Petaluma’s annual storytelling Grand Slam returns to the Mystic

Think of it as Sonoma County’s most entertaining tournament of competitive truth-telling. On Wednesday, Dec. 1, a dozen storytellers will take the stage at Petaluma’s Mystic Theatre, each with a different real-life confession to make. No one will know what they’re going to say until they say it. Some stories will be funny. Some will be shocking and outrageous. Some could break the audience’s hearts.

And then that audience will use their phones to will pick a winner.

For the first time since COVID-19 shut down the Mystic in early 2020, West Side Stories Petaluma — a monthly story-swap event founded and produced by Dave and Juliet Pokorny for the past 13 years — will host its annual, year-ending Grand Slam extravaganza.

The contest, which usually features the winners from the 11 previous months, will include a combination of storytellers from pre-shutdown 2020, a few from an adjacent story-swap the Pokornys briefly ran in 2020 at Credo High School in Rohnert Park, and those who’ve won since the the Petaluma series was resurrected in July of 2021, with shows held in the ballroom at Hotel Petaluma.

“We’re ready, we’re so ready,” said Juliet Pokorny, sitting down with Dave at Wicked Slush, the small dessert-and-snack emporium they own and operate on Petaluma’s American Alley. “After what we’ve all been through — with most people going through it in some version of isolation — I’m hearing from a lot of people that everyone is just so hungry for some human connection. And what we’ve learned from doing this as many years as we have is there’s nothing that connects us better than gathering together from an evening of good, well-crafted storytelling.”

Juliet has more than just people’s word that they are eager for human company. The monthly shows at Hotel Petaluma, with a capacity of 100 guests, have all sold out. Though that won’t come close to filling the 400 available seats at the Mystic, the Pokornys say that the previous five years of Grand Slams there have sold out, and they have high hopes that the place will be at least mostly full.

“But this is a new world,” said Dave Pokorny. “We’re asking for proof of vaccination, and will require audience members to wear masks. So we’re doing everything we can to make our audience feel safe. We’ll see what happens, but it’s going to be a great show.”

West Side Stories, which began at a storefront on Petaluma Boulevard, is based on a simple enough format. Ticket-holders who are hoping to tell a story have their name dropped into a box or hat, and 10 tellers are randomly chosen. Each has 5 minutes to tell a story, without using notes. The stories must be true, and is a different theme every month. In October the theme was “What Are You Waiting For?” The theme for the upcoming Grand Slam will be “Forgotten Memories.”

With the popularity of story-sharing radio programs like “The Moth,” it did not take long for the local story-slams to take off when the Pokornys first launched them in 2009. After several months downtown, they eventually moved the shows to Sonoma Portworks in the Warehouse District, where the series continued until it moved the Hotel Petaluma shortly before the pandemic. During the shutdowns, there was just one West Side Stories event, in July of 2020, held on the outdoors deck at the Great Petaluma Mill. Now that the monthly program, held on the first Wednesday of the month, is back and able to spread out a bit at Hotel Petaluma, Juliet Pokorny has noticed that the storytellers who’ve been showing up have clearly got plenty to say.

“One of the things that I’ve seen since we restarted,” she said, “is that the quality of the storytelling we’re hearing, and the focus of the storytelling audiences are getting, is far more touching, and somehow even more personal and honest, than ever before.”

What seems to be happening, the Pokornys have recognized, is a renewed hunger for the kind of community bonding that comes from sitting in a room with friends and neighbors, listening to people take turns telling stories about their lives.

“What’s interesting to me is that almost no one has talked about COVID,” said Juliet. “After the Tubbs fire, for about six months, we had at least one of our 10 storytellers have at least something to say about the fire and its impact on their lives. But now, nobody talks about COVID.”

Noting that this could change in the future — particularly once there’s a sense of the pandemic being something that happened as opposed to something that is still happening — Dave said he’s also noticed that the storytellers seem to be going especially deep since the series was restarted.

“We have a couple people, I don’t know if they’ve actually dropped a tear or two, but they’ve definitely welled up while telling their story,” he said. “People seem to be baring their souls, baring their lives a bit more.”

Juliet suspects its a result of the massive mutual introspection our culture has undergone.

“I think people are much more in tune to wanting to make a real connection with the audience and with each other,” she said.

Another change, and a big one, is that compared to the past, the post-shutdown West Side Stories shows have been drawing a far wider mix of ages.

“A lot more younger people have been coming, and some of them are now telling stories,” Juliet said. “That means the range of stories is widening, too. Last month we had a person talk about their same-sex relationship. One person had a story that dealt with racism and equity. I walked away from it saying, ‘Yeah! This is what we’ve always wanted!’ And the stories are really good, well-constructed and very thoughtful.”

For the first time, she pointed out, a mother and a son — Sebastopol’s Jessica and Max Morell — will be part of the storytelling competitors at the Grand Slam. Jessica won West Side Stories in September of 2021. Max won in July of 2021, at the first indoor event since the pandemic began.

The Pokornys estimate that about half of the storytellers who end up presenting each month are from Petaluma or close nearby. Many come from around the Bay Area for a chance to share a tale. Some people, Dave said, actually fly in from out-of-state.

“Clark Taylor, who won in August, he lives in, St, Louis, I think,“ said Dave. ”He flew in to do the show last summer, which is amazing, because there’s no certainty a teller will be picked. But he was picked, and he won, and now he’s flying back in the Grand Slam.“

Another regular participant, Madelyn Clair, lives in Arizona. According to Juliet, she was so dead-set on telling a story in Petaluma that she flew in several times before finally getting on stage. She won in February of 2020, so will be participating in this year’s Grand Slam too.

“It’s amazing to me,“ said Juliet. ”You can go to a story slam pretty much anywhere these days, but people are actually flying in to go to ours. That’s so cool. That’s what happens after 13 years of building this, of building a community of supporters around this.“

Dave takes a moment to do the math: 13 years of monthly shows, with 12 shows a year and 10 tellers at each show. Add the shows at Credo High School, subtract those 15 months during the pandemic, then add the five shows since starting up again in July.

How many is that?

“Who am I kidding. I have no idea how many that is, but it’s a whole lot of stories,“ he said with a laugh. ”And a lot of them have stuck with me. I remember a woman, about six years ago, telling us about her sister being in one of the Twin Towers on 9-11. It genuinely still gives me chills remembering that. I’ll never forget it. It really left a mark.”

In many ways, the Pokornys have come to think of West Side Stories as a kind of storytelling sports event, with the Grand Slam as the Superbowl.

“With sports, anything can happen,” Dave said. “Sure, this is more-or-less theatrical, but it isn’t like going to a play. ‘Hamlet’ ends the same way it always does, the same way it’s ended for the last 400 years. But when these tellers get up to share, we have no idea where they’re going to take their topic. These are human beings allowing themselves to be honest and vulnerable. That’s unpredictable. That’s exciting. I can’t wait.”