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The Moth returns to Portland (virtually) with a show about unexpected gifts - OregonLive

A well-constructed, well-told story is a gift. And that’s the type of gift the storytelling nonprofit The Moth hopes to deliver to Portland this weekend.

Five storytellers, including a Portland performer, will participate in “Under Wraps: Stories of Unexpected Gifts,” the latest installment of “The Moth Mainstage,” a curated show series. The series comes annually to Portland, where it’s hosted by the nonprofit Literary Arts, typically at Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall. This year, it’ll be a Zoom gathering, accessible starting at 7 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 5, with stories starting at 7:15 p.m. Tickets are $15 per household for general admission, $50 for premium admission, which includes a post-show Q&A session.

Michelle Jalowski, a Moth producer co-directing this year’s show, said each storyteller would have 10 to 12 minutes to tell a true personal story, live and without notes.

This show, hosted by The Village Auntie Institute founder Angelica Lindsey-Ali, features Elana “Lana” Duffy, an Army veteran from New York City; Nina Livingstone, a writer, spoken-word artist and public speaker; Amana Mbise, a postdoctoral fellow in social work from Alaska by way of Tanzania; Falguni “Falu” Shah, a Grammy-nominated musician from India; and Jake Ottosen, a Portlander whose show bio describes him as having worked as “an actor, clown, Renaissance Faire performer, pretend medical patient, and (of course) bartender.”

Jalowski said she chose Ottosen for the show after hearing a recording of a 5-minute story he told at a Moth open mic about two years ago. The two have been developing the story for the past two weeks to lengthen it and “to put a little more of himself in it, his journey,” Jalowski said.

Ottosen, a longtime Moth fan, said he got an email out of the blue inviting him to participate in the show. While he’s done some performance based on storytelling, including a storytelling/improv show called The Soundtrack of My Life that ran weekly at Portland’s Curious Comedy Theater in the spring of 2019, the Moth “is maybe the most-pure storytelling show” that he’s done, he said.

Ottosen will tell a story about an experience he had at the Sterling Renaissance Festival, which he attended while growing up in Auburn, N.Y. He’s enjoyed crafting the tale with Jalowski, whom he credited with asking “the perfect questions to clarify details about the Renaissance festival for the uninitiated,” as well as giving the story more of a narrative arc.

“It’s essentially the same thing, but she has helped me to put it in a bigger context,” Ottosen said.

“When I told the story the first time, it was off-the-cuff, ‘here’s a thing that happened to me that was fun and weird,’ " he said. “But I didn’t spend a lot of time on how it made me feel or where I was in life that brought me there. She helps color in those details.”

“It’s about this place that means so much to me,” Ottosen added. “She’s able to help me bring people into that world … it makes me incredibly happy to share that story.”

To learn more about The Moth, tune in to The Moth Radio Hour on a radio station near you, listen to The Moth podcast, or pick up these books featuring Moth stories: “The Moth,” “The Moth Presents All These Wonders: True Stories About Facing the Unknown” and “The Moth Presents Occasional Magic: True Stories About Defying the Impossible.”

awang@oregonian.com; Twitter: @ORAmyW

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The Moth returns to Portland (virtually) with a show about unexpected gifts - OregonLive
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