Passages by Candlelight

Every story is a passage, and every passage leads somewhere.

Six storytellers. One room, lit by candles. Seven minutes each, and nothing between you and the voice.

Some will read from the page. Some will tell it from memory. You will not always know which, and after the first minute you will stop caring. That is the thing about a story told well out loud: it stops being a performance and becomes a place you are standing in.

And here is the part we love most. The stories do not have to be true.

Some of what you hear will have happened. Some of it will have been invented that week, at a kitchen table, by someone who wanted to see if it would hold up in a room full of strangers. You are not being asked to sort one from the other. You are being asked to go along. A made-up story told by someone who means it will take you further than a true one told carelessly, and both are welcome here.

We have all been read to. Most of us not since we were small. There is a reason it worked then and a reason it still works now, and it has very little to do with the words on the page and everything to do with someone sitting close enough to see your face while they say them.

Six will try to carry you somewhere. You will not move, and you will still arrive. Three people drawn from the audience decide who carried you furthest. That storyteller carries the night, leaves as Wayfinder, and comes back for the season final.

Doors at 6:30. Stories at 7:00. Results just before 8:00, and then stay as long as you like.

Come early, get a glass, take a seat near the front. The candles do the rest.