The highly anticipated Louisville debut of The Moth StorySLAM met expectations last night at Headliners as a sold-out crowd enjoyed two and a half hours of unscripted storytelling and improvisation from an otherwise untested group of (mostly) amateur speakers.
The evening’s theme, “Scars,” included 10 five-minute tales—some harrowing, some hilarious, many both—of such physical and emotional foibles as one-upmanship in the emergency room, an interstate search for an unknown father, and a disastrous episode in a tuxedo shop involving a toddler and a metal mannequin stand. In between each story, “The Moth Podcast” host Dan Kennedy served as emcee/standup comic/therapist as he read audience-submitted anecdotes of their own psychic and physical injuries. Three teams of judges—handpicked from the audience—scored each storyteller, with former camp counselor Scott Holzknecht’s tale of a charge who sustained injuries from robbing a bread truck during a late-night acid binge taking top honors.
The Moth, based in New York, airs intermittently on WFPL (89.3 FM) as “The Moth Radio Hour” and via podcast. Since its beginnings in 1997, it has staged productions in New York, Los Angeles and a variety of other cities in between. The residency continues at Headliners the last Tuesday of every month, with themes exploring Neighborhood (October), Busted (November) and On the Road (December). Tickets are still $8 and on sale at Headliners, 1386 Lexington Road. For more information, check out Louisville.com’s previous articles or visit www.themoth.org.
Disclaimer: The author served as a judge, but her decision did not make an appreciable difference in the overall winner’s victory. He unanimously rocked.
Contact the author at leecopywriting@gmail.com or www.leecopywriting.com.
