About

Mission

Ex Fabula is committed to strengthening community bonds through the art of storytelling. We celebrate the power of true and personal stories to connect individuals through universal experiences. Stories build a neighborhood, stable neighborhoods connect communities, diverse communities strengthen a city. Our goal is to consistently connect storytellers and live audiences throughout the Milwaukee area.

Our History

Ex Fabula was born in the October 2009 when the 5 founders – Adam Weise, Amy Schleicher, Leah Delaney, Matt Sabljak, and Megan McGee – met for lunch at Maharaja restaurant and discussed starting a storytelling series in Milwaukee. We agreed that true, personal stories have a unique power to create connections between individuals, and we hoped to magnify that power through live events to provide meaningful local experiences. The fledgling organization was christened “Ex Fabula” – from the Latin for “from stories.”

Six weeks later, Ex Fabula debuted at Art Bar, where a crowd of 65 gathered to hear stories on the theme “Beginnings”. Increasingly large crowds caused us to seek larger venues and the enthusiastic embrace from the community showed that we had tapped into a strong need. In our first season, we hosted 7 storytelling events at 7 different locations across 5 distinct Milwaukee neighborhoods.

During our second season, our monthly event series alternated between Riverwest and BayView neighborhoods. We also introduced a new annual event, the Ex Fabula Spectacular; for this special noncompetitive event the Ex Fabula volunteers select individuals from past events who were not Audience Favorites but whose stories were especially compelling – and invite them to take the stage and share new, longer stories.

At the end of our second season we kicked off the Terminal Milwaukee project, a seven event series funded in part by a grant from the Wisconsin Humanities Council. This project lead audiences through five distinctive neighborhoods of Milwaukee and featured short tales from neighborhood residents, longer stories from self proclaimed “Terminal Milwaukeean” Tom Crawford, and historical vignettes from Milwaukee historian John Gurda. The project culminated in an event at Alverno College as part of the Alverno Presents series.

During our third season, we started a 6 month residency at the John Michael Kohler Arts Center in Sheboygan, which finished in October 2012.

Ex Fabula is currently in its fourth season.

For more information about Ex Fabula, please contact us at the following email:  info (at) exfabula (dot) com

Our events

Ex Fabula events feature true, personal stories. No props, no notes – just the elements of “Story. Stage. You”. You can come just to listen – or, if you have a story that fits the night’s theme, throw your name in the hat for a chance to take the stage.

Ex Fabula has several storytelling formats:

• “The Solo.” Individual storytellers take the stage; solos can be up to five minutes in length at regular events.
• “The Duo.” Two storytellers take the stage together to tell a story about a shared experience. At regular events, a duo can have up to ten minutes.
• “The Rashomon.” In this format named after Japanese filmmaker Akira Kurosawa’s classic that explores multiple perspectives, two storytellers will tell their versions of the same story. These stories are ten minutes total or 5 each for 2 storytellers.
• “The Terkel.” A question and answer interview format. Think Studs Terkel in your living room coaxing vignettes from an everyman, if your living room was a stage at a bar and the everyman was your father.

Would-be storytellers should choose stories that tie in to the theme and practice telling their stories without notes while respecting the time limit. At the event, a timekeeper gives the tellers cues to help them stay on track, but time flies when on stage so practicing can be very beneficial!

At many events, audience members vote for a favorite storyteller at the end of the night.

For more details about how to prepare a great story, click on “Storytelling Guidelines” on our home page.