Storytelling Part Two, Between the Lines

Prior to social distancing, Todd joined me in my home to talk about Jonathan Gottschall’s book “The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make Us Human.” Today will be the best of the second half of our discussion.

You can find out more about “In the Telling” at lizzylizzyliz.com
Or check out the “In the Telling” Podcast channel on YouTube for bonus content. 
Theme music by Gordon Vetas

Transcript

spk_0:   0:00
years ago, I came across a piece of literature. I'm not sure I can call it literature, but it was a book, so we'll call it Literature. Um, And in it, the author recounted a lecture that he went to where a quote of Albert Einstein's was shared and Albert I sense and you know, there's been lots of quotes that have been shared by Albert Einstein, maybe only half of them, he said. Ah, but I'm recording, I'm recounting. The story is, I received it as best I can a CZ best. My memory allows me, I'm man. I'm aware of all these kinds of things that I do wrong anyway. But, he said, for every negative input into an organic system, 11 positive inputs are required to correct the damage. And the writer of the particular book, the particular essay, said, What does that mean? That the professor said, I don't know, but I'll think about that and see if I can come up with a conclusion. And two years later he was attending another lecture by the same professor, and the professor said Several years ago, someone at I shared this quote. Somebody asked me what does that mean? I think I now understand how to describe what it means. What it means is for every time that you hear someone tell you you're stupid. You need 11 people to tell you that you're smart before you get back to zero. As I've been thinking about this idea of the storytelling brain of our time in Neverland and of the way that we craft narratives based on what we remember and what we don't remember based on what we want and what we don't want, I think there's a There's a lot of that that goes on autopilot. The author moves on and and says, Um, and perhaps one of the most tragic pieces of this kind of insight is that the words that we tell ourselves about ourselves tend to be much more powerful than the words that others tell us about us. I remember when I first came across that I was unemployed. I had spent my last remaining cash on a new order of three breadsticks at Pizza Hut. I can tell you where it's at. I can't tell you what I was wearing. I'm not that good on the details. Ah, but I remember it was it was an order of breadsticks and they asked me if I wanted to drink with it. And I said, How much is it gonna cost with tax? They told me I said, How much for a cup of water? He said, I'll give you that for free. I said, I'll take three of those And it was just before I was gonna go to a job interview and I needed to land the job interview because I was. We were broke. We had nothing left. I was driving a crummy car that I didn't want all out of it. I mean, all the stuff that goes with those right? And as I'm reading that, I'm coming away from that thinking to myself. Am I reinforcing the narrative that says, I'm a failure because I'm struggling through these things? Or am I looking at the things that in the past that could help me form a narrative that says that I overcome these things and that I have the capable to overcome these things because I've overcome things in the past?

spk_1:   2:41
The voice you just heard belongs to Todd went e.

spk_0:   2:44
I think that that one of the things that I that I pulled from this and that was forcefully room brought back to my memory was that if we are in fact storytelling human beings and if stories or the way that we practice for the challenges that we need to overcome later that there the flight simulators, he talks about the dreams being the flight simulator story being the flight simulator. If that's true, then maybe I ought to be more thoughtful about the narrative that I create, disregarding the fact that it made that that there are evidences for negative and evidences for positive outcomes of my story based on the past and disregarding the fact that I have no clue what the what the town challenges we're going to be in the future. My present, where my actions were going to be dictated where my actions were going to occur can be dictated by the story, I tell myself. So why would I tell myself a story that leaves me the UN empowered victim Tau All of these other cunts circumstances. Why wouldn't I tell myself a story where

spk_1:   3:48
I can overcome things? Todd went. He was also my guest last week. Prior to social distancing. Todd joined me in my home to talk about Jonathan. Gotcha. Lt's book. The storytelling Animal House stories make us human. Today will be the best of the second half of our discussion. I'm your host, Liz Christiansen. And it's all in the telling welcome to Episode 30 with my guest, Todd 20. Okay, I just want to dive right in. What did you think about this equation? This is the equation for story. Do you remember this?

spk_0:   4:29
I think so. Go ahead and remind You

spk_1:   4:31
mean like every story, right? Not just fiction. Nonfiction. This is your life. This is TV. This is a commercial.

spk_0:   4:36
I love the fact that he said It's a rap video. It's a commercial. It's any of these things. Yeah.

spk_1:   4:42
Character plus predicament plus attempted extrication.

spk_0:   4:46
Yeah. Isn't it interesting that he makes the case that we do that with a laundry detergent ad? Character is the mom. Predicament is how do I How do I take care of my family and do it in the most effective way possible? Use tide? Um, you know, or gain or whatever. I don't want to get you in trouble with somebody saying Hey, you can use our name. Um, so we'll offend all laundry producers equally. Sometimes those 32nd commercials are

spk_1:   5:11
way more interesting then some of the other

spk_0:   5:14
stuff that we have that we have to deal with in between the commercials. I remember somebody said one time it was it was watching the Disney movie up, and it's the first little montage with the with the kid and the girl, and they grow up in this individual said. And thus we see that Pixar and Disney can come up with a better love story in three minutes, with no words at all than Jerry Bruckheimer can in 4.5 movies. And I'm like, Wow, that's just

spk_1:   5:44
painful. But it's got a true

spk_0:   5:48
because if the characters are compelling and if the predicament is one that we relate to, we buy in better. And if the attempted extrication is one that all of us can relate to as well, we buy in better. And so sometimes that's that's one of those things where you turn around and go, Yeah, okay, I get that. I mean, yeah, I want to turn my brain off every now and again for a very broad commercial, but I was sobbing at the end of that three minute little thing at the beginning of up course. For me, it doesn't take much to make me cry. Um, as you've been able to watch on several occasions, Um and so is anybody who's ever listen to our podcast. And I think I think I think one of the things that they do in the pie Oh, here I am telling a story. One of the things that I think that's probably happens on the podcast is people are bet making bets. How long will it take before Todd starts to cry? Um, the last. Oh, no. I cried on the last one. So never mind. Um, it's just a thing that happens. One of the things that I that I was frustrated with and angry about was in this section. He was talking about the ink people. It was the chapter called The Ink People. And it was the beginning where he was telling the story about a Dollfus. But he goes through and he's talking about he was with a friend and that they were at and at 16 years old Ah, they went and they saw performance of Wagner's ring, Siri's, and he came away from that and said, I am going to lead my people Out of obscurity and out of darkness, I'm paraphrasing badly, right? And later on, he finds out that later on is were reading. And as soon as he said Wagner of office, I went, Oh, you gotta be kidding. You just sucked me in to buy your story. He gets to appoint the punch line for that particular story is that when he became old enough, he changed his name from his mother's name student Graber, to his father's name, Hitler. When they when they took a look at Hitler's biography and at the story of Hitler, they find that Hitler applied. He wanted to be an artist, and he applied to art school in Vienna, but because he couldn't do human beings because he couldn't paint human beings, which I totally get, cause I can't either. They're all stick figures. I have stick figures all over the place because that's all I can do. Um or all I've tried to dio don't know. But ah, they said that as a result of him being not admitted to art school that he dedicated himself instead to politics and to becoming. What we know is that Adolf Hitler that started World War Two that, you know, maybe the fuse was their best by other kinds of situations. May there were all kinds of other problems. But But, man, you wanna lay anything at the at the feet of anyone? We, we all pretty well recognized. Ah, as we look back on history that it's Adolf Hitler. And as I listen to that, I said to myself, My goodness, does that mean that those of us who choose to be storytellers have a responsibility to be careful and thoughtful about how we employ our craft? And I'm not sure that I and when I and when I say careful and thoughtful, of course I'm thinking about what is what is desirable. We go back to that idea what is desirable, what is what is going to move things forward. What helps us be a better people. What helps us respond better to the challenges that we all have to face as we move forward? Obviously, Wagner thought he waas, and that's why he presented all of that information. But he. We also learned later that Wagner was an anti Semite. He was very German nationalist. And so can we throw all of those things that Hitler and say if he hadn't met Wagner, if he had never come across, If he had seen La Traviata instead, you know, or if he had seen the barber of Seville instead, if he'd

spk_1:   9:28
seen anything instead,

spk_0:   9:31
would that have changed the layout of the who knows?

spk_1:   9:33
Or if he'd been accepted into art school, or

spk_0:   9:35
if he'd been accepted into art school, or if the rest of his family had not said that blasted kid. He's just always running around telling the same story over and over again. And that's another piece that that jumped into my mind is I've been dealing with. This is the stories we tell ourselves, not just the stories we tell about ourselves, not just the narrative that we have about where we move but the stories that we tell ourselves about ourselves.

spk_1:   10:01
I love this because it takes me right back to what we're talking about, where your brain will process it the same emotionally, whether it's a story or not. See you. This has made me understand Positive self talk tush, self actualization in a way that made so much more sense to me. I am going to be the product of my story. And I'm the storyteller. Yes. So how do I want this to go down?

spk_0:   10:23
Yes, There was a song a few years back, I think was Natasha Bedingfield. Uh, your story is unwritten, you know? And I remember hearing that, and I thought, Oh, yeah, kind of a peppy little song. It's got a little bit of a B. It's never gonna be a tough 100 sock. Um And it was and it was great. I'm not sure where it's sitting on the Billboard 100 for this year, but, you know, whatever, Um or for the for the decade that was in But the the sentiment behind that is absolutely true. And I think he kind of makes a point for that when he was talking at the when, when he when he got to the end of the book and he gives his kind of his parting words where he was saying he was saying things like, Don't eliminate your time in Neverland. Fiction pulls us together stories can change the world, allow yourself to daydream all of these kinds of things. And I started saying to myself, Yeah, and be willing to craft the story of yourself regardless of whether it's 100% true, acknowledged the failures because even the failures can make this story more interesting. Who is it that I think somebody said we learned far more from our mistakes than we ever do from our successes? If we learn more from our failures than we do from our successes, then keep the failures in there. But don't let the failures determine the outcome of the story that we want to tell about our lives. Use that use those failures and the successes together to help craft a narrative that says, And you know what? I faced that problem and I will face this next one, too, and I will do it in a way that allows me to be ready for the next problem after that as well. I think so much of our society today. I think there's a lot of ah, lot of people who don't get that message who aren't being told. No, it's okay. It's okay to have a daydream where you come out on top. It's okay to have, ah, belief that you're gonna be better than you are right now. It's okay. Put the work in, you know, And this is obviously where we start, you know, crossing the brown bounds between our story and our reality. You put the work in, you do the work, and you recognize that sometimes it works sometimes not, but doesn't mean that you ever have to stop and be a victim to all of those failures of the past. Craft the story, Give yourself some energy, give yourself some power and keep telling a story that moves you forward. For me, that was That was that was a really powerful kind of reminder. Like I say, it was something that I learned before. Something that kind of lost track of along the way and something that, as I read this came back to me and said, Oh, yeah, Well, you know what? I can do this. That'll be really cool.

spk_1:   12:54
This is a good story of yours. This narrative, you're just crap. Every stories of redemption story, right? They

spk_0:   13:00
can be. Yeah, we

spk_1:   13:02
were attracted to those redemption story.

spk_0:   13:04
We we've had that conversation to? Um, yeah, we in America in particular. We love the story of the underdog who overcomes. I can't watch Rudy without crying Apollo 13 again. Maybe not necessarily a redemption story, but certainly a story of overcoming tremendous odds and being saved. So maybe in that case, it does fall in a counter as a redemption

spk_1:   13:30
story. Kind of rescued.

spk_0:   13:32
Yeah, yeah, but but we love the ones we love the stories where? Where someone is saved where there is hope in their lives again. Forrest Gump. What a wonderful kind of redemption story. Not so much about him. What about Lieutenant Dan, who has nothing going on in his life about Bubba, who loses his life before he even gets a chance to start it? And Forrest finds a way to redeem him by starting Bubba Gump shrimp. You know, I mean all these different things, different little stories that are told throughout their but there and the redemption of Jenny in that story. What Throw all those together and, you know, forget the fact that it's settling. Fielding Tom Hanks through all those together and the public consciousness of the time and the fact that we all felt like we needed to be redeemed of the mistakes that we may have made along the way. It's no wonder to me that that movie struck a chord with people off a certain age during that period of time. It's also no express surprise to me that people watching it now because they don't share that consciousness, they don't get it.

spk_1:   14:35
That's not part of their narrative.

spk_0:   14:37
No, it's not. It's not part of it. It's not part of the critical things that made them who they are now. Many of them will experience those as a result of why to Kay and some of the craziness that happened around that, um, and some of silliness that happened around that they'll they'll see it around 9 11 They'll see it around the the ongoing conflict that has occurred worldwide since then. And they'll have their own stories to tell about those kinds of things that exist in their consciousness that we might be on the tail end of but that they'll need to absorb and won't it be interesting for them if they can acknowledge that while the particulars are different, the themes are the same and the stories that we tell whether they are from the Old Testament or they're from the 19 sixties and then and the anti hero movie culture. Or they're from the future where we're going to start having Maur interactive storytelling, the themes of the same. Speaking of interacting storytelling, what

spk_1:   15:40
did you think

spk_0:   15:41
about the portion where he started talking about D and D and larvae?

spk_1:   15:46
Turn it around on me. I need

spk_0:   15:48
to ask because I'm gonna have my own thing. But I wanna

spk_1:   15:50
hear you think I as okay as a participant on only one of those two things I still have yet to really play a D and D game.

spk_0:   15:59
Okay, We need to fix that. I will arrange that. I will arrange that.

spk_1:   16:03
Good. I do want to play dandy. Um, what's exciting to me? Let's go. Let's go back to where you kind of mentioned this being a place of danger. That wasn't the words you used, but we're talking about. There is there is some danger in Neverland, right? There's obstacle. There's threat, but challenges still like maybe even real danger for us. It never land, I think. Yeah, if we If we take Neverland and tell ourselves an unproductive, unhelpful story. If we I know I don't want to get distracted into all of that. But but never land has some potential perils for us as well, because I think of its limitless opportunity and because we are full throttle the one that controls yes, right? Yes. So, Lar, being, I think is, um

spk_0:   16:53
live action role play for those of you who may not be familiar with the term,

spk_1:   16:56
Thank you. I think it is a community attempt at a pure form of Neverland. Yes, but because it is a community attempt people's never lands are gonna brush up against other People's Neverland never lends, and things are gonna have to be negotiated. And I think that there that is why it is so valuable and why it's so fun and why it's so tricky too. Because I mean of all the things that you do. The podcast is based off of a book. The singing in the Mormon Tabernacle Choir has a score. The play has a script for you as a director and as an actor. Um Lar Pindi Andy. There's like some rules and there's some story world. But by and large it is a giant communal improvisation at a a story that is both personal and community. Yes, and that is an ambitious undertaking.

spk_0:   17:50
Yes, it is. You know, when I when, uh when he finally got to that point in the book, it was toward the end. And I'm like,

spk_1:   17:56
finally you finally

spk_0:   17:58
we're gonna talk about this, But one more way that I could go

spk_1:   18:01
back in time. It's a c m. A smart person. After all, I have value my stories, my finance value.

spk_0:   18:08
Shut up. Your football player, guy. Um, he and I have since made friends. Uh,

spk_1:   18:14
is this visit

spk_0:   18:14
was a specific one, actually, a couple of. But anyway, that when when he talked about DND, I had people that used to look at me and say, you're one of them D d nerds, weren't you? I'm like, yeah, I was very proud of the fact that I was in the Indian nerd. I played lots of D and D, lots of hours playing dungeons and dragons, and they were like, I could never see any port in that Baba Baba la and I would look at them and I would say how fascinating for you. I said So what

spk_1:   18:38
did you

spk_0:   18:38
do when you came across the situation? That you had no idea how you were going to extricate yourself from it? And you look to me to go? Uh, excuse

spk_1:   18:44
me.

spk_0:   18:45
I said D and D star frontiers there were a couple others that I played. They were all for me. They were all opportunities to approach the question of

spk_1:   18:56
Now what? You have this problem. You have all these things. Now what? I will

spk_0:   19:03
never forget the the one that I am the most that I was the most proud of because it was the one that simulates some of the stuff that we do it right now. It was it was a star frontiers deal. Um, for those who aren't familiar, Star Frontiers was a science fiction spinoff of Dungeons and Dragons. We had a situation where, in the very first adventure that you're going to play, you get all we went through. This process of building our characters are rolling him out and making sure that we had all the stats the way that we wanted having some extras of old. You have some extra money or

spk_1:   19:30
what? But there's something about Carol again.

spk_0:   19:32
Always gotta stuff is great. Now you're on board this ship. You have to lock your weapons away. Okay, That's fine, he says. And now you've just been taken over by pirates, and all of your stuff has been taken. I'm like, Oh, what I do. And he looked at us. He said So now you're locked in this room. What are you gonna dio on dime? I'm like, uh, Do I still have my first aid kit? Yeah. Is there a pair of tweezers in my first aid kit? And he goes probably great. I used the tweezers to peel off the backing off the light switch or the power control panel in my in this in this room that we've been locked into. And then I very carefully used some of the bandage to wrap around the end of it and short circuit things, okay? And we went through this whole big thing up to and including where I said, Do I have antiseptic spray in my first aid kit? Yeah, You do great. When he comes in, I'm going to spray him in the face with antiseptic spray and we need to treat that as a as a as a weapon. And it's from this distance. And so I should have this kind of a multiplier and this kind of a multiplier, And he looked at me. He goes, Dude, who's in charge of this game? Me or you and I I'm just saying this is what I think it ought to be. He's like, All right, all right. So you knock him out now, what you gonna do? I said, spray bandage. We're gonna spray bandages, eyes. We're gonna spray bandage a gag, and we're gonna spray bandages, hands together so that he can't go anywhere. And now we're taking his weapons. He's like,

spk_1:   20:58
You're a freak nude. Thank you.

spk_0:   21:01
Yes, I am. And we're out, aren't we? And he's like, you're out. But it was. It was one of those deals where I said, It's not about what you have, it's about what you see. It's about what you understand. It's about what all of the options are that are available to you. And while I have never been in a situation where I've been locked into a room and where people were gonna threaten to kill me, and I had to use a first aid kit to spray somebody's eyes out. I have been in lots of situations where I looked around in my friends or, uh, people, people that I was camping with her people, that we were working on a project with him. I said, All right, fine, we can't do that. What other options do we have? Let's list out all the things that we've got. The skills that I learned in that active, collaborative storytelling play became exactly the skills that have allowed me to have some success in my career. Be able to do some really interesting things along the way. For me, it was that was that was a powerful moment, not just a vindication. But after having waited through some of the stuff where I was, where I had to say to myself how much value this story have, how much does it get in the way? How much do we need to be thoughtful and careful about but the amount of time that I spend in Neverland understanding that I'm understanding that I'm involved in all of those things that bring the emotional upheaval some of the things we talked about earlier. In spite of all of that, It also was the thing that that empowers me, and and that helps me be ready for challenges. That's what it's for. And when we cut that off when we stopped that when we stop collaborating with that, then yeah, we get some of the benefit. But we don't get all of the opportunity to practice. Ah, what I wrote down regarding that. I put Lobbying and de Indias as collaborative storytelling, weaving to get together ideas. I have felt this way D and D and start frontiers is where I mentally practice certain behaviors in a relatively safe way. I learned them by reading. I rehearsed them by playing. I am changed so I can more wisely act when presented with politically dangerous and emotionally charged situations. I wish I could have told my 14 year old self how to say that course. If I had, I would probably have been regarded as even more precocious than I Waas. I probably still would've been pushed into a locker, but I would have had a way of describing the value of what was going on beyond just well, you don't get it now. I do know I can. When I find people saying, you know, watching too many movies, watching too much TV, playing too many video games, all these kinds of things, I am generally one of the first to jump to the rescue and say, No, no, no, no. That's not necessarily accurate because what they're learning what they're doing for them now helps them be better able that solving things later. Maybe it's not the specific problem that they're gonna have to deal with. How do I jump 14 times in order to get to the top of this tower? But it is. How do I use the things that are around me? How do I understand the rules and play within them even when they're limiting me and they seem like they're preventing me? Is there a way that they are also empowering me? All of those kinds of things we practice when we play, and when we stop playing as adults, I'm not support we. There's

spk_1:   24:13
two things

spk_0:   24:13
that I hear every now and again. Ah, one of them and I heard this a lot when I was going out for my master's degree and I'm hearing this again as I start to go after my doctoral program and I hear people say I got out of school. I haven't opened a book since. Well, okay, you haven't stopped the story because you're still watching TV. You're watching football games were watching all these places where we're still telling where it still telling story. I could describe that better now after having read the book than I ever was able to before. But I You know, I kind of I kind of did that with people like you may not

spk_1:   24:40
have some sense of it. You

spk_0:   24:42
may not have read a book in the last a while, but I know you watched marvels, uh, Avengers and game, and I know you did. So I know

spk_1:   24:49
you've been telling that you've been here in

spk_0:   24:51
fiction, you stealing in stories, but this idea that that somehow by practicing those things by by forcing ourselves to engage in the process of telling story that changes it even further, and it empowers us even more. And as I watch, as as I watch myself and as I watched other kinds of things, I see some real brilliance and some real magnificence in people who have held the line against this idea that somehow never land has to go away. They're willing to embrace, never land. They're willing to embrace story. They're willing to recognize that that is an inseparable part of what it means to be human, and they will embrace it and find a way to turn it into a strength for them. And they seem to have such interesting lives. Not that other people don't, but that the ones who choose to do that do

spk_1:   25:46
I think, ideally what we do is we figure out how to accept the role of protagonist in our own story and fight for the ending. We want it and take control of the story. I mean, that sounds like so super cheesy right now, but it is in

spk_0:   26:03
power. It iss. I've been watching my dad, who was not a reader when I was growing up. I have a couple of horrible memories of because I was a reader. My dad wasn't, um, we had fights about that. They weren't pretty. Um, it's about a lot of stuff. That's kind of the nature of fathers since we've resolved since then, we were quite close, but I've watched him deal with some really ugly stories, and I've watched the stories that have that he has gone back to over and over again. That have been the places that he has practiced, that he is that he has marinated himself in so that he's better able to handle things. And I'm watching him handle relationships better now when he's in his seventies than he ever did when he was in his forties and thirties. And I attribute that, you know, some people would say, Well, it's just a jury so you get to a certain age and then you handle it. If we get to a certain age and we handle it, it's because we've had a whole lot more stories. It's because we've had a whole lot more opportunity to tell stories to ourselves, to tell stories to others, to recognize which stories were worthwhile and to recognize which outcomes of some of the stories that we told where the ones that we really wanted to keep. And I just I as I watched that I'm saying myself okay, so if I want those kinds of outcomes, I have to accelerate the way that I embrace the storytelling process. I have to accelerate the way that I see story in my life and embrace it. And I said, It's kind of funny for me because I think we already established. I'm I had made that choice a long time ago and it's just been part of my life and I'm I'm tremendously gratified that someone else decided to do the rial academic work of looking at why all of this works so that I have a way of being able to say, Oh, the stories that he told throughout this have helped me clarify why I think my choice to be in stories and have my life be about stories was probably a pretty decent one. After all.

spk_1:   28:07
I want to end with the suggestions. Jonathan Gotcha lists at the end of his book in his final chapter, The future of story quote, read fiction and watch it. It will make you more empathic and better able to navigate life's dilemmas. Don't let moralists tell you that fiction degrades society's moral fabric. On the contrary, even the pulpy ist fair usually pulls us together around common values. Remember that we are by nature. Suckers for story when emotionally absorbed in character and plot were easy to mold and manipulate. Revel in the power of stories to change the world. Think Uncle Tom's cabin, but guard against it, too. Think the birth of a nation. Soccer practice and violin lessons are nice, but don't schedule away your child's time and never land. It is a vital part of healthy development. Allow yourself to daydream daydreams our own little stories. They help us learn from the past and plan for the future. Recognize when your inner storyteller is locked in overdrive. Be skeptical of conspiracy theories, your own blogged posts and self exculpatory counts of spats with spouses and co workers. If you are a Doubter, try to be more tolerant of the myths, national and religious that helped Thai culture together or the very least, try to be less celebratory of their demise. The next time a critic says that the novel is dying from lack of novelty, just yawn. People don't go to story land because they want something startlingly new. They go because they want the old comforts of the universal story grammar. Don't despair for stories, future or turn curmudgeonly over the rise of video games and reality TV. The way we experienced story will evolve, but a storytelling animals, we will no more give it up, then start walking on all fours. Rejoice in the fantastic improbability of the twisting evolutionary path that made us creatures of story that gave us all the Gadi joyful dynamism of the stories we tell and realize, most importantly, that understanding the power of storytelling, where it comes from and why it matters can never diminish your experience of it. Go get lost in a novel, you'll see. End quote. Thank you to my guest, Todd. 20 Todd, Thank you so much for talking about this book with me.

spk_0:   30:43
This man. My pleasure. Thank you for inviting me

spk_1:   30:45
next week in the telling is excited to bring you a special surprise. The first episode in a four part original radio drama miniseries in partnership with next stage productions, Arabian Nights enjoy the tales of Aladdin, Ali Baba, Sinbad and more as told by the legendary storyteller Scheherazade. With a talented vocal cast and a beautiful original score by Zak Hansen, Arabian Nights will transport you and entertain you. You can find out more about in the telling at Lizzie. Lizzie Liz dot com Theme music by Gordon Fetus in the Telling is hosted and produced by me, Liz Christiansen. Thank you for listening.