Hedi Rudd
Seen from the back looking out over large audience is Dasha Kelly Hamilton at the mic.
Dasha Kelly Hamilton onstage at a previous Moth GrandSLAM.
Last December, Danielle Hairston Green took the stage in front of a roomful of strangers and told a witty, passionate story about “leaping and soaring” to overcome life’s obstacles. Not only did she receive raucous applause, but she also won that night’s monthly themed StorySLAM at the High Noon Saloon, sponsored by The Moth Madison.
On Oct. 14, Hairston Green will join nine other area storytellers at The Barrymore Theatre to compete in the first in-person Madison Moth GrandSLAM Championship since October 2019. All participants are fellow StorySLAM winners, determined by a panel of judges selected from the audience at each monthly event. The others are Sandra Bonnici, James Gordon, Marisol Gonzalez, Alexander Lathem, Conner Neeck, Charles Payne (also an Isthmus contributor), Tyson Purcell, Bill Stork and Valerie Tobias. Percussionist Yorel Lashley will be the featured musician.
Madison is one of two Wisconsin cities (Milwaukee is the other) that are part of The Moth, a nonprofit New York City-based organization launched in 1997 and dedicated to the art and craft of storytelling around the country. This will be the fourth Madison Moth GrandSLAM, and the third hosted by Wisconsin Poet Laureate Dasha Kelly Hamilton.
“The beauty of storytelling is that we see ourselves in every story, even if it has nothing to do with our lives,” she says.
This year’s theme will be “Blessings in Disguise,” and participants will have up to six minutes to tell a true story — without notes — that could have the audience giggling or weeping.
Stork, who runs Lake Mills Veterinary Clinic, is a longtime StorySLAM participant with a reputation for sharing sob stories. “Inevitably, no matter what my story was intended to be, either a dog got euthanized or somebody ended up dying,” he says. “So at a StorySLAM with the Valentine’s Day theme of ‘Love Hurts,’ I climbed up on stage and told a story about being in vet school when my dog ate a used condom. I induced vomiting on him, and he puked on the sidewalk in front of the Baptists who were my next-door neighbors on their way to church.”
There will be three sets of judging teams chosen from the audience, according to Jen Rubin, who co-produces The Moth in Madison with Noel Mariano and co-hosts the “Inside Stories” podcast with local writer Takeyla Benton.
“It’s going to be a fun night,” Rubin says. “I don’t know what stories these 10 people are going to tell, but they’re going to make you think about something you haven’t thought about before.”
That alone is reason enough to get an advance ticket. But there’s also the warm sense of community attendees typically feel. “It’s important for people to find a home to not only share their thoughts and experiences, but to do so in a space that’s nonjudgmental and where people are vulnerable,” says Hairston Green, who is director for the Human Development and Relationships Institute in the University of Wisconsin-Madison Division of Extension. “Sometimes at StorySLAMS, you’re in front of people you’ve never met and may never see again, and that’s a freeing experience.”
“When you share a piece of yourself with someone else,” Kelly Hamilton adds, “you have gifted them — literally — another world.”
[Editor's note: this story has corrected Alexander Lathem's name.]
