80 Minutes Around the World: Immigration Stories
A storytelling show featuring the stories of Immigrants, refugees, asylum seekers, their descendants and allies, originally created and produced by Nestor “the Boss” Gomez, now with ongoing shows in Los Angeles, New York, Chicago – and also available as a podcast. More about 80 Minutes…
Featuring:
January 18: Franco Catalano, Nestor Gomez, & Dennis Oulahan
January 21: Nestor Gomez, Paweł Grajnert, Jitesh Jaggi, Lynne Jordan, & Julia Stoyanova
Back Room Stories
BACK ROOM STORIES features stories from across the storytelling spectrum. Our shows were produced for several years at the Oak Park Brewing Company in Oak Park. Co-producers Margaret Burk, Peter LeGrand and Megan Wells switched it up to BACK ROOM STORIES OUTSIDE! the past three summers and performed in inviting outdoor spaces. This year’s show features five tellers that share true experiences of new beginnings. More about Back Room Stories. Featuring:
January 15: Margaret Burk, Sonny Hogan, Megan Wells, & Jack Zimmerman
January 22: Margaret Burk, Jasmin Cardenas, Peter Legrand, & Megan Wells
Jimmy Carrane
World’s Greatest Dad (?)
Written and performed by Jimmy Carrane
Script and creative consultant: Gary Rudoren
Directed by: Dave Maher
Photography by: Suzanne Plunkett
After 10 years in group therapy, Jimmy Carrane is still unhappy that he is not as famous as some of the people he started out doing improv with. So when his therapist suggests that Jimmy and his wife have a baby to bring more joy into their life, Jimmy sets out to become a first-time dad at age 52, at the same time that his own father is dying. From fertility treatments to a disastrous funeral, Carrane takes us on a funny and poignant roller coaster of life and death and shares his discovery that you don’t have to be the “greatest” to be a good dad. More at jimmycarrane.com.
Julie Danis
Life’s Too Short…and So Am I
Written & performed by Julie Danis
Life’s Too Short…and So Am I is a coming of middle-age story about a woman searching for her place in the world with the help of the Queen of Reinvention.
Julie Danis is a writer, storyteller, and former global marketing/advertising executive. As a business humorist, she wrote a Chicago Tribune column called “It’s a Living” and contributed commentary to Marketplace radio. She was a writer for the award-winning documentary film, The Girl Who Wore Freedom, and her essays can be found in the 2022 anthology, Storyteller’s True Stories About Love, Chicago Writer’s Press, 20022, and the upcoming anthology, Fast Fallen Women, Woodhall Press 2023. She taught as an adjunct at Northwestern University, and is a graduate of the Second City School of Improvisation,
Northwestern and University of Chicago. Her favorite professional title was Director of Mind & Mood.
Ann Filmer
A Toast to Ideas Unlimited
Written and performed by Ann Filmer
Directed by Arlene Malinowski
Graham Filmer makes a curious toast at his daughter’s wedding
After being a huge fan of Fillet of Solo, Ann is honored to be a part of it. Filmer started as a dancer and choreographer. She then helped make plays and ran theater companies. In her third act she plays in rock and roll bands, currently singing in the psychedelic band Vinto Van Go and writing and singing in her own band Mrs Smith and the Present with her husband Barry Bennett. See what’s next at www.annfilmer.com
GeNarrations
A storytelling performance workshop for Chicagoland adults aged 55+ offered by the Goodman Theatre. Participants develop personal narrative performance pieces based on themes in Goodman productions. More about GeNarrations. Featuring:
January 14: Lisa DeSantiago, William Gregory, Melisha Mitchell, Mary O’Connell, Donna Pasternak, Oroki Rice, Dhamana Shauri, & Nancy Solomon
January 15: Mike Felten, Velma Gladney, Marcia Kittler, Nitsana Lazerus, Daphne Lecesne, Denise McIntosh, TW Miller, & Erin O’Bryen
January 21: Carol Edelson, Keith Kelleher, Lorraine McGregor, Joycelyn Merchant, BJ Parker, Pamela Schumacher, & Pete Wood
Kevin Gladish
Aunt Jean’s Last Stand
Written and performed by Kevin Gladish
Kevin is thrilled to return to Fillet of Solo, having also performed as a
storyteller at such venues as You’re Being Ridiculous, This Much is True,
Story Sessions, Story Club, That’s All She Wrote, and The Moth Grand
Slam. As an actor, he’s worked with Steep Theatre, Griffin, City Lit,
Promethian, and The Artistic Home, among others. His solo show, A Secret
in Plain Sight, about his experience as a late discovery adoptee using DNA
to find his birth family, debuted virtually at Fillet of Solo and will be live at
the Jerkot Theatre above Mrs. Murphy & Sons on Sunday, February 19.
More info at solosunday.com.
John Hahm
The Good King
Written and performed by John Hahm
Hailing from Honolulu, Hawaii, John Hahm is a Chicago writer, storyteller, a retired high school English teacher with Chicago Public Schools. He is a Fillet of Solo alumnus, and has also told his stories at Is this a thing? This Much Is True, First Person Live, 10 x 9, Pour One Out and other venues. These days he enjoys learning and dancing the tango in the Chicagoland tango and milonga community, and hopes to revisit Buenos Aires, the Paris of the Americas. John is overjoyed to share the Fillet of Solo stage again, with such amazing writers and storytellers!
June Huitt
Talking about Ourselves (in Black and White)
Written and performed by Geneva Norman and June Huitt
Geneva’s great-grandmother was enslaved in the American south. Her friend June can trace her ancestors back to members who owned enslaved people. A very personal, family-sized look at race in American history and now.
Is this a thing?
Is this a thing? is a live monthly storytelling show that takes place on the second Monday of the month (February through July & September through December) at O’Shaughnessy’s Pub in Ravenswood. The show was created in 2014, and at each show storytellers share true personal tales for one of the best live lit audiences Chicago has to offer. We workshop every show with our storytellers, and we welcome both new storytellers and seasoned performers to our stage. More about Is this a thing? Featuring:
January 13: Aaron Christensen, Jake Cowen, Calle Hack, Avesha Michael, Michelle Young, & James Wittington
January 22: Israel Antonio, Lisa Ebel, Carissa Letz, Matt Pavich, Aaron Potts, & Suzy Kahn Weinberg
Loose Chicks
Loose Chicks is a collection of courageous women who share experiences that most women keep to themselves. Each show features exceptional writers and performers who allow themselves to be vulnerable as they share with uncommon honesty. More about Loose Chicks.
Featuring: Kelly Anchors, Jillian Erickson, Calle Hack, Roberta Miles, & Lynne Roberts
The Lifeline Storytelling Project
The Lifeline Storytelling Project produces storytelling events featuring Lifeline-affiliated artists. Featuring:
- Nona Flores (On the Lam from Canadian Authorities)
- Jay Lenn (Great Grandma Was a Studebaker)
- Amanda Link (Get Lost)
- Paula Ann Lopez (Stay Anyway)
Maria Kostas
The Other Side
written and performed by Maria Kostas
Maria Kostas has stepped into many different roles throughout her years on Earth, allowing her to see life through several different lenses and listen to stories from various voices. She had been an entrepreneur, faculty member, Workforce Development Trainer, a carny, a bartender, and clairvoyant. She has told stories on various stages around Chicago and in the suburbs. Currently she teaches mediation, does some psychic/energy readings, and adds a touch of love in cocktails she mixes while working special events on the weekends. She is thrilled to be asked to return to Filet of Solo this year, so much so that she postponed getting out of Chicago during January!
Mia McCullough
Milkshakes and Morphine
Written and performed by Mia McCullough
A daughter recounts her repeated attempts to get healthcare professionals to pay attention to her mother’s unacknowledged eating disorder.
Errol McLendon
Inner State Stories
Written and performed by Errol McLendon
Directed by Kim Morris
On a month-long memorial road trip following the death of his roadside-attraction loving mother, Errol revisits the lessons he learned from her on their many road-trips. Their memories of their early travels together became an oasis of calm when Alzheimer’s took her short term memory away.
A celebration of recollections and their power to keep people in our lives long after they are gone. This show will be performed in retirement communities this summer. In order to duplicate the retirement community performance experience, there will be a brief conversation after the main show where audience members can share their road trip memories. More at innerstatestories.com.
Geneva Norman
Talking about Ourselves (in Black and White)
Written and performed by Geneva Norman and June Huitt
Geneva’s great-grandmother was enslaved in the American south. Her friend June can trace her ancestors back to members who owned enslaved people. A very personal, family-sized look at race in American history and now.
Paul Pasulka
Wanna See a Dead Rat: As I Was Saying.
Written & performed by Paul Pasulka
He was honored to be onstage at Fillet of Solo in 2016 telling “Wanna See a Dead Rat” – his quest to learn the rules of navigation for life. The saga continues in “Wanna See a Dead Rat: As I Was Saying.”
More about Paul at paulpasulka.com & paulpasulkaplays.com
OUTspoken!
OUTspoken! is comprised of storytellers who identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, or queer recalling true personal events. Stories are often funny, heartfelt, and sometimes historically significant. The audience will get a window into the lives of a variety of human experiences that will connect on an emotional level regardless of sexual identity. More about OUTspoken!
Featuring: Anna DeShawn, Steven Hovorka, Maria Kostas, Joe Mellen, & R.C. Riley
R.C. Riley
I’m Not Trying To Be Funny, But
Written and performed by R.C. Riley
Directed by Emmi Hilger
R.C.’s first attempt at a humorous solo show with a nod to stand-up comedy will leave you in deep reflection about relationships, perspectives, and what you laugh at to keep from crying. I’m Not Trying To Be Funny, But… sometimes you just have to laugh!
Sarah Ruthless
GOD IS NAKED
Written and performed by Sarah Ruthless
An eleven year old begins to question their father’s god.
Sarah Ruthless (they/them) is a Chicago based writer, artist, performer, and blasphemer. You can check out more of their work at www.sarahjruthless.com
Serving the Sentence
Serving the Sentence is a live lit show in which different storytellers take the same first sentence — each in their own direction. At the end of the show, a new sentence is drawn that the next show’s storytellers will embark from! More about Serving the Sentence.
Connie Shirakawa
Woman Warrior
Written and performed by Connie Shirakawa
Directed by Sharon Evans
Connie Shirakawa reflects on four generations of her female family members, their history in America and how they coped with discrimination and displacement with their grit, wit and tenacity.
Tony Smith
How I Became a Juvenile Delinquent
Written and performed by Tony Smith
Tony Smith is a semi-retired accountant and consultant living in Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin. He has three adult sons and spends his time reading, volunteering, woodworking, maintaining a couple of small wooden boats, and writing essays. He grew up in Libertyville, Illinois. His father was a journalist and his mother a
librarian. He has four brothers and four sisters. He reads his stories on a regular basis at an open mic setting called “Writers’ Night” in Sturgeon Bay, and he has read at Short Story Theatre in Highwood, Illinois. He publishes stories at www.toekneestories.com.
Francesca Sobrer
Tidepools
Written and Performed by Francesca Sobrer
Directed by Susan Clement & Mari Weiss
One woman’s journey swimming in and out of the flotsam and jetsam of life.
Ever a beach girl, Chicago Storyteller Francesca Sobrer takes us for a ride in the waves with stories of finding and living love only to be caught in an undertow of loss and grief that eventually drifts back on the shore in a tidepool of realized joy.
More about Francesca at: francescasobrer.com
Mike Speller
E for Eh?
Mike Speller is always “Going Places” (he’s visited 49 of our 50 states). He’s been featured at the Sterling, LaCrosse, Fox Valley, and Ray Bradbury Festivals. Locally, he’s performed with This Much is True, Back Room Stories, and Homewood Stories. His collection of gothic horror tales, “Fear Itself,” has frightened hundreds of fans at fringe festivals across the nation. And if you’ve got a free ticket to Hawaii….
Story Neighborhood w/ Lily Be
Lily Be, host and creator of Stoop Style Stories and a Moth
GrandSLAM Champion hosts Chicago’s only
gameshow where everyone gets to play. Participants are
asked to share stories to create a Story Neighborhood
where everyone in attendance can live.
Co-hosted by Lily Be and Jenny Delissio-Parson
Story Sessions
Produced and hosted by Jill Howe
Story Sessions is a monthly show in Edgewater featuring a collection of curated performers and open mics sharing true personal stories that will tug at your heart strings, tickle your funny bone and take your mind on a wild adventure. First Fridays at Sauce and Bread Kitchen also feature delicious fresh pizza and BYO. The show is an hour long without intermission, so there is plenty of time to hang out with fellow story lovers. The show is free and always will be.
More about Story Sessions.
Molly Surowitz
Bubbles & Boxes
Written & Performed by Molly Surowitz
Directed by Charles Ashkenaizer
Featuring music by Comfort Lord
Bubbles & Boxes is an autobiographical inquiry into race and identity, traveling through time across generations.
More about Molly Surowitz
Sweat Girls
Sweat Menders
With 30 years of shared history, the Sweat Girls have been called “the undisputed tribal elders” of the solo performance scene (Chicago Reader, 2014). Known for their “contagious gusto,” the Sweats are glad to represent the graying edge of Chicago’s flourishing Live Lit community. More about Sweat Girls.
Tellin’ Tales Theatre w/ Tekki Lomniki
Tellin’ Tales Theatre shatters the barriers between the disabled and non-disabled worlds through storytelling. More about Tellin’ Tales Theatre.
Featuring: Tekki Lomnicki, Shawn Cobb, & Adam Homer Lawson
