“The Elephant” appeared again to a sold out crowd! On January 31, 2018, the second annual event at Alliance for the Arts in Fort Myers, Florida, opened to our storytelling fans with a showcase performance of ten amazing tellers. The stories ranged from personal to folk tales that captivated, titillated, and inspired our audience. (You can find more about that event in my prior blog post.)
It all began in 2015 with the idea of starting a community for storytelling in Southwest Florida. Tashahara Jallad, Rhonda Brazina, Mary Lou Williams, and Joel Ying formed the Storytellers of the Round Table. Instead of traveling across the country to storytelling events, we wanted to bring events to our local community (and give ourselves an audience for our own stories). We tapped into local talent from storytelling guilds and Toastmasters public speaking groups. We created free events with tellers that were vetted and sometimes even coached. We wanted to give our local community the experience of quality storytelling to captivate, inspire, and connect.
The first storytelling showcase was August 2015, then December 2015. One of the benefits of having ten tellers and an emcee in an event is that we have a built in audience. We at least have an audience of ten. However, we generated an audience of over 40 as friends brought friends, and our local promotion was successful with email, Facebook, Eventbrite, and local newspaper and magazine calendar listings.
Storytelling Goes to the Big Stage
After the second event, we thought: “Why not produce a paid event in a real theater?” It seemed like an outlandish idea, but when we checked the rates and decided to split the risk among the four of us, it was a go! In January, we decided to plan another small free event as promotion in March 2016. We then booked the theater for April 2016 in Naples, Florida.
The weekend before the theater event was the Florida Storytelling Festival. When we left for the festival, only 25 of 100 seats were sold. We were distraught! However, luck was on our side. The Florida Weekly Newspaper wrote an article on the front page of their entertainment section to go with the event listing that we submitted. This free paper is read widely by our community for people looking for things to do. The newspaper came out on Thursday, and by Monday, we were shocked to find out that the show was SOLD OUT!
The event was a HUGE success. We presented our best 10 stories, got an amazing emcee, and the audience gave us a standing ovation. We had brought storytelling into the mainstream entertainment world.
Let’s Do It Again!
With success behind us, we thought: “We can do this again.” And we did. In January 2017, we brought the same show to the Alliance for the Arts theater in Fort Myers, Florida. When we told them that we had a sold out show in Naples and we brought them the newspaper article, they booked us right away. The Alliance for the Arts helped us with promotion by getting us into local newspapers. We promoted locally to Toastmasters, local social groups, and local communities. It was another HUGE success with 135 seats SOLD OUT!
And Again and Again!
And now we thought, let’s make it an annual event. Having built an audience of storytelling fans, we created the next storytelling showcase event. That’s when the name, “The Elephant,” dropped into my head one day. Our event has “stories that you will never forget.” “It’s HUGE.” It’s even bigger than The Moth.
Our showcase events always include the range of stories, including personal stories, tall tales, fractured fairy tales, literary tales, and more. We have ten tellers of diverse backgrounds, telling their best stories. The Elephant II was in Naples in April 2017 and in Fort Myers in January 2018.
Stay tuned! We plan to continue. The Elephant never forgets. The Elephant III is schedule for Monday, April 23, 2018, 7pm at Sugden Theatre on Fifth Avenue in Naples, Florida. Get your ticket. (239) 263-7990. We are going to SELL OUT again! For more details and online tickets: opendreaming.com/elephant
