PRESS CLIPPINGS:

Sunset Magazine — October, 2004

“Spellbinder…” by Wendy O’Dea

Beverly Mickins has a good story for you

Once upon a time—how’s that for a classic opening?—Beverly Mickins worked as a stand up comic in New York. But, she recalls, “I found myself more drawn to the storytelling rather than the punch line.”

Which is why Mickins, who relocated to Los Angeles, came up with the idea for Story Salon. Running every Wednesday in a Studio City cafe, it’s a casual form for aspiring Spalding Grays to debut and fine-tune tales tall, tragic, and tantalizing before an audience.

Story Salon is a mix of written pieces read aloud and stream-of-counsciousness anecdotes. Together with producers Lance Anderson and Dan Farren, Mickins orchestrates shows that feature 8 to 10 raconteurs, each spinning his or her tale for seven minutes. Topics and inspirations vary—from the perils of driving in England to the war in Iraq—but Mickins is invariably the first to laugh.

Staging Story Salon in the San Fernando Valley is no accident. “We want to keep it intimate, keep it in the Valley,” Anderson says. “We don’t see it as a slick Hollywood production, which can be intimidating.”

Since teaming up, the three have organized a fund-raiser for New York charities, hosted a storytelling festival called Fray Day, and produced Story Salon: The Mario Sessions, a CD with a sampling of 19 stories. And every week, Mickins and her cohorts welcome storytellers who run the gamut from hippies to housewives. “Weird is fine with me,” Mickins notes. “As long as people feel comfortable being fully human and expressive, I’ve accomplished what I set out to do.”

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Valley Magazine — August, 2004

“The Write Stuff…” by Keith Tuber

To keep in shape, some people go to the gym, while others jog, play tennis or engage in similar activities. Not Dan Farren. He and two dozen others like him do their exercising once a week at a Studio City coffee house.

The location has changed over the years, but the ritual remains the same.

Every Wednesday at 8 p.m. for the past eight years, a quirky collective of comedians, actors, writers, housewives and office workers gathers to swap stories about life, love, parenthood, and the train wreck they all can become.

“I write and do stand-up, but I also wanted to stretch a different muscle,” says Farren, one of the producers of the weekly Story Salon sessions that take place at the Coffee Fix (12508 Moorpark St., Studio City; 762-0181).

“By coming here, I’m really able to get to the word, because the word is really important here,” Farren says, “more so even than the performance. It’s a matter of getting your story out.”

The Story Salon, founded by Beverly Mickins who still serves as executive producer and storyteller, is all about the word. Each meeting, up to a dozen creative individuals share tales that contain equal elements of memoir and observation and are at times amusing, heartwarming and touching. The rules are simple: Five to seven minutes of original material performed by the writer.

The setting is highly informal. Approximately two dozen folding chairs are set up in the small, Bohemian-style coffee house, and performers are called up by an emcee who keeps the show moving. On this particular evening, with Mickins on vacation, Farren has assumed the role.

He introduces each performer, interjecting his own brand of humor along the way. Some of the performers consult notes, while others read directly from typed or hand-written pages. Still others take the microphone without consulting any papers. It is an opportunity for professionals in show business to test new material or fine-tune their art, while for novices it serves simply as a creative outlet.

“We have people from all different walks of life,” Farren says. “We have performers and stand-up comics and actors and writers, but we also have people who are lawyers and housewives and have the urge to get up and be creative and get a chance to perform on a very comforting, very supportive stage. So we’re very eclectic. We generally have 10 or 11 performers on a given night, and there are about 30 who rotate around. So, the shows are always different. They always take on a different personality. One week it could be serious, more dramatic, or it could be funny and silly. So it varies.”

On this balmy April evening, it is funny and silly.

One gentleman talks about his experiences as a Kraft Services worker at a Valley studio, and how he ended up stealing clothes from the wardrobe department. Another woman recounts her first massage, which she treated herself to during her pregnancy. While the massage turned out to be anything but a treat, her story—both entertaining and moving—was a treat indeed.

No subject is taboo. On this night, there are also stories about aging, child custody and a bizarre practical joke that takes place at the San Bernardino morgue.

Regulars include Joseph Dougherty, who received an Emmy and the Humanitas Prize for his writing on the ground-breaking television series “thirtysomething,” actress Frances Peach, who appeared on “Laverne and Shirley” back in the ’70s, and Lance Anderson, a writer and storyteller born and raised in Los Angeles who began a career in stand-up comedy in 1998 under the name Mr. Pizza. He also serves as one of the Story Salon’s producers.

“We share stories about our lives,” Anderson says. “They’re usually personal, first-person stories, but sometimes they’re fiction, sometimes they’re strange and weird. There are some new stories very week, and we do theme nights once a month.”

Choices for an upcoming theme night included the following: parting shots, rude awakenings, older but not wiser, and the moral to the story is.”

“I don’t know if the content has changed all that much since we began, but definitely the level of the show has gone up over the years,” Anderson says. “Everyone who is doing it has gotten better, and the regulars have gotten better. The level of storytelling is pretty high.”

Anderson’s story, which ends the evening, contains an anecdote from his stand-up career. He got into the business, he says, with dreams of fame and fortune. After a dozen years of pursing his dream, he laments that his goal now is to perform without having to clean up afterward. With that, he asks for volunteers to help him move the folding chairs out of the coffee shop.That’s show business for you.

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Back Stage West — April 29-May 5, 2004

“The Coffee Fix and Story Salon…” by Julio Martinez

The two Hollywood-based cabaret outlets, The Gardenia and Feinstein’s at the Cinegrill, are certainly destinations of choice for singers and comedians, but cabaret, historically has encompassed all aspects of entertainment, including the art of the storyteller. “It amalgamates two crafts that are in plentiful supply in this town: writing and acting,” says standup-turned-storytelling maven Beverly Mickens.

In 1996, Mickens, who was growing frustrated with the joke-a-second demands of local comedy clubs, was searching for an outlet for more cerebrally based long-form communication with an audience. “A bunch of us found a coffee house that would let us experiment, and that’s how Anything But Standup was born,” she recalls.

In 2001, Anything But Standup moved to Jennifer’s Coffee Connection in Studio City, performing every Wednesday evening. “The rules were simple,” says Mickens. A performer would get the opportunity to get up and perform his or her original material for five to seven minutes. The only caveat was, it had to be storytelling and not standup comedy. If the story was serious, that was fine. If it was funny, that was fine. But no overt jokes were allowed.

The format, which is now called Story Salon, was a mainstay at Jennifer’s on Wednesday nights for more than three years and led to the development of complete one-person theatre pieces for such Story Salon regulars as Mickens, comedian Lance Anderson, writer Dan Farren, actor Stacie Chaiken, and others. It also led to a Story Salon CD titled The Mario Sessions (named after recording engineer and former Jennifer’s co-owner Mario Martin), a compilation of 19 stories performed by a wide range of performers: show business novices, actors, and Emmy-winning writers.

Beginning this month, Story Salon has moved a bit further west in Studio City—to the Coffee Fix on Moorpark Street, west of Whitsett Avenue. Ironically the spokesperson for the establishment is named Jennifer (Faith), a Philadelphia-born actor who has extensive experience managing coffeehouses and restaurants but who is now determined to launch her own performing career. Faith believes the coffeehouse environment offers a perfect outlet to nurture the complete spectrum of cabaret entertainment. “The Coffee Fix has an extensive dining menu yet offers the ambience of a coffee and dessert bar,” she affirms. “We attract a lot of local, neighborhood people who are in the entertainment industry. Since they like to hang out here, it is only natural that some also like to perform here, as well. We have live entertainment five nights a week, and we would like to expand to seven. The folks of Story Salon are a perfect fit for The Coffee Fix. It is cabaret at its most basic.”

(Excerpted from “Come Make the Music Play”—an expose on Southern California’s thriving cabaret scene.)

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Studio City Sun — April 16-April 30, 2004

“Story Spinners of Studio City…” by E.M. Fredric

Stop-At-Nothing Storytellers Hell-Bent For Adventure — “It’s like a slumber party or sitting around the campfire”

Stories - live stories - from all walks and talks of life. Tales of yore and ones that make you scream for more - those that will delight with insight while moving an audience from laughter to tears. “The Story Salon” is a group of pro, semi-pro and at some points, you never know, performers who entertain and enlighten weekly a devoted and enthralled following.

And starting this month, they roost at their new digs, steered by host Beverly Mickins, at the Coffee Fix on Moorpark across from the Studio City Library.

Dan Farren, Moira Quirk, Joseph Dougherty, Clay Bravo, Dan Tirman, Bill Sperling, Lance Anderson, Shelley-Anne Martin, Richard Tanner, Frances Peach, Julio Martinez, Paul Jacek, Leni Ramberg, Michael Rayner, Les Kurkendaal, Marti MacGibbon, Shirley Scott and Richard Mueller and, of course, Beverly Mickins comprise the storytelling brethren who spin their eclectic yarns, in the process resurrecting the fine art of storytelling. And no fish tales, please.

The story of how it came to be is but a quick five to seven minute read. Mickins is a statuesque and ingenuous performer who also writes, acts and has appeared in stand-up venues, including The Comedy Store here in Los Angeles and Catch A Rising Star and Caroline’s in New York. Mickins left San Francisco “to get away from my parents,” studying and specializing in comedic theatre at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. That’s where she stumbled upon storytelling – sort of. It was at a comedy club one night that she actually discovered her niche. “I’d never been to a comedy club and it just hit me. It’s that power the mike has in your hand, there’s this kinetic energy and I thought I really want to do this. When it’s good, it’s like a drug and when it’s bad -it’s tormenting.”

She moved to the west coast to be “somewhere where you could look up at the sky and actually see the sun” and found the land of sunlight offered her a taste of the limelight as well, appearing in TV’s “Judging Amy,” “Strong Medicine,” “Sirens,” and the long running PBS series “Square One Television.” She says she’s especially proud of her work on Off-Broadway and in LA’s production of “AIDS/US/WOMEN.” “That play was one of the most powerful things I’ve done, she says. “It was based on actual women with HIV/AIDS. There was the rich white TV producer, a younger lesbian, a woman on drugs, a transgender and all the roles were firsthand accounts of what happened and how. It was astonishing because it was simple.” She also found success and pride in “The Driving Piece,” a performance she mounted in Los Angeles in 2002.

As for the storytelling? Since 1996, through friend and theatrical producer Clifford Bell, she’s hosted what was initially called “Anything…But Stand-Up” that has been renamed and known as “The Story Salon.” “Although I loved stand-up I wasn’t sure what other direction to go in and Clifford said, ‘Why don’t you do story telling because you do that with your stand-up anyway.’” She took the advice and within weeks a small group gathered weekly to do just that: tell stories. Simply, but with unabashed gusto they meet on Wednesday nights at a local coffeehouse.

The core of the group has remained intact throughout the years through a sense of community. They’re strengthened by each other’s motto of truth and nurture each other to delve within their own intimacy. The rules are simple: five to seven minutes of original material performed by the writer. This open arena to showcase one’s foibles in life is what fosters the free-range of styles and deliveries. Age range isn’t in the equation here.

The eldest newcomer used to be a journalist in the 1940’s. The public is not just invited to be the audience, they’re encouraged to become a part of the show. Mickins says, “I want diversity, it’s like a slumber party or sitting around the campfire and as adults we don’t do that. We want people to feel safe on stage, a communion and through an honest story people get affirmed.”

“The Story Salon” has its first CD out for only twelve dollars and gives patrons a chance to take home tidbits of bygone stories. And far from days of campfire and marshmallows – but equally riveting – is what was witnessed one evening: a man brought his wife along, via cellphone, while sharing his latest fable. Now, that’s a story to tell!

The Story Salon performs weekly on Wednesdays at 8 p.m. at The Coffee Fix, 12508 Moorpark, west of Whitsett, directly across from the Studio City Library.
Phone: (818) 762-0181, $4 minimum, Web site: storysalon.com

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Los Angeles Daily News — Wednesday, April 7, 2004

“Gifts of gab…” by Sandra Barrera, Staff Writer

Storytellers group revives the art of narration at Valley coffeehouses

It’s another Wednesday night at Jennifer’s Coffee Connection in Studio City and actor Marsha Clark is saying how happy she is to be a part of the Story Salon.

“Perhaps it’s the fundamental human need to gather together and relate our experiences and ponder the basic universal questions that we all have: Is there a God? What is the purpose of life? How much would it cost to have a man come to your house and throw a rodent out the front door?”

Yes—in the age where we get our narratives from huge teams of corporate professionals who create movies that can be reduced to long strings of binary digits and carried around on portable DVD players, there still are places where you can hear a story out of the mouth of the person who created it. The Story Salon is one of those places. Equal part writer’s workshop, stand-up club and group encounter, the informal weekly get-together has been meeting in different spots around the San Fernando Valley since 1996.

Tonight it moves to Coffee Fix (12508 Moorpark St.), which is just around the corner from where the group has assembled for the last four years—Jennifer’s Coffee Connection. It is there, amid the whir of the coffee machine and painted murals of sunny Tuscan landscapes, that people like Clark test recent material, sharpen old stories and just riff as they try to mine their lives for the buried gemstones of narrative—something new, funny, astonishing.

There’s the divorcee who pawns her wedding ring to afford chemotherapy for her cat, and the happy-go-lucky toddler who goes missing after trailing a dog clear across town. A woman who spent her honeymoon at the home of her Italian relatives spins a cautionary tale. And Clark unexpectedly bonds with a squirrel she calls Lenny.

“It sounds so inconsequential but it’s truly those life moments that we find so interesting,” says Clark, the Studio City woman whom “All My Children” viewers will recognize as Judge Fitzpatrick.

Clark is one of the newer faces in this revolving door of writers who carry on the ancient tradition of oral story telling amid the sometimes banal, sometimes furious rhythms of modern Valley existence. They are actors and screenwriters, lawyers and musicians, even housewives all brought to the group through word-of-mouth. Each is given five to 10 minutes to tell his or her story.

“I’m always surprised and grateful that people keep showing up and doing it,” says Beverly Mickins, the Studio City-based 40-something who founded the Story Salon as a place where she could do what didn’t fit into her stand-up routine. “The thing that I wanted most of all was for people to feel comfortable and feel like they could take a risk.”

Success stories
Places that provide that kind of intimacy and familylike atmosphere can be fruitful places to look for talent. It certainly was for one of America’s pre-eminent chroniclers, Ira Glass, host of public radio’s “This American Life.”

Her first saw David Sedaris - the humorist familiar to NPR listeners and readers of such literary trendsetters as The New Yorker and Esquire - reading stories in a small basement club in Chicago in 1990. Anyone who has heard him knows that Sedaris has a thoroughly original take on the modern world and one that rings true despite intense cynicism and his status as an outsider, both as a gay man and all-around oddball. Who else on the literary scene these days dares grapple with such issues as what to do when one encounters an unflushable toilet at a friend’s party? And that’s early Sedaris.

“It was utterly clear to me and to everyone in the room, like, how special he was,” Glass says. “Not only is he a completely original writer … but there was such a perfect combination of something really funny with something sort of emotional, and wistful, that’s perfectly scaled to what you can do on the radio.”

Not everybody comes to Story Salon looking for a big break. Some just like the narrative workout, the flexing of rarely used muscles, which has led to the occasional one-person show.

Take Dan Farren, one of the producers of the weekly gathering.

He has parlayed his weekly material about his father’s battle with Alzheimer’s disease into a one-man show and started his own group of stand-ups who tell stories about being funny.

But at last week’s Story Salon the Canoga Park man, a child of the ’60s, read aloud from his work journal in which he recounts the traffic jam that shut down both directions of the 101 freeway and resulted in his being really late to work.

He finally arrives at the part in his story where he’s sitting alone in his cubicle.

“Five o’clock … an e-mail arrives from management stating that we have to make up the hours we missed or we won’t get paid.” The audience gasps.”I

stare at the ‘Yes We Can’ motivational poster on the wall,” he reads. “5:30 p.m., an omen: The ‘Yes We Can’ sign falls off the wall.”

Irony is not dead here, but it’s not a requirement either. The group reflects its L.A. roots, but is also homey and supportive of anybody who has the nerve to reveal himself on the mike.

“It’s true,” say Michael Rayner, a caffeinated 41-year-old actor from North Hollywood who wears thick-framed glasses. “At all the alternative comedy clubs, you have to be so uber hip. This just allows you to try anything out.”

Last week, Rayner was telling a rambling tale in which his dad takes him duck hunting. “Part of the thing about duck hunting is some places have, like, a reserve, where the ducks are free—

it’s a free zone. They can hang out there and you can’t go get them. But you wait outside the fenced area in the yes-you-can-shoot-them zone … for (I don’t know) three, four hours just waiting for birds to fly overhead. And then you shoot them.”

The sketch wanders from one topic to the next, but Rayner connects with his audience, who follows eagerly. He led them from duck blinds in LaPierre, Mich., to juggling in Hollywood, to playing keno in Las Vegas. Meanwhile, his father, who sits at a table near the foot of the stage, is relishing every word with a big toothy grin.

A trip to Story Salon is one of his favorite things to do whenever he’s visiting his son and daughter-in-law in California.

“He says, ‘Make sure we get back, I want to get back to Story Salon.’” Rayner says. “Last year he was there two times and then he actually did a little story at the end thanking everyone because he just loved it.”