guy, so this was good for me.

Saturday I sat in front of my laptop and approached this story in a way I never have before.  I wrote down bullet points for each story beat. Read more

If you come early enough to a Speakeasy show, you just may spot some of it: a man in a 3-piece suit talking to himself while pacing; a woman facing a back wall gesturing wildly to no one; or someone chanting, “red leather, yellow leather” over and over, in spite of the fact that there’s no leather anywhere nearby–red, yellow, or otherwise. Read more

Last week, I told you how I signed up for an open mic without a clear idea for my story. Well, I’ve turned it all around and now I have a completely polished, stage-ready piece well ahead of schedule. Read more

Guest post by John Tong

No one associated with SpeakeasyDC will brand you a failure for bombing.  Rather, they will encourage you to come back and try again, because they recognize that you are an amateur who has invested time crafting a story from your own life experiences.  They validate this process, whatever the outcome. Read more

This Christmas, while drinking myself into a stupor at my in-laws’ house, I got on the internets and signed up for the SpeakeasyDC (SEDC) Open Mic in April, Mad Science: Stories about experiments, chemistry, and explosive situations. It’s all rather foggy, but the impaired thought process leading to this brash decision went something like this:

Drunk Mike: “That story about that thing that happened this summer is freaking hilarious! Telling it to just one or two or twenty people at a time doesn’t do it justice.  You know who I need to tell it to? Three hundred people at Town.  They’ll thank me later.  Where’s my laptop?” Read more