Before Beau Ryder Davis ever stepped onto a Sacramento stage, he was already deep in the storytelling world.<\/p>\n
Growing up in Hazard, Kentucky \u2014 and later performing in places like Louisville \u2014 Davis found early success on storytelling stages, eventually becoming a nine-time Moth Story Slam Award winner. When he moved to the West Coast, he was looking for that same sense of community, and found it in events like In a Nutshell, where he performed in the very first show.<\/p>\n
Now a Nutshell mainstay, Davis brings stories shaped by family, memory and the unique lens of Appalachian life \u2014 stories that, as he puts it, aim to make audiences feel something lasting, whether that\u2019s laughter, reflection or everything in between.<\/p>\n
You were part of the very first In a Nutshell show. What stands out to you about that experience?<\/p>\n
It was really fun because I moved out here from where I\u2019ve been living \u2014 grew up in Kentucky, lived in Virginia for a few years as I was getting my grad degree \u2014 and I had sort of been a part of the storytelling scene in Louisville, done a bunch of the Moths and stuff. So when I moved out here, I was kind of looking to see if that was, you know, something that you could see out here on the West Coast.<\/p>\n
And I think I might have seen Keith go up at one of his first story shows that he had been invited to do, which was called Redwood Nights. And I talked to him after, and he was very excited to be like, \u201cis this a whole thing? Is this like, a scene? Are there multiple shows like this?\u201d<\/p>\n
So when he called me and said he wanted to put on his own show in Sacramento, and also he wanted me to be in the first one \u2014 and also we were in this beautiful theater \u2014 I was super excited. And I remember we got a really great crowd for that first one. It was just one of those cases where it\u2019s like, \u201cOh, this plan actually seems to be working,\u201d but it was really, really special.<\/p>\n
What keeps bringing you back to perform in Sacramento?<\/p>\n
It\u2019s really fun. The audience is really great\u2026 I\u2019ve had a lot of great interactions with the Sacramento audience. The first show I did, I mentioned being from Hazard, Kentucky, and somebody you know, gave like a \u201cWoo Hoo!\u201d in the back and I thought, \u201cOkay, thanks?\u201d And after the show that person came up, and they were like, \u201cWhere\u2019d you live in Hazard? Because I lived in Woodland Park,\u201d and it was someone from my neighborhood, like my family knew them.<\/p>\n
I called my family and was like, \u201cDo you know so and so\u2019s kid?\u201d<\/p>\n
People in Sacramento are very involved and very, very active listeners.<\/p>\n
What do you think people in California misunderstand about places like Hazard, Kentucky?<\/p>\n
I think people from my area have this really strong feeling that we were sort of disliked or despised by people in cities.<\/p>\n
My parents would be afraid when we went to a new city; they were terrified somebody was gonna try to take advantage of us. People can hear our accents, and they know where we\u2019re from.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s this cartoonish idea of what the world is, but it\u2019s very much instilled from a young age. Hazard folk seem cartoonish to many people. So, what was really kind of refreshing and kind of sad was when I got out here, people just don\u2019t even know about that life. People can\u2019t even point at Kentucky on a map.<\/p>\n
Do your stories land differently depending on where you\u2019re performing? Do you feel like your stories about your mountain upbringing land better in California?<\/p>\n
They resonate differently. Even when I was performing in Louisville, it felt separate enough where people would kind of be interested, almost like an outsider perspective. It\u2019s like that on steroids out here in California<\/p>\n
But I\u2019ve told a lot of the stories from there, and a lot of the stories are word-for-word recited, like when we get together as a family. Most of the time, I know a story is going to work on stage because it worked in the family, and including the accent makes it more authentic.<\/p>\n
How do you make sure the people in your stories come across as real, not caricatures?<\/p>\n
I am always a little concerned with that. This happened at a show in Marin recently. I told a story that was \u2026 very personal, and after the show, this older woman walked up, and she was like, \u201cWhat\u2019s your mom\u2019s name?\u201d I said \u201cTracy.\u201d She said, \u201cOh, that\u2019s not right at all. She should have a name like Beulah Mae.\u201d And I was like\u2026 \u201cMy mom\u2019s not a cartoon character, she\u2019s a real person.\u201d<\/p>\n
So sometimes I\u2019m worried they might get the wrong idea. But you try to make sure you\u2019re telling it in a way to humanize people.<\/p>\n
What\u2019s your goal when you\u2019re telling a story?<\/p>\n
For the most part, I\u2019m really invested in trying to give the audience a certain experience. I just kind of want to make people laugh and want to make people generally happy. But there are stories where the emotional takeaway is sadness, and I think being able to give an audience that sort of emotional experience, I really love it.<\/p>\n
A lot of the stories I tell about Hazard, I kind of want people to come away thinking that life can be a little magical, just like it was when we were kids, there can be meaning to things.<\/p>\n
How do you structure a story?<\/p>\n
Usually, a story is built around one climactic thing, so if that\u2019s the moment, what context [do]did I need to give them? I try to think of it as exposition that ends in a big laugh; rising action, then building up to that one specific moment. Then I ask myself how to tie it all together, and that\u2019s where I fine-tune.<\/p>\n
The theme this month is \u201cAll You Can Eat.\u201d What was your first thought?<\/p>\n
It immediately went to food! I was like, \u201cOh I have a story I know for this exactly!\u201d It\u2019s one of those that\u2019s a little funny and then a little sad and then a little funny again.<\/p>\n
Is there a food that immediately takes you back home?<\/p>\n
My mom\u2019s lasagna. It\u2019s not like a well-structured lasagna; it would just ooze, but that\u2019s the best part. You almost have to eat it in a bowl. One time, she tried to fix her perfect recipe and was like, \u201cI fixed it,\u201d and the family said, \u201cNo, that\u2019s not how we want it.\u201d The pooling effect is absolutely necessary.<\/p>\n
This story is part of the Solving Sacramento <\/a>journalism collaborative. This story was funded by the City of Sacramento\u2019s Arts and Creative Economy Journalism Grant to Solving Sacramento<\/a>. Following our journalism code of ethics, the city had no editorial influence over this story. Our partners include California Groundbreakers, Capital Public Radio, Hmong Daily News, Outword, Russian America Media, Sacramento Business Journal, Sacramento News & Review and Sacramento Observer. Sign up for our \u201cSac Art Pulse\u201d newsletter here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Before Beau Ryder Davis ever stepped onto a Sacramento stage, he was already deep in the storytelling world.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":234364,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[121,123,122,1058],"class_list":["post-234363","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sacramento","tag-sacramento","tag-sacramento-headlines","tag-sacramento-news","tag-theater"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234363","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=234363"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234363\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/234364"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=234363"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=234363"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=234363"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}