Ex Fabula Featured on Philanthroper.com on Friday Sept 23, 2011

A big thank you to Philanthroper.com for featuring Ex Fabula as its daily featured non-profit to support on Friday Sept 23rd, 2011! Our mission is to connect storytellers with live audiences to build stronger communities. We run a monthly story slam series from October to May in Milwaukee and do special projects oriented around sharing and listening to true, personal stories.

If you’ve come to our page through the Philanthroper site, welcome! Please look around as we have lots of stories to share in our archives.

Here are some of our favorites to get your started:

Cindy Grover’s Gifts story:

Watch Jeanie Dean’s Stranger in a Strange Land story:

You can click on the tags to the right for “Live Stories Audio” and “Ex Fabula Video” to hear and see more of our great stories.

Terminal Milwaukee is our latest special event series and takes us on a journey following one charismatic native son of Milwaukee, Tom Crawford. We are holding live events over the course of a year to revisit some of the neighborhoods of his life where he tells stories at each one, along with current neighborhood residents telling their own stories about the neighborhood. Historian John Gurda helps share the story of the neighborhood itself through historical vignettes told at each event.

Tom told his first great Ex Fabula story on the theme “Busted”:

You can watch a trailer for the Terminal Milwaukee series here:

Thank you for checking out  Ex Fabula!

 

 

Video Medley from Ex Fabula ALL STARS

For those of you who missed “Secrets and Lies” on June 2 at Turner Hall, here’s a video medley from our fine friends at High Frequency Media:

Recap of All Stars 2011

by Ex Fabula blogger Steph Kilen

photos by Kat Berger

We have a secret: our All-Stars event at Turner Hall was made extra fantastic because of a visit from famed actor John C. Reilly. Ok, that’s a lie. Well, at least the John C. Reilly part. And the part about it being a secret… it’s not, because we just posted it on the web, duh.) But the part about it being extra fantastic? 100% truth, baby. And that’s because it featured seven all-star storytellers  and Milwaukee historian John Gurda, and Milwaukee legend-in-the-making Tom Crawford.

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Mr. Gurda kicked off the night of “Secrets and Lies” with a brief, true history of Turner Society, the organization that gave Milwaukee its socialist mayors and an aspiration for “sound mind in a sound body.” He also answered the question on everyone’s mind: How many Germans can you fit into Turner Hall? (3000 if you’re wondering.)

Bob Murray, the first All Star to grace the stage, divulged the secret of the night he both lost his virginity and became someone’s one-night-stand in one, incredibly awkward, fell swoop. Bob may have lost the female vote when he stated that he had a hard time losing his virginity in the first place because “no girl wants to sleep with a guy who is skinnier than they are” (80%true) and “that’s a hard thing to overcome in Wisconsin” (not a lie, just ignorance, silly boy.)

Anja Notanja passionately gave the audience this advice, “If you are going to lie, lie all the way, lie with your heart” along with an illustration of how she did just that during her stint as a street psychic who received radio waves from space. Many wondered what the treat of her singing a song “in her native tongue” (LIE!) had to do with it, but no matter.

After an intermission, Scott Heaton kicked off the second round of stories with this secret: “When I slack, I do not fuck around.” His story of slacking on the job with Saz’s catering proved the statement to be the truth.

Amie Losi  shared a story of romantic relationships and the lies she tells herself and her well meaning mother along the way.

Then, Tom Crawford kicked off the new Ex Fabula storytelling series, “Terminal Milwaukee.” The series follows Tom through Milwaukee neighborhoods in which he has lived or worked. This first story, which took place outside his former residence in Bayview, featured neighborhood watch, “exotic fireworks” and vigilante justice gone awry. Told with the detail, heart and humor that has made Tom a favorite with the Ex Fabula crowd (and, you know, the centerpiece for the Terminal Milwaukee project), his story prompted at least one audience member to put him down as a write-in on the evening’s ballot.

Isaiah Rembert and Clifford Smith, whose November duo about “Neighbors” was selected as Audience Favorite, showed us both sides of lying while dating. Clifford – the lied to – agreed to meet a girl he met on the Internet, only to discover that she wasn’t the girl he had been talking to online, but her 16-year old sister who fled her dying mother’s bedside with stolen credit cards to meet him. Isaiah – he who lied – struggled with jealousy and an imaginary “ACLU lawyer” ex-girlfriend. Seems either side of lying in love is messy.

Finally, Brooke Maroldi, who has previously had audiences rolling with stories of being pulled over with torrents of snot coming out of her face and a priest who declared her soul in a “state of emergency,” chose to show her storytelling talent on the other end of the spectrum with a story where she poured out her heart and the family secret of her brother’s gambling addiction and the rift it caused between them.

After the audience voted, the trailer for Terminal Milwaukee was screened for the first time. For those who missed it, here is the online version of the trailer:

Once the ballots were counted, Amie won the right to wear the grungy Ex Fabula crown, as her story was selected Audience Favorite. Don’t lie; sorry you missed it, aren’t you? No worries, plenty more to come: Terminal Milwaukee continues Saturday July 23, Guerilla Story Slams will visit yet-to-be-disclosed locations throughout the summer and then, yes, we’ll be back for another season next fall. It ain’t no secret, so spread the word and share your story!

WATCH! Last Month’s Winning ‘Emergency!’ Story

‘Anja Notanja’ is what she has penned herself to be called. ’Audience Favorite’ is what the Ex Fabula audience from our March event prefers to call her.  Get warmed up for our final event of the season, on Tuesday April 12th at the  Bay View Brew Haus, by watching her tell the winning story about her ’Emergency!’.

Emergency

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On Thursday June 2nd, Anja, along with all of our last season’s audience favorites, will compete side by side on the stage of Turner Hall Ballroom,  at our grand finale of story telling: the ALL STARS.

The theme: ‘Secrets & Lies’. Believe you me, Ex Fabula will have a couple of secrets to share this evening, too. 

For more information and/or to reserve your ticket:
http://www.pabsttheater.org/show/exfabulaallstars

LISTEN!! Ex Fabula Radio Show

The next Ex Fabula Radio Show will be on Sunday March 27th, at 10pm on WUWM 89.7. The show  will feature stories from the Ex Fabula Spectacular that was held at Turner Hall Ballroom, in December 2010 – The theme: ‘Gifts’

WATCH!! Scott Heaton tells his ‘Valentine/Anti-Valentine’ Story

Get ready for our Wednesday 3/16th  event by listening to last month’s Audience Favorite, Scott Heaton. Watch as he energetically retells a night of road tripping from Milwaukee to Chicago that ends with some action packed cockblocking. All in the name of friendship.

http://vimeo.com/21063580

See you at 8pm, Wednesday March 16th, for  our next story slam, themed ‘Emergency!’ held at Stonefly Brewery in Riverwest.

Ex Fabula – It Gets Better – Bob Murray

Ex Fabula’s It Gets Better event’s winning story from Bob Murray. Scroll down to see more stories from this event and to read the event recap.

It Gets Better by Tim Clark

Ex Fabula : It Gets Better by Tim Clark from Erik Ljung on Vimeo.

WATCH! Spectacular Video “Gifts”

Take a look at this medley of  ’Gift’ stories that were told at Ex Fabula’s Spectacular event held at Turner Hall ballroom.   Some of Milwaukee’s best; Grant Hagen, Amie Losi, Dan Niederloh, Deaduri Gales, Emmett Gross, Cindy Grover and Lisa Gatewood.

This spectacular video was taped by Cole Quamme,  Ryan Reeve, Li Wang, Adam Presti.  Art Direction and editing performed by Adam Presti and Kara Mulrooney.

See you on Tuesday 1/11/11 at Stonefly Brewery for our ‘It Gets Better’ story slam.

Ex Fabula Spectacular Bits:

WATCH! “Neighbors” Winning Story: Isaiah and Cliff Rashomon (Video)

November’s “Neighbors” event at Bay View Brew Haus was a packed house and a blast with some great neighborhood stories.

Erik Ljung created this creatively spliced video of the winning story for us: Isaiah Rembert and Clifford Smith told a Rashomon – the same story told from two different viewpoints. Make sure to watch all the way to the end!