Thanks to the popularity of radio shows like This American Life, memoirists like David Sedaris, and events like the Moth, storytelling events are booming, particularly in our town of book lovers and tall-tale pioneers. Almost every week of the month offers at least one opportunity to watch friends and strangers get on stage and share their innermost secrets, often related to a topic or theme (sex, embarrasing childhood diaries, sex, religion, sex).

There are events for every story taste and type: comedic, serious, rehearsed, off the cuff, angsty, R-rated. Some offer veteran yarn-spinners; others are open to anyone. The list below attempts to help you find the stories you most want to hear—or a stage you might want to jump on yourself. We'll try to update this post monthly, so check back regularly.  

Urban Tellers
Urban Tellers provides a platform for performers who've gone through Portland Story Theater's Art of Personal Narrative workshops to find and hone their story. The results are highly personal and authentic narratives, often going for impact and craft over humor, making UT one of the more serious events in town.
Storytellers: Grads of the 8-session Portland Story Theater workshops or occasional invited tellers
Audience vibe: Connected and supportive. Many audience members are regulars.
Coached: Yes
Sell out potential: High
Frequency: Monthly. Portland Story Theater also produces other special events (Valentine's, Solo Series, etc) that we will add during the appropriate months.
Next show: The next Urban tellers is Oct 11 at 8 pm. PST co-founder Lawrence Howard restages his one-man Shackleton’s Antarctic Nightmare: The True Story of the 1914 Voyage of The Endurance on Oct 18 at 8 pm. Alberta Abbey. Tickets $15–20
 

Mystery Box

 

Back Fence PDX: Mainstage

Back Fence PDX is the godfather of Portland storytelling nights, drawing both the biggest names to its stage and the biggest audiences. It's so big, in fact, it now offers three different events. The performers come from varying backgrounds, from pet psychic to funeral home worker to scientist, to tell a story based on a monthly theme. They're coached, but not allowed to use notes, which means sometimes they go astray, but generally Back Fence storytellers are consistently some of the best in town.

Storytellers: Varied. Each lineup includes a healthy dose of veteran performers (musicians, actors, comedians) from Portland and some big name imports from New York, LA, and elsewhere (The Moth's Dan Kennedy, actor Wendi McLendon Clovey, etc.)

Audience vibe: Intense

Coached: Yes, but memorization is discouraged.

Sell out potential: High

Frequency: Bi-monthly

Mortified
Most sane people leave their middle and high school diaries in a box in the attic (if they don't burn them in despair). Other less sane people get on stage and read them, verbatim. No surprise, Mortified (a local offshoot of a national franchise) offers some of the most embarassing and squeamish stories in town, but the flip side is that the audience seems united in that embarrassment, because we can all identify with writing (or at least thinking) about how much we wanted to lose our virginity, how it felt like our life was over when so-and-so broke up with us after six days, or any number of now trivial-seeming angst.

Storytellers: Anyone with a well-logged diary from their teen years that can be sculpted into a story arc

Audience vibe: Embarrassed, squeamish, and nostalgic

Coached: Tellers work with a producer to edit their writings, which they can read, resulting in perhaps the most consistently strong performances in town.

Sell out potential: Two shows, and both sell out

Frequency: Bi-monthly

Next show: November 5–6 at 7 pm. Alberta Rose Theatre. Tickets $15

 

 

Back Fence: Russian Roulette

Back Fence's risky version of a story slam, contestants spin a wheel to get a story prompt and then get five minutes to come up with a five minute (but still very true) story. The audience chooses the winner, who is invited back the following month to defend her title.

Storyteller Bios: Former Mainstage performers, stand up comedians, sketch comedy actors, writers, and other pinch-hitting raconteurs invited by the Back Fence production team

Audience vibe: Excited

Coached: No

Sell out potential: High

Frequency: Bi-monthly

Next show: Disjecta, 8371 N Interstate. Tickets $15–18

Back Fence: Reel Stories
The newest in Back Fence's smorgasbord invites filmmakers to use footage—clips, outtakes, behind-the-scenes footage—to build their narratives. 
Storyteller Bios: Documentary and feature film writers and directors
Audience vibe: Prepared for greatness
Coached: No
Sell out potential: High
Frequency: Infrequent
Next show: Hollywood Theatre, 4122 NE Sandy Blvd. Tickets $15

The Moth Story Slam

Portland Storyteller's Guild
This group consists of a close circle of storytellers who venture into that seemingly forbidden storytelling land: fiction. Each performance is a smattering of both true and fictionalized stories, whether completely made up or true events told through a creative lens, with a focus on the love of simply well told stories.
Storyteller Bios: Performers are selected from the previous year’s Storython performances in September and October.
Audience vibe: Literary
Coached: Yes
Sell out potential: Low
Frequency: Every second Friday
Next shows: Aug 21, 7:30. Sacred Storytelling Series: Water, Floods and the Sacred Wound with Mythteller Brian Rohr. Awakenings, 1016 SE 12th Ave. $15
Sep 13, 7:30 pm. Storython. This is Portland Storyteller's Guild version of auditions. 15 storytellers, 5 minutes each. The best of the best will be invited to be part of PSG's upcoming season's lineup. Hipbone, 1847 E Burnside. Tickets $10

Testify: A Musical Storytelling Revival
In the style of a holy-roller-church-revival-tent meeting, these mostly queer tellers add some glitz and glamour, musical performance, and comedy to their all-too-true experiences with religion, often entangled with their experiences of coming out. Floyd’s Coffee provides an intimate space for this rollicking ride of intense velocity, venerability, and vulnerability.
Storyteller Bios: Individuals invited by the show founder
Audience vibe: Interactive and accepting
Coached: No
Sell out potential: Low, however Floyd’s gets mighty packed.
Frequency: Varies
Next show: New show TBA. Floyd’s Coffee, 118 NW Couch. $5
 

Campfire Storytelling
Curious Comedy Theatre offers one of the most affordable and comfortable (i.e. no elbowing a stranger in the gut for seats) nights in town. Storytellers are selected through a pitch process. 
Storyteller Bios: Mix of solicited and unsolicited folks, veteran and newcomers, with a leaning towards comics and actors—it is a comedy club after all
Audience vibe: Relaxed and attentive
Coached: Less experienced performers receive coaching as needed.
Sell out potential: No
Frequency: Fourth Thursday
Next show: July 24, 8 pm. Curious Comedy Theater, 5225 NE MLK Blvd. $5 

Awkward Phases
This monthly storytelling event takes over Eugenio's, turning it into a makeshift stage with extra chairs toward the front. The storytellers are comedians, who often take this opportunity to tell a more personal tale, abeit with a generally lighthearted bent. The stories here are a little looser than some other storytelling events, but no less truthful, which may account for the inviting and relaxed nature of the event.
Storyteller Bios: Comics invited from Portland’s comedy community
Audience vibe: Extremely supportive and relaxed
Coached: No
Sell out potential: None. Free show!
Frequency: Monthly
Next show: New show TBA. Eugenio’s, 3584 SE Division.