STORY CLUB
“If you told me four years ago I would get onstage voluntarily, I would not have believed it,” said Williams, 31. “I’m a writer first and a performer second. ... I remember having pseudopanic attacks, and now I have my own show.”
That show marked its first anniversary this month with a thickly iced sheet cake and a signature vodka and orange cardamom soda cocktail. A celebratory balloon floated above the music stand where performers could place their notes.
Using the same format as other Story Club chapters, Williams before the show selects two featured performers to speak for as long as eight minutes. Three or four “open-mic” slots are available to anyone in the audience. If more than four people sign up, Williams selects the speakers at random.
A $10 suggested donation goes directly to the featured performers, but Williams hopes to begin partnering with area charities, which will receive some of the money.
On Tuesday, Alphonso Laudat braved the first speaking slot of the night, themed “Celebrate.”
Wearing a fuzzy winter hat with earflaps, the 30-yearold information-technology worker arrived an hour before the 8 p.m. start time to type his story into his phone.
He held the device while recounting the story of his grandma’s diagnosis of stage 4 cancer. He found out while on a trip to Europe, then returned to help care for her. He was on a trip to Chicago when she died on Dec. 30.
Laudat attended his first Story Club last month, but he arrived too late to perform. (He had been with his grandmother.) He would someday like to share a story at the Moth, a national story slam, and figured that Story Club would provide good practice.
“And it was, because I was really nervous,” Laudat said. “But those eight minutes were like four.”
Featured guest Lisa Rice, 33, went next, telling the story of meeting her husband.
Richard Conner, 48, flapped like a bird in recounting a childhood fall from a tree.
Williams spoke of becoming stranded in Cincinnati on New Year’s Eve, her favorite holiday.
Holly Hammons, 51, drew steady laughter from a rapt audience while describing her surprise 50th birthday party, featuring a Prince theme.
Anthony Cisco, 43, encouraged the crowd to embrace the dark parts of 2018.
And second featured guest Evie Ebert brought down the house (and first-place honors) with her description of her struggle to breastfeed her son.
“I feel like the storytelling thing is more of a compulsion than an ability or a skill,” said Ebert, 31, who calls herself a “super-open book.”
“I can’t help myself. I’m just glad it’s not gambling or drinking.”
Megan Lusk, a regular Story Club patron, has the opposite problem.
The engineer said she first visited the club 11 months ago but still prefers math to words. One day, though, she hopes to pull together an essay to share.
Until then, she’ll keep attending — and crying in the back during touching moments.
“They do something that I cannot do, and it’s beautiful,” Lusk said. “The premise is it’s nonfiction. It’s always relatable because what’s happened in someone else’s life has probably happened in yours.”