FRIGID NEW YORK: GOTHAM STORYTELLING FESTIVAL
The Kraine Theater
85 East Fourth St. between Second & Third Aves.
November 2-14, $15-$20
www.frigid.nyc
Native New Yorker Michele Carlo titles her new solo show What a Difference a Year Makes, and what a year it has been. What a Difference a Year Makes will be performed live November 3 and 13 at the tenth annual Gotham Storytelling Festival, which takes place November 2-14 at the Kraine Theater in the East Village as well as online. Tickets for each of the eleven programs are sliding scales beginning at $20 in person (full price gets you a drink ticket) and $15 at home. The festival kicks off with a double bill of Jackson Sturkey’s work-in-progress, The Devil, about his private Christian high school and Lucifer, and Gastor Almonte’s The Sugar, in which the stand-up comedian discovers he has diabetes. On November 3 and 8, comedian Alexander Payne (not the film director) presents his autobiographical monologue Home Stories, about growing up in South Central. On November 4, Una Aya Osato and some of her friends share personal tales of contracting the coronavirus in Still Sick: Stories of Long Covid, while on November 4 and 10, Reilly Arena retells George Orwell’s Animal Farm using a pair of sticks.
On November 5, David Lawson hosts ACES: Storytelling Sets from Some of NYC’s Best, consisting of ten-minute monologues by David Perez, Annie Tan, Aditya Surendran, Courtney Antonioli, and others. On November 6, 7, 10, and 28, Kylie Vincent delves into childhood sexual abuse in Bird, while several participants contribute to Awkward Teenage Years on November 6. Keith Alessi’s Tomatoes Tried to Kill Me but Banjos Saved My Life, which was named Most Inspirational Show at the 2019 Frigid Fringe Festival, is back at the Kraine on November 7. Four-time Moth StorySLAM winner Jamie Brickhouse channels Joan Crawford, Joan Collins, Monica Lewinsky, Peggy Lee, Helen Gurley Brown, Elizabeth Warren, and others on November 7 and 12 in Stories in Heels: Tall Tales of the Glamorous Women Who Changed My Life. And on November 11 and 13, Mayflower descendant Trav SD celebrates the four hundredth anniversary of the first Thanksgiving in The Pilgrim’s Progress. In her piece, author, podcaster, and story coach Carlo searches for the silver lining in life during the pandemic, which is just what the Gotham Storytelling Festival is offering all of us for two weeks.