The Moth Comes to Phoenix
There is a particular kind of evening that does not require a set list, a script, or a production budget. Just a microphone, a five-minute timer, and someone standing in front of a room full of strangers with a true story they have been waiting to tell.
The Moth StorySLAM returns to Crescent Ballroom in downtown Phoenix on Thursday, July 16th — and this month’s theme is Revenge.
The Format
For the uninitiated: a StorySLAM is a competitive storytelling event where audience members put their names in a hat, ten are drawn at random, and each has five minutes to tell a true, personal story on the night’s theme — no notes, no props, just memory and nerve. Judges are selected from the audience and score each story. The winner takes the night and the bragging rights.
It is, consistently, one of the most entertaining formats live performance has produced — equal parts nerve-wracking and hilarious, occasionally profound, and almost always surprising. The Moth has been running StorySLAMs for decades and the Phoenix chapter draws the kind of crowd that takes both the storytelling and the listening seriously.
The Theme
Revenge. The organizers spell out the territory generously: retaliation, proportional justice, payback, comeuppance, laughing last, living well, and the particular satisfaction of watching karma do the heavy lifting so you did not have to. Stories can go dark or go funny. They can be about when you got yours or when they got theirs. The only requirements are that the story is true, it is personal, and it fits in five minutes.
If you have one of those — and most people who have lived long enough do — put your name in the hat. If you would rather watch, the audience side of a StorySLAM is its own reward.
The Details
Thursday, July 16 · Doors 7:00 PM · Show 8:00 PM
Crescent Ballroom · 308 N. 2nd Avenue, Phoenix, AZ 85003
21+ · $17 advance and day of show
Crescent Ballroom sits in the heart of downtown Phoenix with street parking and rideshare access. Get there by 7:00 PM if you want a good seat and time to settle in before the stories start.
A Thursday evening well spent, for seventeen dollars, in one of Phoenix’s best small venues. The theme alone is worth showing up for.
