Two professional storytellers will come to Indianapolis to share personal stories about family, race, poverty and struggle.
The storytellers, Carol Birch and Ray Christian, will perform “My Storied Life” at 7 p.m. Feb. 12 at the Eugene & Marilyn Glick Indiana History Center, 450 W. Ohio St. Attendees will be required to show proof of vaccination and wear a mask. There is also a virtual option on Zoom.
Christian, who lives in North Carolina, will tell stories that he hopes make people appreciate the different facets of a person’s life that can seem contradictory from the outside.
Christian is Black and grew up in poverty in Richmond, Virginia, during the 1960s and ‘70s, so people like to tell him he’s had a hard life. But Christian also found success in academics — he’s currently a university professor — and served in the Army. Those three truths can be difficult for some people to reconcile.
The point isn’t to make his story relatable to everyone, Christian said, but people should learn to appreciate the human experience for what it is.
“That’s about as much empathy as you can ask for from an audience,” he said.
Christian considers himself a lifelong storyteller but said he got into it more professionally about eight years ago.
“You live the life first, then you talk about it,” he said.
Birch will focus on her parents: a “spirited” father and a mother who was a “fighter in her own way,” as she described them.
Birch said her father had a strong sense of what was right and wrong, and he lived by that to a degree that was sometimes puzzling. She said he once punched a nun in fourth grade because she wanted to punish the whole class for being bad when really it was only a few students who were responsible.
Birch said she hopes the audience comes away with a desire to tell stories about their own families.
“Storytelling is story triggering,” she said. “I want them to feel inspired.”
The performance is presented by Storytelling Arts of Indiana. Tickets are $20 individually online and in person and $35 for a household to watch online. Learn more and purchase tickets at storytellingarts.org.
Contact staff writer Tyler Fenwick at 317-762-7853 or email at tylerf@indyrecorder.com. Follow him on Twitter @Ty_Fenwick.
