2nd Story 2009 Festival kicks off on Thursday

April 20, 9:31 AMChicago Literary Scene ExaminerRobert Duffer

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Last night 2nd Story previewed its seventh-annual festival with Ladies Night, selling out the second storey at Webster's Wine Bar.  Starting this Thursday, April 23 and running until Sunday, May 10, the growing Festival has added new writers and actors to its repertoire, with 12 nights over three extended weekends, 54 stories and 5,000 glasses of wine. If you go on a Thursday or Sunday, the $18 ticket will get you not only four distinct storytellers sharing such purposely interpretive themes such as "Lay Your Hands on Me" or "Mommy Dearest" but a flight of wine(two oz. tastes of three featured wines). For the same price on Fridays and Saturdays you get an extra storyteller.

The evening, and especially the story, is not the work of a single storyteller, however. Operating under the influence and history of Serendipity Theater Collective, which is celebrating its tenth year, 2nd Story brings together an entire team of theater professionals, writers, actors, sound and lighting technicians, and a DJ or two in collaboration. According to Director of Story Development Megan Stielstra, the collaboration gives the audience "the meat of [storyteller's] experiences--the wild beauty of it all, the destruction and the hope." Stielstra and 2nd Story partner Amanda Delheimer, who is Artistic Director, want--out of both the festival and the monthly series--the audience to feel the raw intimacy and urgency of being in a dear friend's living room when that fateful secret is finally revealed, enabled of course by a glass or bottle of wine. Storytellers perform first-person relevatory stories from memory for the most part, with accompanying sound (think This American Life in first person) and strategic lighting on the storyteller's barstool as the rest of the room is darkened.

The conceit is simple enough and is the reason why 2nd Story sells out regularly and performs all over the city. What belies this laid-back living-room premise is the hours of work and months of preparation that go into each story told at the festival. I performed with 2nd Story a few years back and it's a lot of work because everyone sincerely wants the story to be the best it can be. The collaboration elevates the performance much more than a monologue, a memoir, or mere reading could ever do. A single polished piece, once accepted, may go through 5-10 additional drafts. Each story gets read by the story development team, comprosed of four or five theater and writing professionals. Once accpeted, the writer reads it to Stielstra and Delheimer, who give initial feedback. Then each storyteller, whether his strength is as an actor or a writer, is teamed with a director and a sound engineer who meet several times to hone and time the piece.   

The audience experiences the product of this intense collaboration without being aware of the work that goes into it. In many ways, 2nd Story comes off like a magician's illusion, leaving a roomful of people enchanted, and in many cases, awed. 

Stay posted for an in-depth interview with Stielstra, who berates me for asking her to identify singularly favorite wines and singularly favorite books.