We here at This Much Is True share your pain and confusion.  As a consolation, we offer an invariable May lineup that is guaranteed to kick some ass.  You can count on it. This month brings the return of Nora Dunn, and the debut of both Rebecca Kling and Brandon Will.  We hope to see you, coat or no coat.

This Much is True
Tuesday, May 8th
Hopleaf Bar – 5148 N Clark Street – Upstairs
7:30pm
FREE!
(Doors open at 6:45 – arrive early to insure entry, as capacity will be enforced)

May’s line up includes regulars:

Dorrie Ferguson

Larry Kerns

Deanna Moffitt

Scott Whitehair

________________________________________________________________

With special guests:

NORA DUNN

A cast member of Saturday Night Live in 1985 through 1991, the iconic show was Ms. Dunn’s first job on camera.  The cast that returned with Lorne Michaels was considered the strongest ensemble since the shows original inception.  She created memorable characters such as Liz Sweeney and Pat Stevens.  Dunn spent three years on NBC’s night time drama, Sisters, playing opposite Swoosie Kurtz, and performed in such films as Working Girl, Miami Blues, How I Got Into College,  The Last Supper, Runaway Jury, Bruce Almighty, Three Kings, Laws of Attraction, and It’s Complicated.  She has appeared in way too many TV dramas as a lawyer, a madam, a judge, and recurs on Entourage as a therapist, which she enjoys.  She has also appeared on Curb Your Enthusiasm as an NBC executive though her salary was far from what an executive gets.  She has two features coming out in the spring and summer, LOL with Demi Moore, and Frankie Go Boom, with Chris O’Dowd and Christopher Noth.  Ms. Dunn is currently working on a one-woman show, Mythical Proportions.  Her last one-woman show, Small Prey, was a critical success and ran for 16 weeks in Los Angeles in 1999.  She is the author of a small book, Nobody’s Rib, published by Harper/Collins in 1991.  Ms. Dunn supports unions, labor, collective bargaining, and prank phone calls.  She has stopped drinking tea.  It might be poisoned.

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REBECCA KLING

Rebecca Kling is a Chicago-based artist interested in exploring the performance of identity. Her multi-media productions – composed of storytelling, video, movement, playful skips and jumps, enlightening self-discovery, accusatory glances, awkward pauses, and more – question gender, self-expression, and what it means to be at home in one’s own body. Rebecca has performed her material at The Athenaeum Theatre with New Suit Theatre Company, Temple Gallery, Fringe Festivals in Chicago, Kansas City, and Indianapolis, at Links Hall, Roosevelt and Northwestern Universities, About Face Theatre, Center on Halsted, with Caffeine Theatre at the DCS Storefront Theatre, and elsewhere across the Midwest. She has been praised by The Chicago Tribune, TimeOut Chicago, Newcity Stage, and Centerstage Chicago, and more. Rebecca has been a recipient of the Chances Dances Critical Fierceness grant, and regularly speaks at high schools and universities across Chicago.  A graduate from Northwestern University’s Department of Performance Studies with an Adjunct Major in Animate Arts, Rebecca Kling is also an instructor at the Piven Theatre Workshop, on the Pride Films and Plays board of director, and a syndicated blogger with BlogHer.

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BRANDON WILL

Brandon Will is – like his name implies – at once an action and a question. One time he made a ridiculously ambitious feature-length suburban epic, “Dadbot: The Movie.” Another time he was a Detroit store-front puppet theater troupe member, and also performed at bars with the punk-rock puppet show The Gepetto Files. Some other times he had pieces published in places like featherproof mini-books, Hair Trigger, and Knee-Jerk – where he was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. He’s told stories around Chicago at Orange Alert, Reading Under the Influence, The Rec Room, Essay Fiesta, Two With Water Rx Reading Series, 2^nd Story, some other random places, and become a mascot at Quickies!. You can find more info at brandonwill.com

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See you there, May 8th!

The truth is … we are blessed with a red hot lineup for this month’s TMIT, and would love it if you can join us for what will be a memorable evening of stories. We are lucky to be featuring:  Margaret Burke, Oba-William King, Janna Sobel, and Jack Zimmerman.

See you there!

This Much is True
Tuesday–April 10th
Hopleaf Bar – 5148 N Clark Street – Upstairs
7:30pm
FREE!
(Doors open at 6:45 – arrive early to insure entry, as capacity will be enforced)

April’s line up includes regulars:

Dorrie Ferguson

Larry Kerns

Scott Whitehair

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With Special Guests:

Jack Zimmerman

“His stories are fine and funny and closely observed.”
Neil Steinberg, Chicago Sun-Times

Jack Zimmerman has worked as a parking-lot attendant, greenhouse laborer, dock hand, trombonist, college instructor, night watchman, piano tuner, newspaper columnist, magazine editor, and PR man for Ravinia and Lyric Opera.

He’s written a couple of novels and has told stories his entire life. Last year he read one of his stories on Garrison Keillor’s “A Prairie Home Companion.”

On Tuesday, April 10 he’ll read excerpts from “Night Watch” a new collection of six autobiographical stories.

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Oba-William King

Oba is an Illinois Arts Council Fellowship Award Recipient in Traditional Folk Arts, A Jewel/Osco Hidden Jewel of The Neighborhood, A Gwendolyn Brooks Hands on Stanza’s award recipient as well as other distinguished awards.

He is a featured artist through Center Stage for WTTW television in Chicago; the Bermuda State Library; PBS radio station WBEZ FM program “So Many Ways To Tell A Story;” The Bronzeville Children’s Museum, the DuSable Museum, CPS Early Childhood Education, and The Sun Foundation’s Arts and Science in the Woods. Oba’s history of presenting programs for teen, adult and seasoned adult audiences dates back to 1994 “Breaking Chains” a one-man show at Beatrice Community College in Nebraska.

In 1998 Oba received an award nomination for the lead role in Dracula at Lifeline Theatre, in Chicago. His trend-setting presentation of Sound of a Voice, by David Henry Hwang was presented at The Halsted Theatre in Pilsen, 2001.

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Margaret Burk

Margaret Burk’s lifelong study of mythology, psychology  and world spiritual traditions infuses her work as storyteller, actress and educator.  She is Director of the Fleming Center which teaches classes in leadership development: living into our full creative talents. As Director of Development for the Chicago Sinfonietta, Margaret was named as “100 Women Making a Difference” in Today’s Chicago Woman Magazine (July 1997).

Margaret believes there is power in story to touch the heart, to inspire a sense of hope, to spark the imagination, to embolden the spirit, and to remind us of the greatest of human potential!

Margaret has a B.A. in Theatre and M.A. in Communication. She is on the Board of Illinois Storytelling, Inc. and is co-artistic director of a Storytelling Concert Series at Village Players Performing Arts Center in Oak Park, IL.

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Janna Sobel

Janna Sobel is a writer, performer and storyteller.  She also supports people of all ages in doing these things at the Second City Training Center, The University of Chicago Lab School and the Old Town School of Folk Music.  She is the Associate Artistic Director of Mudlark Theater in Evanston.  She also really likes to tell stories, and has been honored to be a featured teller recently with Chicago Slam Works’ Two Sides, The Encyclopedia Show, Essay Fiesta, Real Talk Live and Story Club, and this April will mark her second time performing with This Much is True! 

Janna also co-produces Here’s the Story on the first Sunday of every month at Stage 773, where everyone is invited to tell, and is presently working on a solo performance about getting sick and then getting well.  

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We’ll see you there: Tuesday, April 10th @ Hopeleaf – 7:30 get there early!

Judging this epic battle will be no easy task.  Awarding the Hogwash Cup to a new champion is a great responsibility not to be taken lightly. Therefore, we turn to  …

The 2012 Panel of Truth

“According to the Chicago Tribune, Aria Norman is a Psychic Evolutionist.  During a psychic reading with Aria, as she reports psychic impressions, she will often be “pulled” away from a word or idea, and “made” to “try again”, until she gets a feeling of “right”.  Thus, a psychic reading with Aria evolves.   Aria would like to thank Georgia Garvey of the Trib for her wonderful insight and succinct terminology.  Aria has been a full-time psychic for 8 years. For all the years of her life before 2004, Aria saw, heard, and felt she knew stuff.  Her unsuccessful suppression of her (then-misunderstood) gift earned her a crown of eccentricity, now creatively reused.  Aria offers interactive psychic  entertainment, individual readings, and her famous “Everyone is Psychic!” workshops.

Joe Betancourt is an ASE certified master technician and owner of Joes’s Expert Auto located at 2740 N Elston in Chicago. His family-run car repair facility holds a 20 year reputation of honesty and excellence as supported by stellar reviews on Yelp and Angie’s List.   Born in Cuba, Joe speaks both Spanish and English fluently. Stepping in to meet the needs of the Spanish speaking community, Joe is also an NGH certified consulting hypnotist.  Whether he’s fine tuning someone’s engine or mind, Joe is passionate about sharing his talents.

Ray Steadmonis an attorney at Lane & Lane, LLC in Chicago, Illinois.   Ray was born and raised in the Kalamazoo, Michigan area.  He currently concentrates his law practice on the representation of catastrophically injured victims and their families in cases involving wrongful death, medical and professional malpractice, products and premises liability, and a variety of motor vehicle collisions.  In his short time as an attorney, he has helped achieve a variety of notable settlements on behalf of his clients including a $1,200,000.00 settlement in a failure to diagnose a stroke case.  In the community, Ray serves on the Advisory Board for a program called “Peer Jury,” which is a restorative justice program implemented throughout a variety of Chicago Public Schools. Ray has been appointed by the President of the Illinois State Bar Association to serve on the ISBA Standing Committee on Supreme Court Rules.  Ray was also elected to serve as an Executive Committee Member and the Continuing Legal Education Chair of the Young Lawyers Section of the International Society of Primerus Law Firms.

In addition to regulars Scott Whitehair, Dorrie Ferguson and Deanna Moffitt, we are honored to welcome:  poetic force Roger Bonair-Agard; monologist Maia Morgan; writer Joe Janes; and storyteller Anne Shimojima.

Seriously, this lineup is like finding a four-leaf clover made out of winning scratch off tickets. Miss it, and you may as well just sit at home underneath a ladder with an umbrella open.

This Much is True
Tuesday–March 13
Hopleaf Bar – 5148 N Clark Street – Upstairs
7:30pm
FREE!

***Doors open at 6:45 – arrive early to insure admission. Hopleaf has been enforcing capacity a little more strictly than in the past.

January’s line up includes regulars:

Dorrie Ferguson

Deanna Moffitt

Scott Whitehair

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Roger Bonair -Agard

Roger Bonair-Agard is a native of Trinidad and Tobago, a Cave Canem fellow and author of two collections of poems: tarnish & masquerade (Cypher Books, 2006) and GULLY (Cypher Books/Peepal Tree Press 2010). Co-founder of NYC’s louderARTS Project, Roger is an MFA candidate at University of Southern Maine’s Stonecoast Program.  He is artist-in-residence at University of Wisconsin-Madison’s First Wave program and poet-in-residence at Young Chicago Authors. He teaches at Fordham University, NYC and Cook County Juvenile Temporary Detention Center.  He lives in Chicago and Brooklyn.

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Maia Morgan

Maia’s critically acclaimed plays and monologues have been produced on stages throughout Chicago. As a teaching artist, Maia has designed and taught workshops and residencies for Urban Gateways, Columbia College, Gallery 37, Steppenwolf, Lookingglass and the Lyric Opera.  She has created performances with students in dozens of Chicago schools, health care facilities and jails. In 2010 Maia was awarded first prize in a national non-fiction writing competition, and she’s about halfway through writing the book that began with that winning essay. Read more at maiamorgan.com.

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Joe Janes

Joe Janes is a writer, director and actor in Chicago. He has taught improv and writing at The Second City Training Center since 1997 and is the Improv Program Coordinator for Columbia College. He is also a senior writer/director at Fig Media, Inc. He is a founding member of the WNEP Theater Foundation and the artistic director of Robot vs Dinosaur. He has written and provided voices for the CD-ROM game “You Don’t Know Jack.” He also has an emmy for writing for a Cincinnati children’s program called “Club 19.” He has written two books. 365 Sketches and 50 Plays. They are available on-line and at Quimby’s bookstore.”

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Anne Shimojima

Anne Shimojima, a retired school library media specialist, now regularly performs in festivals, schools, libraries, conferences, and museums. Anne also gives workshops on the use of storytelling in education and the creation of family history projects. Her family story about the Japanese-American incarceration camps in World War II is available at www.racebridgesforschools.com.

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See you there!

Our talent-packed lineup of guest storytellers this month will have you swooning, including fresh new voice Natasha Tsoutsouris, teaching artist Paul Whitehouse, returning favorite Shannon Cason, and published author Carol LaChapelle.

Grab a date (or yourself), a beer, and a spot.  You don’t want to miss this.

This Much is True
Tuesday–February 14th
Hopleaf Bar – 5148 N Clark Street – Upstairs
7:30pm
FREE!

***Doors open at 6:45 – arrive early to insure admission. Hopleaf has been enforcing capacity a little more strictly than in the past.

January’s line up includes regulars:

Dorrie Ferguson

Deanna Moffitt

Scott Whitehair

_____________________________________________________________

With Special Guests:

Shannon Cason

Shannon Cason is a writer and storyteller. He has told his stories at The Chicago Theatre, Park West Theater, and various venues, including WGN Radio. Shannon hosts a podcast called Homemade Stories, available on iTunes, and he is finishing his first crime novel. Shannon is a native Detroiter, a staff writer for WBEZ’s Paper Machete, a former Moth GrandSLAM champion, and a father of two beautiful daughters. Learn more at shannoncason.com

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Carol LaChapelle

Carol is a Chicago-based writer, teacher, and author.  For the past 25 years, she has conducted her writing workshops for educators, therapists, and professional associations; at conferences and book fairs; and at the world-renowned Newberry Library in Chicago. Carol’s writing has appeared in The Writing Group Book; Environmental Practice; the New York Times; and in various consumer publications and newsletters.  Her book Finding Your Voice, Telling Your Stories (Marion Street Press, 2008) is available at bookstores, on Amazon, and following the show.

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Natasha Tsoutsouris

Natasha is excited to have found the storytelling community and is even more excited to have a bio. She is also well versed in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu so if you don’t like her stories, she’ll choke the hell out of you.

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Paul Whitehouse

Paul is the Programming Manager of 2nd Story, and a Chicago based theatre artist who has performed with: Chemically Imbalanced Comedy Theatre, Improv Playhouse Touring Company, Redmoon Theatre, The Morris Brothers Educational Tour, and Theatre Momentum. His one-man show, ½ Caf Chronicles , was produced as part of Redmoon’s First Annual J.O.E. Festival at Belmont Harbor in fall 2010.  He has taught Shakespeare and improv at Traveling Players Ensemble in the woods of Virginia, helped young Chicago actors script their stories in the loop at Goodman Theatre with the General Theatre Studies Program, and has been a guest teaching artist at Dexter High School in pure Michigan. He is also a proud Kalamazoo College graduate.

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We’ll see you there!

Looking back, 2011 was a blast, bringing the launch of Story Lab Chicago, collaborative experimentation with Interface I and II, the filming of the Story Lab pilot/documentary, and twelve magical nights of This Much is True.

In 2012, we look forward to an even bigger, and busier, year including the introduction of storytelling workshops, a podcast, the 43rd Annual Chicago’s Biggest Liar Contest, and, of course, a dozen more good times upstairs in the Hopleaf lounge.

We’re starting the new year off right with some returning favorites and a few new faces. January brings the return of Arlene Malinowski, who continually inspires us, and Dana Norris, our good friend and host of Story Club. We are also thrilled to be featuring Paulette McDaniels, who recently made a terrific debut at Story Lab, and the talented triple threat Dmitry Samarov (writer/painter/cab driver).

Hope to see you there.

This Much is True
Tuesday–January 10th
Hopleaf Bar – 5148 N Clark Street – Upstairs
7:30pm
FREE!
Doors open at 6:45 – arrive early to get a seat.

January’s line up includes regulars:

Dorrie Ferguson

Larry Kerns

Scott Whitehair

_____________________________________________________________

With Special Guests:

Arlene Malinowski

Actor and playwright Malinowski has been performing her solo shows across the country and her work has been honored with a few cool awards. She’s had a couple of her other plays produced, most of them are one-acts or full lengths but a few are 1 minute plays (Hey! they are harder than they look).  In addition to her TV and film work (Some of it good- a lot of it bad) Arlene teaches writing in Chicago and LA. She has been a contributing writer to a lot of literary publications with strange names like Paramanu Pentataquark.  When she wants to show off she mentions that her work was cited in the Huffington Post. She is a Resident Playwright at Chicago Dramatists and is, to her knowlege, the only actor to apprear both in Doogie Howser and Measure for Measure. Check it! arlenemalinowski.com

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Paulette McDaniels

Paulette McDaniels has more then 25 years of experience in the arts. She is the author of A Deathly Silence commissioned by the Department of Health and Human Services for World AIDS Day. Ms. McDaniels has served as a community organizer in the Middle East, Europe and America. The grandmother of two, she studied at Northwestern University and Yorkshire College in the UK. She is co-author of Achmed’s Return: Legend of the Lost City, and is currently working on a Christian comedy, 10 Plagues.

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Dana Norris

Dana Norris is the founder/producer/host of Story Club, which is the first Thurs every month at Uncommon Ground.  She has worked as the Managing Editor of TriQuarterly Online and is currently pursuing her MFA from Northwestern.

_____________________________________________________________

Dmitry Samarov

Dmitry Samarov was born in the USSR and immigrated to the US at the age of seven. He’s the author of Hack: Stories from a Chicago Cab. He paints and drives a cab in Chicago, Illinois. He hopes to one day be unemployed.

To top it all off, our special guests for December are gifts we cannot wait for you to open:  Moth Slam host Don Hall; travel & arts writer Victoria Cunha; and Sunday Night Sex Show’s Samantha Irby.

‘Tis the season to join your friends, grab a beer, and listen to some great stories.

This Much is True
The Hopleaf — Upstairs
Tuesday, December 13th
7:30pm (Doors open at 6:45)

FREE!

December’s line up includes regulars:

Dorrie Ferguson

Larry Kerns

Deanna Moffitt

Scott Whitehair

________________________________________________________________

With special guests:

Victoria Cunha

Victoria successfully completed the M.A.T. program in High School Education-English Language Arts/Special Education at National-Louis University. Prior to this, she was a freelance arts & travel writer, (Time Out Chicago Guidebook, Hungry? Chicago Guidebook, etc.) and storyteller/workshop leader with college teaching credits in speech communication (DePaul Univ. School for New Learning, Loyola Univ., College of DuPage, etc.). her biggest claim on stories, however, is her association with the late actor, monologuist and author Spalding Gray.

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Don Hall

Don Hall is the Events Coordinator for Chicago Public Media and the Audience Services cat for NPR’s prolific game show “Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me!”  He produces, directs, acts and writes for a variety of Chicago Off-Loop Theater; the Founding Director of Chicago’s prolific WNEP Theater, and the third Monday of every month he is the host for The Moth at the Haymarket Pub and Brewery.

Don is an Aquarius, an Agnostic, and an Asshole with a blog.

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Samantha Irby

Samantha Irby is a total idiot who somehow has not only only convinced thousands of people to read her blog vomit, she also sometimes can get them to put on real pants to come out and hear her stupid dick jokes live. You can find her on the internet at bitchesgottaeat.com and irbyandian.com, and see her on the last Sunday of every month as co-host of the Sunday Night Sex Show, a literary reading series that focuses on true stories about sex and sexuality. She is a large testicle aficionado.

November’s show is all gravy, and will leave you gorged on delicious beer, memorable stories, and an intimate evening of good times with friends.

Among the many things we are thankful for this season is yet another killer lineup. We welcome back some of our favorite storytellers, including Keith Ecker, JW Basilo, and Jen Bosworth, along with new guests MT Cozolla and Dina Walters. There’s no better way to celebrate losing an hour of daylight than hanging out with us in  the cozy Hopleaf on November 8th.

This Much is True
Tuesday–November 8th
Hopleaf Bar (5148 N Clark Street) – Upstairs lounge
7:30pm
FREE!
Doors open at 6:45 – arrive early to get a seat.

November’s line up includes regulars:

Dorrie Ferguson

Scott Whitehair

______________________________________________

Along with guests:

JW Basilo

Writer/performer/humorist, J.W. Basilo, is equal parts poignant and perverse, hilarious and heart-wrenching. His raucous performances and uncanny charisma have earned him a reputation as one of the most sought-after and compelling spoken word artists working today. His work has appeared on NPR, in the Chicago Tribune, numerous literary journals and in hundreds of theaters, dive bars, schools and comedy clubs across North America. His one man dramedy, No One Can Fix You, debuted in 2009 to rave reviews in Chicago, Seattle, and New York City. All things considered, he’s doing pretty well for a guy who failed Creative Writing in high school. His artful jackassery can be found at his internet home, BustedMouth.com

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Jen Bosworth

Jen is a writer and performer from Chicago. She is currently the host of “Stories at The Store,” a once a month storytelling event held at The Store on Halsted. Jen spent 6 years in Los Angeles where she worked for a movie star, got a Master’s Degree and became progressively crazier. She is glad to be home.

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MT Cozzola

MT Cozzola is a Chicago writer and director. She’s told stories around town at Here’s the Story, Tuesday Funk, Speak Easy Speak Hard, and Stockyards Theatre Women’s Performance Art Festival, shared prose and poetry in the pages of After Hours, Swivel, Crawdad, and other magazines, and screened films across the globe. She keeps a story blog at www.midwesternrobot.com. Come visit!

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Keith Ecker

Keith Ecker is the co-producer of Essay Fiesta, a monthly reading series that takes place at the Book Cellar every third Monday of the month. He is professional freelance writer and contributes regularly to the Huffington Post, the Chicago Theater Beat and the Onion’s A.V. Club. His comedic essays have been heard throughout Chicago at such shows as the Encyclopedia Show, Write Club, the Paper Machete, This Much Is True, Story Club, Orange Alert, P. Fanatics, Words That Kill, Stories at the Store, Tuesday Funk, Mortified and 2nd Story. He is a member of the Chicago Writers Association, the Chicago Story Collective and the Chicago Literary Alliance.

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Dina Walters

Dina Walters is making her debut with This Much is True, and couldn’t be happier about it.  She has previously read her stories for Essay Fiesta and Second Story; she has also competed at Write Club.  Dina is a proud alum of The Neo-Futurists Theater Company, where she regularly wrote and performed for Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind for five years.

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We’ll see you on November 8th!

Joining our regulars this month are the co-founder of Reading Under the Influence, Julia Borcherts; writer, performer and monologist Cheryl  Trykv; founder and host of the monthly literary cage match WRITE CLUB, Ian Belknap; and one of Time.com’s best bloggers of the year in 2008, Susannah Breslin.

Do not miss this show.

This Much is True
Tuesday–October, 11th
Hopleaf Bar 5148 N Clark Street – Upstairs
7:30pm
FREE!
Doors open at 6:45 – get there early to get a seat.

October’s line up includes regulars:

Dorrie Ferguson

Larry Kerns

Scott Whitehair

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With Special Guests:

Julia Borcherts

Julia Borcherts is a co-founder of Reading Under the Influence and The Chicago Way lit series, a fiction writing instructor at Columbia College Chicago, a theater columnist for RedEye and Metromix and a frequent contributor to Time Out Chicago and the Windy City Times. She has been a featured reader at Victory Garden’s Fresh Squeezed series, 2nd Story, the Windy City Story Slam, the Revolutions reading series, the Museum of
Contemporary Art, Women & Children First bookstore, the Criminal Class Press anti-gala and many other venues.

_____________________________________________________________

Cheryl Trykv

Cheryl Trykv writes and performs stories and monologues for stage and radio and is best known for her appearances in the Big Goddess Pow Wow, Milly’s Orchid Show, and Peabody Award-winning This American Life. Her critically acclaimed 1990 solo debut at Live Bait Theater launched Ms. Trykv into a decade of performance engagements at the city’s most star-studded venues, including Chicago’s Lower Links Club, the MCA, Steppenwolf Theater, the Goodman Theater, the Lyric Opera, Park West, and Cabaret Metro. In New York Ms. Trykv has performed at La MaMa, P.S. 122, and at The Theater for a New City in “Curtains” written by David Sedaris. She is featured on This American Life’s “Hand It Over, volume one” and “Lies, Sissies & Fiascoes: The Best of This American Life.” Trykvs’  2009 solo work “Capiche?” ran at Chicago’s Davenports’ Piano Bar, and in Los Angeles at the FanaticSalon.

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Ian Belknap

Ian Belknap is a Chicago writer/performer whose work has appeared at Here’s The Story, Essay Fiesta, P. Fanatics, 8 X 8, Funny Ha Ha. He was the victor at the most recent Literary Death Match, is the Dean of Mean at The Paper Machete, and till recently served as Fact Checker for The Encyclopedia Show. He is co-founder with Samantha Irby of the caustically foul-mouthed comedy blog irby + ian. He is the originator, host, curator, and Overlord of WRITE CLUB, the nation’s premiere competitive philanthropic readings series – monthly at The Hideout. Find WRITE CLUB on facebook, at writeclubrules.com, and on Twitter: @writeclubrules.

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Susannah Breslin

Susannah Breslin [http://susannahbreslin.blogspot.com/] is a
journalist, blogger, and author. She blogs for Forbes
[http://blogs.forbes.com/susannahbreslin/] and has written for Salon,
Slate, The Daily Beast, Harper’s Bazaar, Details, Variety, Newsweek,
Esquire.com, and TheAtlantic.com. In 2008, TIME.com name her one of
the best bloggers of the year. She has appeared on “Politically
Incorrect,” CNN, and NPR.

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We’ll see you there on the 11th, and remember to get there early as The Hopleaf will be packed. (Doors at 6:45)

Also joining TMIT as guests this month are the hilarious Dori Goldman, the accomplished David W. Berner and the talented Michael Garvey. One look at the write-ups below and you’ll know this is a show not to miss.

As with every TMIT, it is best to arrive early for the best seats. Doors open a 6:45, and we are often left with standing room only as early as 7:00pm. With this red hot lineup, it’s definitely worth carving our your space early.

This Much is True
The Hopleaf — Upstairs
Tuesday, Sept. 13th
7:30pm — FREE!

September’s line up includes regulars:

Dorrie Ferguson

Larry Kerns

Deanna Moffitt

Scott Whitehair

________________________________________________________________

With special guests:

David W Berner

David W. Berner is an award-winning journalist, broadcaster, author, and teacher. His first book, Accidental Lessons was awarded the 2011 Royal Dragonfly Grand Prize for Literature. His broadcast reporting and audio documentaries have been aired on the CBS Radio Network, NPR’s Weekend Edition and a number of public radio stations across America. David has been the recipient of awards from the Associated Press, RTNDA (Radio and Television News Directors Association) and the Broadcast Education

Earlier this year, David was awarded the position of Writer-in-Residence at the Jack Kerouac Project in Orlando, Florida for the summer of 2011. His writing, both reporting and personal essays, have appeared in publications and online journals such as PERIGEE, Tiny Lights Journal, Shaking Like a Mountain, Travelgolf.com, Worldgolf.com, Golf Chicago Magazine, The Sun Newspapers, and Write City Magazine. David has also read and performed his work at events such as Story Club and Essay Fiesta in Chicago.

And with all of this, David still finds time to play guitar and watch as much TV coverage as possible of his beloved Steelers.

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Michael Garvey

Michael is an actor who has called both Chicago and LA home. His Chicago credits include performances with Steppenwolf, Shattered Globe, Strawdog and as a company member with Trap Door Theater. Or you might have caught him on both the big and small screen with roles in: Men in Black 2, Bruce Almighty, ER, JAG, and Star Trek Enterprise. He has worked with renowned artist Catherine Sullivan in work that put him on the walls of the Whitney and Tate modern museums.

In 2002 out of frustration, Michael began writing Mr. Bush and turned the letters into an on-going and ever changing performance. M.S. Garvey’s Letter’s to the President has been performed here in Chicago, Romania, Venice and Hollywood, CA

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Dori Goldman

Dori has been a performer in Chicago for a long time. She’s acted in original musicals and improv shows galore at The Annoyance, iO, The Playground, Comedy Sportz, The Theatre Building, Bailiwick, Live Bait, WNEP, Candlelight Forum, Donny’s Skybox, Royal George and Victory Gardens/Body Politic theaters as well as writing sketch comedy. She has also performed Off-Broadway, New York and at many comedy and fringe festivals around North America and London. Today, in addition to being a top-notch Recruiting Manager, Dori is trying to do the voice over thing and find a boyfriend. To find out about both, visit her websites: www.dorigoldman.com and the DOG (Dating Blog)  www.dorigoldman.blogspot.com. Many thanks to Scott and Deanna for the invitation to perform. She is more than exited to share her terrible dating stories.

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We’ll see you at The Hopleaf on the 13th.