7pm
First Tuesday of every month

 

Author and performer Brad Lawrence will perform all eighteen chapters, one a month, of his work Monsters In The Wood, finally answering the question – What’s so funny about murder, poverty, and drug addiction. An epic adventure chronicling one boy’s escape from the methamphetamine cartels and evangelical churches of his Southern Missouri home, and the funerals, illegitimate siblings, youth ministers, drug runners, and hormones he will have to overcome along the way. This show is a journey into the dark heart of forgotten America—from the rural poverty and short violent lives that punctuated the author's boyhood, to the moment that taught him an essential lesson: If you can laugh in the face of death, a vengeful God, and your own devastating guilt, then you are pretty much set in the jokes department. Most of all, it is a book about Anthem Rock played at really inappropriate moments.

Each chapter will be performed as a stand alone piece, each one a unique look into the weird world of back woods America. Brad will be accompanied in each show by members of The BTK Band, New York’s only improvised storytelling rock band. He will also invite a different performer from the city’s blossoming storytelling scene to open each of the shows. 

Brad Lawrence is one of New York City’s rising talents in the burgeoning world of live storytelling. The first person to win back to back Moth GrandSLAMs —and one of the few to achieve that distinction of storySLAM winner on his first appearance—he has also been a guest intro performer for The Moth’s outreach program to schools and institutional communities, as well as performing at shows for their corporate partners. He is a regular at such live storytelling shows as The Liar Show, Speakeasy Stories and Seth Lind’s Told, and on the podcast, Risk! He recently became the resident storyteller for the BTK Band during their year long run at Horse Trade’s Under St. Mark’s Theater. Further, his performances at the monthly reading series How I Learned and The Stories at The Creek Storytelling Show, which he coproduces with his wife, have both garnered him mentions in The New York Times. He currently curates the very popular storytelling night, The Standard Issues, along with his wife.