Later on he moved to NY to become a writer and noticed that New York was so sound-bite this, sound-bite that. He felt that cocktail party chatter had eliminated the possibility of anyone telling a real story or really connecting with another person. He started The Moth in his living room just to sort of recreate those moments on his porch. Even with the first one, they almost couldn’t fit everybody that wanted to come. Within a couple weeks of that they did a show at Joe’s Pub and it was sold out. Actually, every show since then has sold out for nine and a half years. 

Who were the first “mothites”? I’m trying to think back because I wasn’t there in the very early days, but definitely George told a lot of stories. Tony Hendra is someone who’s on our board. He’s been around for awhile. He’s a very famous writer and was the editor of the National Lampoon. He’s ah…have you ever seen Spinal Tap? He’s the guy running around with the cricket bat, like the manager, slamming everything. There were a lot of really wonderful people who aren’t famous names but who really helped create the organization — Judy Stone, Pegi Vail, Bliss Broyard, Gaby Tana and Nell Casey. They were all of George’s friends. That’s one of the things that makes The Moth so special. George surrounds himself with really genuine people, and so when he started, they all got into it. It was one of those- I don’t know if you’ve ever read the book The Tipping Point? 

Malcolm Gladwell? The book talks about how, for something to really take off, you have to have the right types of personalities. And the people that George knew were the brightest and best in New York, so the word of mouth really helped it to explode. 

I’m just curious. The Moth is usually held in relatively small theaters. Have you thought about moving it to larger venues or are you afraid of losing the intimacy of the program? That’s a very astute observation that people don’t usually pick up on. They say, ‘Why don’t you go to a big venue?’ But that intimacy is a huge part of what makes The Moth special. We have had some successful shows at big venues. We did Summer Stage three summers ago. I was secretly hoping for about 600 people, which would fill all the seats, but there ended up being 4,000 people there. We have the second highest record of any spoken word event at Summer Stage. That show went very well, but it’s a very different show when you program for 4,000 people outside versus 250 people in our normal space. 

How is it different? It’s more the types of stories that are different. We have a huge range of stories. We have heartbreaking stories, we have funny stories. In a large space, where most people aren’t going to be able to see the face of the storyteller, for something like that, you’re usually going to go with funnier stories, stories that you can just hear and pick up on. 

So, it’s important to be close to the performer to catch everything? Well, we normally seat a lot of people at cocktail tables. It gives it a very different feel from row seating at a theater. We’re actually taking The Moth on tour right now and do 800 seat venues, but it was very hard to find venues that felt right. 

How is storytelling different as an art form from other spoken word performances or even from television, where the majority of us normally get our stories? Well, one of the differences is you’re right there with the person. With TV or even theater, you are seeing actors portray another person’s story. With The Moth, what you’re seeing is a person telling you their personal story. 

There’s more vulnerability, in a sense. Yes. In any successful Moth story, there’s usually that moment of vulnerability where the audience feels like the person is taking a chance, is showing a part of themselves that normally they would only show to their very close friends and family. In a successful Moth story, everybody in the audience feels like the person is telling the story just to them. 

Also, with The Moth there’s no green room, no one’s in the back, they’re all together, whether it be Moby, Malcolm Gladwell, whoever. The performers sit out in the audience with the audience. We try to level the playing field. One of our main philosophies is that everyone has a story to tell. Tell me, then. Who tells the best stories? The professional performers and celebrities that are more polished or the “real people”? 

It really just depends. Obviously, some of our best performers are the some of the great raconteurs of New York City. Jonathan Ames, Andy Borowitz, Michael Rips. These are people who you think of when you think of storytelling. But, truly some of the most beautiful stories have come from “regular” people. What’s one of the best real life stories? 

Well, one of the things that makes The Moth different from other storytelling shows is that we actually direct the stories. I just recently hit my record. I just spent almost 17 hours working with a guy who had just gotten out of jail after serving 19 years on a 20-to-life sentence before being exonerated. He was framed by a dirty cop. What’s his name? 

His name is Barry Gibbs. He was set free. The Innocence Project finally got him out. It was horrifying. But, with that kind of story, you could do a two-hour movie about what happened to him. He obviously still has feelings of anger, I mean how could he not? So, it was a lot of work to get him to tell it beginning, middle, and end — to put in the details that the audience can handle and to have it make sense. And what could be a more important story to have? That’s where social work of The Moth comes in. I’m pretty sure everyone in the audience left thinking, ‘Oh my God. That could happen to me.’ Makes me kind of wonder, what is a story, really? Is it the summation of a life or focusing on just a moment in one’s life? 

It’s focusing on a point in one’s life. This is a good but difficult question. What I’m always looking for is a story about what makes them them. Usually those stories do not span an entire life. George, our founder, is always saying: ‘They can’t be and then I was born, and then I did this…’ And it’s true. Usually you can find one incident in your life that will sort of tell a bigger story about something that’s fundamental to you. Like what? 

Well, we just had a great story by a guy, David Feige, who was a public defense attorney in the Bronx. David Feige’s wonderful website with lots of great clips is www.davidfeige.com. He did this story about the day he stood down an evil judge that didn’t care about his client. The story gets to the point where he’s standing before the judge and he says, ‘Cuff me. Find me in contempt. Take me off to jail.’ Because there he overcame his fear so he could actually do his job the way he needed to. You can’t do your job if you’re afraid of the judges. I would love to interview him. That’s very admirable. 

I know, and the story of him standing down this judge is really the story of his life, in a way. He is the person who goes in there and fights for these people whom nobody wants to defend. Even to the point that he’s willing to be thrown in jail himself. But, we were talking about one’s whole life versus a point in one’s life. And it usually works best if the story does sum up who they are. What are some stories that didn’t achieve that? Moments, perhaps, when the presenter didn’t get the concept of what a story is? 

Now we usually don’t have problems because we’ve been around for such a long time and have such a definitive style. But we’ve definitely had famous names who didn’t do as well as they had wanted. This has happened several times, and you can see the look on their faces when it’s over. They know it didn’t go that well. When that happens, though, it’s great cause usually they want to come back and do it again. And the next time they nail it. Why is it they don’t do well the first time? 

Well, storytelling really is an art. And sometimes people just want to kind of jump in there and do it, as opposed to working with us beforehand. And some people can definitely do that, but it’s hard, and those people tend to be more seasoned storytellers. But, that’s where we can help. The Moth truly is a labor of love of many, many people, but our core staff is made up of four women — Lea Thau, Sarah Austin Jenness, Jenifer Hixson, and myself who all have a gift, I think, of drawing things out of the storytellers. How do you direct the storytellers? 

First, we encourage people to think of themselves as a character in their own story. This makes me think of one of the most beautiful stories ever told at The Moth. What story is that? 

Ethan Hawke told this amazing story. Now, this is a man who’s had dinner with presidents his whole life. He told this beautiful story about his mother’s boyfriend when he was a little boy who kind of tough-loved him and was instrumental in helping him grow up. It was just really beautiful and he worked really hard. I am realizing how unique this art form is! 

It is, it is. Storytelling is different from writing. With writing, you just have to get it down once. With storytelling, you have to get up there and get certain points in it across to the audience so that it makes sense. The words become so fleeting and you have such a short amount of time to achieve that curve and that shape and have the audience share wholly in the experience. How long are the stories normally? 

Ten minutes. Not long, and yet almost too long for an audience that comes from such a visual culture that’s used to flickers changing on screens every thirty seconds. 

So true. And, even when we tell stories to our friends, we are accustomed to the play of words back and forth and the constant interjections and reactions. A lot of people ask us, ‘So, will there be questions after the show?’ and we say, ‘No.’ Ha. I mean there are, though, because people tend to either go out after the show or stay around and talk about the show. I see that the next big event is Wednesday, May 24th at Symphony Space. You have a lot of big names performing. Is that because it’s a bigger venue and you want to get more attention? 

Well, it’s 800 seats to fill, and for us that’s big, so we wanted to make sure it sells out. We booked Moby, who’s always good to us. The theme is news, by the way, and New York City is the center for news in the United States. It’s going to be great because New York City holds the brightest and the best. We had the time to find the best newscasters who, in a sense, define the way we see news and have seen news for decades. Who are some of the news personalities performing on the 24th and how did you find them? 

Well, we have a huge network of people in NYC, just people who know people. Someone will say, ‘Oh, this person’s an amazing raconteur’. So we had the time to say, ‘Who is a news reporter who is also a brilliant storyteller?’ People like, Randall Pinkston, who has this crazy story about causing Air force One to circle for thirty-five minutes cause he missed the last press plane. And so we got in touch with Randall and he was able to do it. I mean, he’s someone who’s on the news almost every night. How does Moby fit in, then, to a news oriented program? 

I’m hoping he’s gonna do a story about what it’s like to be in the news. He’s the other side of the theme. He’s the guy who, every time he blows his nose and walks outside it makes the front page. So, he’s the potential victim of the news. Most of the rest are broadcasters, though. One of the most exciting storytellers that will be performing is Bernie Birnbaum. He’s 85. He was a cameraman in World War Two. He covered the fall of Saigon, he covered Kennedy’s assassination, he covered Watergate. He was a producer on the very first thirty-minute news show with Walter Cronkite. He’s one of the people who helped create the news as it is today.  With someone like that, how can you pick just one story? It’s hard. He was telling me that he was sent to Dallas by Walter Cronkite when they were trying to figure out whether Kennedy died. This was before it had even been announced. These are the stories that we try to find. Stories like that are really pivotal stories for our culture. They’re stories that no one would really be exposed to, otherwise.

They’re very behind-the-scenes. I wonder if The Moth would work in a city other than NYC? This city just collects genius. This is true. It collects passionate people who feel a need to recount. Someone like Bernie is especially passionate about the Kennedy story because he feels like the conspiracy theorists have sort of won the war about the way Kennedy was shot. I think there’s something like 70% of Americans don’t believe that Kennedy was shot the way the records show. And Bernie’s always like, ‘I’m telling you he was! I was there! That’s what happened.’ 

I’m really looking forward to seeing this show on Wednesday. It’s gonna be great. I’m really excited about it. 

Thanks for meeting with me. Go Moth!   Thank you. This was really fun.