A family survives five days in the wilderness, only to have things go wrong on the drive home. A middle-aged man takes up skateboarding. A relaxing spa day becomes anything but. And an international house-sitting assignment in Portugal proves impossible.
In each scenario, failure is the starting point for these true and personal stories at In a Nutshell Storytelling: Epic Fails, Aug. 28 at The Sofia.
The monthly series brings different storytellers together around a common theme. Co-founder Amy Bee says the stories aren’t random. Rather, organizers curate them, consider their order and work with host Keith Lowell Jensen to find ways to connect them.
“There is a theatrical element to it,” Bee says.
Bee says the format remains true personal storytelling from month to month, while the storytellers and themes change. Organizers have also been working to make the themes more specific and the individual stories more cohesive.
“It’s all different stories, and it’s all different points of view,” Bee says.
Hearing several stories about the same subject, she says, can leave audience members reflecting on their own experiences afterward. This month, that common subject explores the idea of what happens when things go terribly wrong.
Four ways things can go wrong
In one story, Tom Darci, co-founder and co-host of Oakland’s Pretty Good Stories, tells what happened when his family survived five days in the wilderness only to have the drive home in their camper van not go according to plan.
Max Houghton, a writer, human rights activist and winner of The Moth GrandSlam in San Francisco, followed a therapist’s suggestion to find a new hobby that would get him outside and socializing. He chose skateboarding in middle age—which, perhaps, was not a good idea in the end.