Storytellers

The Tale of a Yarn-Spinner
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124043978013345219.html

...... the Moth is a completely original phenomenon: It's the only organization dedicated to real raconteuring, which is a great art but a totally neglected one. It's never been properly celebrated. You can't compare it to monologuists such as the late Spalding Grey because those are very formal, memorized occasions. It's not stand-up comedy because you're telling true stories at the Moth, often very funny ones, with a lot of elaboration of course -- we expect that. It's not the Arabian Nights because those are fossilized folk tales. We're talking about what I call 'kitchen tales': There has to be a feeling of spontaneity, of seeing the process happen, as if friends are talking, with a really intimate bond between audience and narrator. That's the reason, for example, why we usually don't do the Moth in big theaters.
- George Dawes Green

Useful link:
www.themoth.org

Spot on. As a Moth storyteller, all your flaws and fakeries, awkwardness or slickness, are instantly visible on stage. Great idea. I liked it.