Tuesday, February 15, 7:30 pm
Virginia MOCA, free
Everyone has stories to tell, but the trick is how to make each story the best story. Actor, visual effects producer, and host of The Moth, Corey Rosen, teaches how to get past telling “the same” stories and helps each individual find personal stories worth telling.
L’Dor v’dor, from generation to generation, the Jewish People have a rich history of storytelling. Working as a powerful vehicle for history, memories, and values, stories perpetuate Jewish culture through time. As the late Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks noted, “Judaism is less about ‘truth as system’ than about ‘truth as story’ and we are a part of that story. That is what it is to be a Jew.”
Some stories are familiar to all Jews, such as the Passover story or Queen Esther and Mordechai’s story. On a personal level, some stories are such an integral part of a family’s collective memory that generations of children feel they know their deceased great grandparents. In fact, almost every family has at least one member who tells the exact same story at every family function.
Rosen will be at Virginia MOCA in celebration of his debut book, Your Story, Well Told: Creative Strategies to Develop and Perform Stories that Wow an Audience. This night of laughs will not just entertain, it will inspire attendees to get on stage (or sit down at the next family dinner) and tell a story, using the best storytelling techniques from improvisational theatre. After a night with Rosen, the audience will have an even greater appreciation for storytelling and be even more equipped to continue this core Jewish tradition.
Rosen, who lives in San Francisco, has worked at Jim Henson Productions, interned for Saturday Night Live actor (and later Senator) Al Franken, and spent more than 20 years making special visual effects at Industrial Light + Magic, Disney, Tippet Studio, working on blockbuster movies such as Mission: Impossible, Ted, and several Star Wars films. Today, he is a regular host of The Moth, a nationally broadcast radio show on NPR, which features people telling live (true) stories in front of an audience.
This free and open to the community program offers both in-person and virtual ticket options. Pre-registration is required for both. Register at JewishVA.org/KCL.
Presented by the Konikoff Center for Learning at the United Jewish Federation of Tidewater, in partnership with United Jewish Federation of Tidewater and Simon Family JCC’s Lee and Bernard Jaffe Family Jewish Book Festival and the Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art.