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Speaking in the First Person

The six storytellers at First Person's inaugural event

On a January evening, in a room barely recognizable as the West Berkeley Fencing Club, six storytellers faced a sold-out audience, who whistled, shouted, and wildly applauded their appreciation.

Harriett Jernigan headshot "Moth Grand Slam Finalist," "Epiphany Chaser," "Founder of First Person"

The storytellers had just wrapped up the inaugural evening in a new series—First Person—a storytelling workshop and showcase created by PWR’s Harriett Jernigan. Harriett is an accomplished storyteller, and First Person provides her with a space to tell stories, as well as to mentor and collaborate with others with a passion for the craft. 

Among the six storytellers, four had ties to PWR--in addition to Harriett, the group included the Stanford Storytelling Project’s Laura Joyce Davis and Shameeka “Smeek” Wilson, and the evening was hosted by Dawn Fraser

January First Person event flyer, featuring pictures of participants

The theme for the night was “Sporty”—Laura talked about seeing her athletic abilities through her children’s eyes, Smeek shared a story about braving her fears to zipline through the Costa Rican rain forest, and Harriett, in fitting tribute to the venue, talking about fencing. 

The audience was enthusiastic and engaged. PWR’s Jill Schepmann noted that “the storytellers' craft, authenticity, and raw humanity at play made me laugh, cry, think, and feel in important ways.”  The PWR community turned out in force to support their own—I counted nearly 10 of us in the audience—and Jill emphasized that “it's a beautiful thing to see faculty members, staff, and students in our community coming together to amplify life through stories in a new communal space.”

After January’s triumphant launch, First Person hosted its second event in April. Harriett and Smeek once more took to the stage—with Smeek taking the role of “sourdough starter” for the new cohort, bringing some of the magic of the first cohort to the next. Dawn continued her role as host, and the Stanford Storytelling Project’s Aru Nair joined the line up, along with three storytellers from outside Stanford.

April First Person event flyer, featuring photos of the participants

The second evening’s theme was “Oops!” and the storytellers told about mistakes both personal and professional.

Once more, PWR showed up to listen, and Kevin Moore shared that “what stayed with me from both events was…the extraordinary range of stories we heard! … some of them comic (the passport debacle, the race to get to the Sacramento riverboat), some really poignant and even haunting (still thinking about Harriett’s story about Kirk).” 

Kevin also noted that “Dawn Fraser is a phenomenal MC, who really makes the series cohere (omg—the hamster story).” Readers, ask Dawn to tell you that hamster story.

First Person has been envisioned as an antidote to the competitive nature of many storytelling events, intended, in the words of the organization’s mission statement “to lift up the voices of the marginalized and underrepresented, making space for a community of people to share their experiences, to talk their lives, to make meaning together. By removing audience judging and competition from the equation, we focus on the importance of relationships, collaborative creativity, and change at the grassroots level. First Person believes that we can effect change if we move stories that usually sit on the margins to the center.”

Participants in each showcase spend time together building community and workshopping their stories, and the performances the audience sees are a culmination of that effort. On the First Person website, Harriett shares that “A big part of our skill-developing and community-building mission is workshopping with our cohort of storytellers in multiple formats for multiple weeks before the event. We share rough recordings of our stories with our WhatsApp group for feedback, and have a live dress rehearsal before the event.”

Flyer for NCR Senior Story Jam

Harriett’s efforts to support storytelling weren’t limited to First Person this spring—as part of her work as the Notation in Cultural Rhetorics coordinator, she organized a storytelling showcase for seniors–a tradition now in its second year.     

 

And just because the school year is ending, Harriett’s efforts aren’t over—First Person’s next event will take place on June 14th, and I hope you’ll join me in the audience. 

Poster for June First Person story potluck

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