Feeling a bit sick?
Commiserate with fellow sickos at tonight’s installment of the monthly storytelling series Ask Me (the theme is “Sicko!”), co-hosted and co-produced by New York performers and artists David Crabb and Cammi Climaco.
“It’s a curated show,” says Crabb on the differences between his series and, say, The Moth, the uber-popular live storytelling series. “The readers know about the theme and are prepared ahead of time. Although we are talking about adding a slam element for people to tell their own stories.”
Crabb was studying and working with Kevin Allison from the sketch-comedy group The State on the podcast for Allison’s own storytelling series, RISK!, and figured he’d like to produce his own.
Crabb says the presenters (this week, they have Allen Warnock, Brian David Sloan and Ross Hyzer on deck) must tell the story from memory — no paper is allowed. And so far, Ask Me has produced some very memorable moments.
“Recently, we had a guy tell a story about how when he was 12 and didn’t know he was gay yet, he read an entire essay to his sixth grade class on why Madonna was the best person in the world. Which, of course, resulted in horrible taunting and bullying. He then read that essay at our show. It was hilarious and touching all at the same time.”
