“All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.”
So says one of the characters in William Shakespeare’s As You Like It, and this month, at Riley’s Pour House, an impressive roster of storytellers got the chance to prove the wisdom of those words.
The event was Storytelling Night at Riley’s, the theme was Theatre Stories, and once again, the house was packed. In all, the night prove a worthy followup to last month’s Stories from the Writing Life.
In keeping with Shakespeare’s words, the storytellers presented a wide variety of stories, tales that dealt with topics that ranged from wrangling Munchkins in a performance of The Wizard of Oz to saving a dog from a tragic career-ending performance. In between, the evening’s special guests — members of Pittsburgh’s Throughline Theatre Company — previewed scenes from their upcoming world-premier of C. S. Wyatt’s A New Death.
The night got off to a humorous start with Michael McBurney (Director of Public Relations at Throughline Theatre), whose story proved that what goes up must come down — especially when one finds himself unexpectedly suspended 20 feet above a stage, clinging to the rope of a theatre’s fly system.
Michael, who holds BAs in Comparative Literature and History from Penn State University (where he took part in over 30 productions with the No Refund Theatre), has worked on productions at Carlow University and the Summer Company at Duquesne University, as well as numerous production at Throughline.
Beginning with this post, I’d like to share some of the highlights from this month’s performances, so please check back in the days ahead. If there’s a particular story you’d like to hear, please let me know by posting to the comment box below. Also, if you have any comments or suggestions about the Storytelling at Riley’s series, I’d love to hear about that as well.
Now, without further delay, here is the first of this month’s theatre stories: “The Best Dr Pepper I Ever Had” by Michael McBurney. Enjoy!
The host of Storytelling Night at Riley’s: Bram Stoker Award finalist Lawrence C. Connolly is the author of the Veins Cycle books, the first of which, Veins, has just been released in a special Kindle edition from Fantasist Enterprises. The third book in the series, Vortex, will debut in print and ebook later this year.
Leave a Reply