Featured Performers

Quique Aviles is a poet, actor and community activist whose work is dedicated to addressing social issues through performance and poetry. He founded and directed the LatiNegro Theater Collective and co-founded and directed Sol & Soul. Since 1992, he has been performing solo, writing his own material and developing characters that are challenging in their complexity and their backgrounds. His most recent work "Rehab" was performed at GALA Hispanic Theatre/Tivoli in May 2006 and is a performance-in-progress that addresses issues of addiction and recovery.

Poet, writer and performer Holly Bass has written for national and local publications and her solo performance pieces "Black Like Coffee" and "Diary of a Baby Diva" have drawn sold-out crowds to both the Arena Stage, Woolly Mammoth Theater and the inaugural Capitol Fringe Festival in Washington, D.C.

Kevin Boggs is a local actor last seen in the highly successful "Gross Indecency" at Theater Alliance. He will next appear ( for one week only) in "Autobahn" at Studio Theatre's Secondstage. Kevin's other credit include Studio Theatre, Roundhouse Theatre, American Century Theatre and readings for Woolly Mammoth and Catalyst Theatre. He is an alumni of the Studio Theatre Acting Conservatory

Jeffrey Brady was a storyteller even in childhood. Back then, his parents called it "lying." This led down a dark path to D&D, computer games and eventually, drama club. Showing a wanton disregard for his own dignity, he passed up an honest job at a cotton mill for a career in PR. Later, after years spent in rural Japan, he came back home for grad school. These days, he puts the "guy" back in guybrarian at a local library.

Bunjo Butler is a librarian, educator, workshop facilitator, and master Storyteller. He has been active in the storytelling world for over 15 years. His wide repertoire includes variations and improvisations on the universal truths found in African, Caribbean, and African American stories, proverbs, and songs, as well as those of his own creation. Bunjo has a fierce determination to the oral tradition, and works avidly to keep it alive through involvement with organizations that perpetuate the art of storytelling. He is the immediate past President of the The National Association of Black Storytellers

Kelly M. Cresap, Ph.D., is an author, public speaker, workshop leader, performer, and storyteller. His recent book Pop Trickster Fool: Warhol Performs Naivete examines the revolutionary impact of pop artist Andy Warhol. Originally from Portland, Oregon, Cresap has worked as a freelance visual artist and arts critic in Seattle, and as a teacher and journalist in Tokyo. He earned his doctorate in English literature at the University of Virginia. As a storyteller and performer he has appeared at theater festivals, nightclubs, conferences, and universities across the country. He leads workshops on a range of issues, and is an activist with Mankind Project: www.mkp.org.

Gayle Danley won the 1994 National Individual Slam Poet in Ashville, NC and in Heidelberg, Germany, she became the 1996 International Slam Poet Champion. Feeling blessed to be able to share her talent and motivational words with audiences across the country, Gayle launched her one-woman show, "Brilliance," touching thousands with her Slam Poetry workshops, lectures, performances and speeches. Gayle has published three books: "Naked," "Soulfull?A Slam Poetry Study Guide," and "Passionate?Poems You Can Feel." A feature story on Slam poetry was presented on the CBS show, 60 Minutes in 1999, which spotlighted her classroom work and riveting performance.

Born and raised in Washington, DC Twain Dooley learned to use language to talk himself into and out of inner-city challenges.  He joined the Army Reserves and served on active duty during Desert Storm.  After a two year stay in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba (as a civilian), he returned to his home town and began to perform his poetry for a variety of audiences.  Twain wrote several books and toured as founding member with The Modern Urban Griots.  He has opened for Amiri Baraka and Jimmy Walker.  He has earned a spot on the DC/Baltimore slam team five times, winning the top honors twice

Growing up as a scrawny girl on bully-ridden streets of hard-core DC suburbia, Stephanie Garibaldi learned to tell stories to survive. After breaking free from suburban shackles to see the world, Stephanie expanded her repertoire to include: storytelling for diplomatic immunity, storytelling for the noble "laugh-with-me-not-at-me" cause, and storytelling in exchange for a hot meal. As one of SpeakeasyDC's ensemble members, Stephanie thinks her bizarre assortment of experiences as a writer, improviser, coach, push poet, filibusterer, amateur stand-up, and Mayan Fertility Goddess have all contributed to her storytelling addiction.

Sherry Geyelin, widow of journalist Philip Geyelin, is a mother of four, grandmother of 6, and former WWII nurse aid, modern dancer, real estate agent, and interior designer. She has been telling original and literary stories to audiences in schools, libraries, churches, clubs, theatre, hotels, hospitals, and retirement communities in the DC are and Maine for many years and regularly tells to a group seniors with Alzheimers. Her favorite quote: ?The shortest distance between two people is a story.?

Joanna Hoffman is a bilingual spoken word artist with serious traveler's itch. She is a proud member of the 2006 DC/Baltimore National Poetry Slam Team, which is currently ranked 4th in the world. She is dedicated to working in the global human rights field, particularly relating to violence against women.

After Robyn Holley received the prestigous "Temp ofthe Month" award in Austin, Texas, she knew it was time to fly back east to tell hungry audiences about her inane, ridiculous life. Over the past five years, this tall, native-Texan hot tamale has been a crowd favorite at the Speakeasy Open Mic, grossing nearly $150 and a golden"1st Place Liar's Contest" shovel, a treasured item of contention at her latest yard sale. She is delighted to be receiving free therapy monthly again on the HR-57 stage, and an excuse to further postpone her inexplicable master's thesis. Please help her find good queso soon whilst living in the D.C. desert.

Reuben Jackson lives in Washington, DC, where he worksas an Associate Curator at the Smithsonian's National Museum Of American History. He also teaches at the Writer's Center in Bethesda, Maryland, and is a regular contributor to WAMU's "Metro Connection."

Toni Asante Lightfoot is a poet, teacher, performer, and activist. Born and raised in Washington, DC, she hosted poetry readings at Soul Brothers Pizza and It's Your Mug and co-founded The Modern Urban Griots which performed at the Whitney Museum, University of Massachusetts-North Dartmouth, the National Theater, and individually all over the country. As a member of Blackout Arts Collective, she helped to create the Lyrics on Lockdown tour of 2001 which is still sending artists around the country to educate audiences about the prison industrial complex.

Among her friends and associates, Meredith Maslich is known as the woman you want to have at your awkward family dinners because she'll always come through with a story to fill the awkward silences. In this capacity, so far Meredith has attended 37 dinners with her friend's in-laws, 24 cocktail parties for friend's work associates and clients, and 4 funerals. In October 2006 she took to the Speakeasy stage and has been enjoying the opportunity to formally tell stories. When not on the Speakeasy stage or at parties with strangers, Meredith is the president of a fundraising consulting company in northern Virginia.

Bill Mayhew has been telling stories for as long as he can remember and to the public for more than thirty years, all over the place, to audiences from kindergarten to senior citizens. His most common theme is humor. He tells mostly folktales, some funny, some grim, some sweet, some classic and quite a few scary stories. His audio tape called "D. Crockett, The Cyclops, and Me" has received critical acclaim from all of his relatives.

Loren Niemi is a storyteller, performance artist, and director of performers whose work has been called "post-modern," and "with the dark beauty of language that is not ashamed of poetry". He is the author of "The Book of Plots" (Llumina Press) on narrative forms and "Inviting the Wolf In: Thinking About Difficult Stories" (August House Publishers) with co-author Elizabeth Ellis, on the value and necessity of the stories that are hard to hear and harder to tell. Loren teaches Storytelling in the Communications Department of Metro State University (St. Paul, MN) and is also a public policy consultant and trainer working with communities and organizations to help them identify, frame and effectively tell their stories.

Jessica Piscitelli worked for three and a half years in the feature film industry, which gave her about fifteen years worth of good storytelling material. She now runs a new media production company, Capture Video. She spends all her free time, traveling, bear wrestling, overcoming phobias, and dating lots of absolutely unworthy people just to be able to talk about them in the privacy of the Speakeasy DC community. She hopes to include some of the following in future research projects: marriage, child bearing and/or rearing, wealth beyond belief, ferret wrestling and, of course, life after death.

Since 1998, POEM-CEES have combined rhyme, prose and community activism to emerge at the cutting edge of the vibrant Washington, DC Arts Movement. They've toured and performed across the country as well as done recorded projects for BET and the NFL network. Invitations to open for such acts as the Roots, the Fugees, Erykah Badu and the Last Poets soon led to three seasons performing on HBO's "Russell Simmons presents Def Poetry. This fall will bring us their 3rd CD project on their own SPP Waxworks label entitled "The POEM-CEES Present Everything You've Always Wanted".

Sonya Renee - Captivating, crazy and just plain cool, Sonya Renee is 2004's National Poetry Slam Champion. She has performed with artists like Peabo Bryson, Floetry as well as performing at the National March for Women’s Lives in 2004. Sonya Renee’s mixture of humor, reality and a pinch of big black girl sass has studied sociology at Hampton University and is a performer, actress, instructor and activist. As slam poet she has already had a number of successes and has appeared everywhere in the US. Her texts reveal a clear vision of contemporary societal problems and in her appearances she often makes use of humour.

Amy Saidman has been the Artistic Director of SpeakeasyDC since 2001.  She is a recipient of an individual artist fellowship grant from the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities.  In addition to story performance, she has  been performing and teaching comedy improv since 1996, and has been on the faculty of the Theatre Lab summer program and Washington Improv Theatre (WIT).

Eva Salvetti was first introduced to SpeakeasyDC in 2004, when she participated in the "Liar's Contest" and became victor of the much-coveted Bronze Shovel award for third place. Since then, she performs regularly at the Speakeasy as a feature, host, and open mic performer. She is a member of the SpeakeasyDC Ensemble, with which she performed *Chocolate Jesus* at the Second Capital Fringe Festival; and she olunteers for SpeakeasyDC, serving on the marketing and programming committees. Outside of SpeakeasyDC, Eva is an actor, and has worked with GALA Hispanic Theatre, Catalyst Theater Company, Open Circle Theatre, Adventure Theatre, Cherry Red Productions, Signature Theatre, Round House Theater, and at the 23rd Washington Source Theater Festival (with the play that she co-wrote, produced and stared in, Malena a Dream of Tango, winner of the Outstanding Production Award).

Eddie Sarfaty was seen on Comedy Central's Friday night show Premium Blend and is currently working on a half-hour special for that network. He performs regularly at Caroline's Comedy Club in New York and at clubs, cabarets, colleges and corporate events nationwide. For two years he toured the country as one half of Two Consenting Adults and he is a member of the groundbreaking troupe Funny Gay Males. In addition Eddie performs at resorts and on cruise ships and has been featured at the prestigious Just For Laughs Comedy Festival in Montreal, The Toyota Comedy Festival in New York and at festivals in Detroit, Columbus, Phoenix, Miami and Washington, DC .

A North Carolina native, Ellouise Schoettler grew up in a family who told stories - mostly about each other, so telling stories is part of her DNA. Ellouise lists talking as a skill on her resume. "It is what I do most. I was born to talk - that's why I love being a storyteller." Ellouise tells stories for adults and for children, most recently at MD Historical Society, Baltimore, MD, Strathmore Discovery Day, Kensington Day of the Book, the Speakeasy, and St. Mary's College, Moraga, CA. She is storyteller-in-residence for The Audubon Naturalist Society, Chevy Chase, MD, and artistic director and producer of the monthly Kensington Row Bookshop Story Salon, Kensington, MD. www.ellouisestory.com and www.storyteller-artist.com

Born in Pawley's Island, South Carolina, Sheldon Scott comes from a family of Class Clowns. He spent 4 years as a substance abuse and sex-offender therapist, till he decided to pursue the dream of becoming a waiter. He's an aspiring actor and storyteller, but as of yet, as he says, he "hasn't been in shit, hasn't produced shit, and ain't about shit either"

Jon Spelman, a world-renowned storyteller and teacher, began writing and performing solo theater in 1980. Since then he has been a regularly Featured Teller at the National Storytelling Festival and has represented American professional storytellers at The Colloquium on the Revival of Storytelling in Paris, France. "Tall, dark, and funny, and has a voice that makes you want to follow him home" --Village VOICE "The best company imaginable. In Spelman's hands, storytelling is an art not to be missed"--Washington Post

Saurabh Tak came to a small town in America from a small town in India unchaperoned by anyone from the old country and unknown to anyone in the new. Several years later he remains a wide-eyed and self-deluded immigrant who wishes to parlay his storytelling skills into a rich and famous American Dream. He has been crowned winner of the Moth Story Slam and has performed in DC at Flashpoint and Warehouse Theatre, and in New York at Columbia University, Cornelia Street Cafe, Galapagos Arts Space, The Bitter End, and Nuyorican Poets' Caf?. During the long hiatus between his performances, first in India and then in America, he was a self-hating engineer and a moderately successful jewelry entrepreneur. Visit Tak's profile at www.myspace.com/shaanoo

Musicians

The Evans Brothers Band (Derek Evans, Sean Evans, and Monalisa Arias) grew up with music around us and picked it up; playing first with punk bands and metal bands before experimenting with ska, reggae, jazz, and originals and then rediscovering oldies music from Arlo Guthrie to Zappa. Later, they began to play music from the homeland, latin, and classical. Derek has a talent for singing and copying voices and has innate rythym (in that Latin style) while Sean is a guitar virtuoso and sings backups. So they make an excellent duet. They also have a habit of spontaneously playing places for hours on end in places we happen to arrive at spontaneously.

Artistic Director

Speakeasy Ensemble

SpeakeasyDC's Ensemble

Current Members

Amy Couchoud Director, Chocolate Jesus, CapFringe 2007. Amy Couchoud is a professional dabbler who has brought her "why not?" mentality to directing, stage managing, human resources, shoe sales, "acting", public relations, volunteering, customer service and teaching over the past 8 years. She is a native Washingtonian who is proud to have worked at many of this fair city's cultural institutions including: Studio Theatre, Studio Theatre Secondstage, Folger Shakespeare Library, Shakespeare Theatre, and Arena Stage. Amy holds a B.A. in Dramatic Arts from St. Mary's College of Maryland and is a graduate and former faculty member of the Studio Theatre Acting Conservatory.

Management Team

Amy Saidman, Artistic Executive Director
Jeffrey Brady
Stephanie Garibaldi
Julie Hantman
Meredith Maslich
Eva Salvetti
Sheldon Scott

Volunteers

Holly Bass
Lisy Beaver
Lisa Eaves
Tim Eichers
Amber Gallup
Mary Hillebrand
Kate Krezel
Edwin Kubal
Sinead Quinn
Catherine Sheehy
Henry Sienkewicz
Adrienne Sutton
Elane Vitullo
Kevin Welber

Partners

ESL Music / Local 16 / Eric Hilton, cd post-production
Andrew Hiller, Audio Engineer
Brandon Scmittling, Web Master
Shannon Ryan, Graphic Design

Photography by Ben Carver, Manuel Claros, Kate Foley, Tass Mims, Avner Ofer, Allison Shelley, Allison Soule

Sponsors

Capture Video
Possibilities Consulting
Saidman Financial Services

2007 Donors

Thanks to all of the donors below who helped us meet our match for the Save the Story Campaign

Bringing Down the House ($500+)

Donna Cherel
Sherry Geyelin
Scott Huddle
Peter Kent and Sharyn Neuwirth
Judy Robbins
JS Strickler
Dena Verrill

Standing Ovation ($250-$499)

Hootin' & Hollerin' ($100-$249)

Anonymous
John Canon
Rocky Casner
Gerry Kasarda & Robert Katt
Carol Krafka
T. Charnan Lewis
Kathy McGregor
Loren Niemi
Carolyn Rapp
Abraham Silverman

Whistles & Cheers ($50-$99)

Anonymous
Bruce Blackman
Christine Henry
Mary Hildebrand
Norman & Rita Hiller
Jeffrey Kerwin
Jill Nieniser
Gail Rosen
Eva Salvetti
Ken Schoppman
Nancy Smeltzer
Travis Wright

Polite Applause ($25-$49)

Catherine Crum
Diane Daniel
Roz Hantman
John Meyer
Christy Mylks
Charles Offutt


Much love ant thanks to all who have thrown a few bucks into the basket at the shows.

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