Blind racing tale for the win
Popular story slam sets stage for local teller’s crowd-pleasing saga
Michael Corso, who is blind, has driven a race car against other blind drivers.
Some might react to that statement with a shrug or a simple thought like, “Good for him” or “That’s interesting.”
Others, the sort who would respond with, “I bet there’s a story behind that,” are the audience for The Moth, a New York City-based cultural nonprofit that is celebrating 25 years of promoting the art and craft of storytelling. Starting from a little group that put on events in small, sometimes nonstandard performance venues in New York including a bakery, The Moth has grown to a multidisciplinary entity, with story slams and workshops around the world, main-stage story events in dozens of cities’ big theaters, a weekly program heard on public radio and multiple books. Its fourth book, “How to Tell a Story: The Essential Guide to Memorable Storytelling from The Moth,” debuted last week at No. 6 on The New York Times bestseller list for advice and how-to books.
The Moth brings a mainstage show — one of about 30 it
will put on this year across the country — to the Troy Savings Bank Music Hall on Friday. Corso, who lives in Albany and had a long career in state government, will be one of five featured storytellers, as will Estella Jones, a rear admiral in the U.S. Public Health Service and assistant U.S. surgeon general, who attended Emma Willard School in Troy.
Among others on the program will be a former defense attorney and a New York City high school teacher. Hosting the evening will be Kate Tellers, director of The Moth’s Mothworks program, which teaches storytelling as a communication and engagement tool in workshops and for private groups. Tellers is among the five senior staffers who wrote The Moth’s new book.
“We’ve been trying to come to Troy for two years!” said Jodi Powell, a producer and director for The Moth who is directing the show, with stories chosen around the theme of “Out of the Blue.”
Noting that the show is sold out, Powell said, “People have been waiting for us for a long time, too.”
Corso, as president of the University at Albany Student Association in the early 1980s, booked U2 to play the university’s Mayfest concert on a double bill with A Flock of Seagulls. He is now retired after a career that culminated as chief consumer advocate at the state Public Service Commission. A longtime car aficionado who has never been able to legally operate a motor vehicle, Corso has been in the driver’s seat many times on public roads, but not highways, with a friend’s hand on the wheel to help steer. During a Wednesday phone interview, he said he once was stopped by a police car while driving a Porsche 928 Turbo and bluffed his way out of close questioning by pretending to be consulting a map.
Being blind, Corso prefers the aural environment of radio programs over television, he said, and he’s for years tuned in to “The Moth Radio Hour,” airing locally on WAMC Northeast Public Radio and featuring stories recorded at live Moth events.
“I’d listen to it and say, ‘I want to do that,’” he said. As a post-retirement goal, he decided to pursue the matter. A friend brought Corso to a local storytelling event in Hudson and, without Corso’s knowledge, submitted his name to tell a story. He was called, and he told the story about driving a stock car against 13 other blind drivers at Fonda Speedway. He won the night.
Corso came to the attention of Moth staff after a similar occurrence at one of its story slams in New York City. Moth slams, for which attendees are called at random to tell five-minute stories and the audience votes on the winner, often act as a feeder for talent for main-stage shows. Corso’s companion at The Moth slam secretly dropped his name in the hat. When he was selected, he used the racing story, and again he won.
“We heard Michael’s story, and the audience completely loved him,” said Powell. “Sometimes it’s obvious when a story has more legs, when it can be expanded for the main stage. Michael’s story definitely had that.” The version being told in Troy will last about 12 minutes. Main-stage Moth stories generally last 10 to 15 minutes and are, as The Moth likes to say, true, with the caveat that it is “as remembered by the storyteller.”
Corso was originally booked for The Moth show at Troy Music Hall in May 2020. After multiple pandemic postponements, it’s finally happening this week. When he takes the stage on Friday at the hall, one of his favorite venues because of its legendarily perfect acoustics, it will be 20 years to the day since he drove the stock car.
The longtime area radio host Bob “The Wolf ” Wohlfeld conceived the 2002 race with blind drivers, who had professional drivers in the passenger seat, as a fundraiser for a camp with children with disabilities. The cars, limited to only 15 mph, did four laps.
“It was ridiculously fun,” said Corso, “and it was so scary that I said I’d never do it again.”
But he’s been telling people about it for 20 years.