A storytelling show about you—the audience—The Campfireball is created spontaneously out of whatever stories and lives happen to be gathered together inside Story Parlor at that moment in time. There’s nothing to prepare and nothing to fear—participation is never required, and the show is just as much fun to sit back and watch unfold as it is to play along. Come on out for a night of storytelling you will literally never be able to experience again. Never possible to know what’s coming next, each Campfireball slowly begins to reveal surprises, connections, and communitas as the space transforms from a room of strangers to a room of neighbors.
Workshopped and developed over two years in the master's program for storytelling at East Tennessee State University and showcased at the 2023 Asheville Fringe Festival, host/storyteller Cory Howard (National Storytelling Festival, Moth Grand Slam winner) blends intimacy and absurdity in an effort to shepherd the audience through ridiculous yet reverent ways of drawing out their life experiences.
This month you and The Campfireball will take a journey through everyone’s favorite feeling: FAILURE. Mistakes! Totally Blowing it! Disasters! Errors in judgement, coming up short, missing the mark, embarassments, actually trying and…NOT succeeding. What is life but a steady stumbling forward, and on May 9th let’s try (and possibly fail) to find a way to rejoice in the biffing of it all.
Featuring special guests:
Mud Flap Monday
This improv duo of Gillian Bellinger and Matt Peikin will interview an audience member about failure using that as a springboard for a completely improvised performance. Along with several television screen credits, Gillian Bellinger has been an improviser for 20+ years at The Second City, The Annoyance, IO West, The Groundlings, and Westside Comedy Theater. In Asheville, she is the founder and Artistic Director of Misfit Improv & Acting School. Matt Peiken peformed improv for more than 20 years in Minneapolis and Cincinnati before moving to Asheville in 2017 and joining the first resident troupe of the Asheville Improv Collective. The 2024 Asheville Fringe marks their debut as an improv duo.