Odyssey Storytelling Presents: "INDEPENDENCE"

Thursday, July 9, 2015

Odyssey Storytelling Presents:

“INDEPENDENCE”

Curated by Drew Cronyn

Doors open at 6:30 p.m., Show starts at 7:00 p.m.

The Screening Room, 

127 E. Congress Street, Tucson, $8

Tickets and info: http://www.storyartsgroup.org/odyssey/Odyssey/Next_Show.html

 

Independence: it's your first sleepover, your new driver's license, and the food in your refrigerator in your apartment. It's running from a bad relationship, storming out of a toxic job and leaving the hospital to sit on your front porch. It's getting an electric wheelchair, speeding down the trail on a new bike, and taking the train into the sunset.

 

Storytellers: Single mother and grandmother, Catherine Rhianna Hess; trailblazer/advocate, Stephanie Frederick; Psychologist and writer, Shannon Snapp; Texan-biker/bad-ass, Robert Neely; comedian, Ryan Malco; and Joseph Bradbury!

Storyteller Bios:

Born just outside the Bible belt to a welfare-for-life mother and an illiterate father, privileges were not readily available to Catherine Rhianna Hess. Her father was granted custody of her as a teenager and brought her out West. Because of poor instruction and poor role modeling, Catherine had children too young and it set her up for imminent failures, like dead end jobs and little chance for education. At 39 she decided if I wanted a better life for her youngest son, she needed an education. Catherine started the UA in Spring 2011, in Spring 2013 she was a victim of gun violence by another student she was dating and that propelled her to get the scholarships and grants necessary to study abroad in Orvieto, Italy that Summer. She felt like she deserved it, dammit! Catherine graduated last year from UA. She is still working part-time in a dead end job but when the right opportunity comes along she will have something she was told she would never have, qualifications backed up by a bachelors degree.

Stephanie Frederick grew up on the bayous of southern Louisiana, and found her way to the drylands of the Sonoran desert 40 years ago.  She's spent 10 years discovering the bounties of the Blue Ridge Mountains while living in Asheville, NC and rural Virginia, and returned to her beloved Tucson in 2012.  As an RN, Holistic Health Educator, and Patient Advocate, she's managed to carve out professional niches outside the constraints of conventional medicine.  In 2013 she received training in Medical Improv, and is CEO of her company, Improv to Improv(e) Healthcare!.

www.improvtoimprovehealthcare.com.  She calls it "serious play" (not comedy!) to help health professionals/employers/employees explore authentic communication and collaboration.  Her spirit is fueled by 5 Rhythms dance, racewalking, landscape gardening, and time spent with her chosen family.

Shannon Snapp is an independent woman not necessarily by choice. Forced out of codependency and into full-on self-sufficiency and love, she is now truly capable of giving herself everything she needs. She was toughed up by her working-class upbringing in rural Kansas, made smarter and fancier by her doctorate and time with no non-sense Bostonians, and brought back into balance by the Old Pueblo. She's learned to love like mad and let it all go. And as fate would have it, she's about to set sail again, no longer kicking, screaming, or clinging but head held high (and maybe still a tear in her eye).

Ryan Malco is a stand-up comedian and bartender who hosts a weekly comedy show at O'Malleys called "Pale Blue. Comedy" and coproduces a political comedy show on the last Sunday of every month at Skybar called "Laughing Liberally". He is also a regular on the The Switch Comedy Show, has opened for Romo Tonight Live, won the Pima Community College's first Story Slam and recently competed in a Moth Story Slam in New York City earlier in March of this year. He currently lives in Tucson and is working towards graduating college and apologizing for his early 20's.

Joseph Bradbury: Desert rat transplant.  Joseph is from the intermountain West and moved to Tucson a little over a year ago to attend the MFA program at University of Arizona where he studies creative writing and is working on a thesis that addresses isolation and identity in the West. He teaches composition and creative writing at the U of A, is the co-chair of the Writers In Process reading series, and the nonfiction editor at Sonora Review. But above all prefers being above 12,000 feet on a peak in Utah's Uinta range.

Curator:  Drew Cronyn

 

Venue: The Screening Room, 127 E. Congress Street, Tucson.

            Parking information found here, and a map identifying downtown parking areas here.

           

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We’ve chosen themes for 2015 to make it easier for future 

storytellers to see where your favorite personal story will fit in.

 

Next Up 

 

August 6, 2015: “Detours”

The Screening Room, 127 E. Congress, Tucson.

Do You have a story? Contact us!

 

 

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Storytelling is a way to make connections with diverse and different people that you may not meet in your every day life. Because these stories are from our lives they may be amazing, messy, enlightening, disturbing, and entertaining . . . and more.