Woodstock to play host to new open mic storytelling event at Stage Left Cafe

Event will be hosted by professional storyteller Jim May

Participants watch while Jim May of Spring Grove tells a story Nov. 23, 2013, during the sixth annual Tellebration Celebration hosted by the McHenry County Conservation District and the McHenry County Storytelling Guild. The Tellebration Celebration is an event where  storytellers and community members tell stories appropriate for all ages about nature, folklore and tall tales at the Prairieview Education Center in Crystal Lake.

Amateur and professional storytellers will get a chance to tell their stories Sunday afternoon at the Stage Left Cafe’s open mic storytelling event, hosted by an Emmy-award winning storyteller who has worked with the Woodstock Opera House for two decades.

Those interested are encouraged to bring their own stories and will be given a six-minute time limit to tell them. Potential themes include, “I screwed up, but nobody died,” “encounter with an angel,” “scar stories” and “brushes with death,” according to the event’s flyer.

Jim May, a professional storyteller who will be hosting the event, said he’s been hosting similar storytelling events at the Woodstock Opera House for a few years, but the open-mic aspect will be new.

Even then, May has held one-off open mic events, such as last October, when he invited people to come and tell their own ghost stories.

“It’s regular people getting up to tell about their life experience,” he said. “We want this to be an incubator for people who want to tell their story.”

May is a teacher and author who has won an Emmy for his storytelling, according to his website. He will host the event alongside Mike Preston, a stand-up comic who has also begun to dabble in storytelling in recent years after a near-death experience that he wanted to talk about.

“It was one of the most interesting things to happen to me, but it’s not good standup fodder,” Preston said.

For Preston, “putting butts in the seats is essential,” he said. He’s trying to get the word out after some previous events didn’t see huge turnouts.

The value the event can bring to the community is providing a way for people to tell their story and share their experience, Preston said.

“It’s an interesting art form, and it should be preserved,” Preston said. “Everybody’s got a story to tell.”

Woodstock Opera House’s Managing Director Daniel Campbell said May has been hosting his storytelling events for the past two decades, which has normally seen him bring in guests.

Campbell said he thinks the event fulfills a few needs the opera house has.

For starters, in an effort to diversify its programming, the open-mic storytelling invites artists from all over the state and country, Campbell said. It’s also another art form the opera house can host.

“It fills in some of the artistic needs for our theater,” Campbell said. “People have been telling stories since the days of … campfires and caves. It’s got thousands of years behind it.”

For Sunday, May said he plans to participate and has some other colleagues he has in mind that could attend. He also specified this event is for adults.

The open mic event will be held from 3 to 5 p.m. every third Sunday.