it’s storytime live is almost sold out!

In case you missed it, I want you to know about a show I’m doing in a couple weeks, right here in the valley.

So last Spooky Season, I read The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, for the Storytime Patreon subscribers. It was very simple, just me and a microphone, a few Halloween decorations I got at the drugstore to dress up my office. It was deliberately simple, and as far as I can tell, everyone who tuned in enjoyed it. I know that I had a really good time doing it.

When I was thinking about bringing it back this year, I thought it would be fun to try it out on stage, with an audience, this year. My friend owns Geeky Teas in Burbank, and she has a great performance space that I’ve been wanting to use for something, so I did the math and here we are.

The space holds about 70 people, and as of yesterday morning, about half the tickets are sold. That’s more people than I thought would show up, so I’m pretty happy about that. The thing about doing shows in LA is that there are so many shows in LA on any given night, we are all spread out rather thin, and unless you are a massive draw, it always feels like nobody shows up. I’m so delightfully surprised that this room will have more people in it than not who I didn’t bring myself, from my own house, to watch.

The story I picked for this year is The Body Snatcher, by Robert Louis Stevenson. For more information, I’m going to quote myself from a few days ago, to save time:

On October 25, I’m going to be at Geeky Teas in Burbank for It’s Storytime With Wil Wheaton, Live. Last year, I did a live reading of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow for our Patreon subscribers, from my office. (Where I’m sitting right now, actually.) It wasn’t directed, or mastered, or anything like that. It was just me, the story, and a mic (Love you, LeVar). I had a great time doing it, and I got good feedback, so I’m doing another live reading this year, with an eye toward establishing a yearly tradition. This year’s classic tale of terror is The Body Snatcher, by Robert Louis Stevenson.

Here’s a little bit I grabbed from a summary, to entice you:

Every night, four men regularly meet in the small parlour of the George Inn at Debenham: the landlord, an undertaker, the narrator, and an old Scotsman named Fettes. Once educated and comfortably off, Fettes is now a “crapulous, disreputable” drunkard. The townspeople call him “the Doctor” because he occasionally sets a bone or treats an injury, though little is known about his past.

One winter evening, news arrives that a wealthy local landowner has been struck with apoplexy and that his famous London physician has been telegraphed to come. When the landlord mentions the doctor’s name—“Dr. Wolfe Macfarlane”—Fettes, half drunk moments before, becomes instantly sober. He repeats the name “Macfarlane” in shock, then insists, “I must see him face to face.” The other men watch as the once-listless drunk becomes alert and deadly serious.

The rest of the story is uncovering why Fettes is now a drunk, and what (or maybe who) he is running from. It’s creepy and even scary at times, and the prose is delicious.

Because this is Stevenson’s most famous horror work after Dr. Jekyll and Mister Hyde, there is a ton of scholarly writing and analysis of it online. Because I am that kind of nerd, of course I dove in and drank deeply from the wells of knowledge I found within. This is a story that, like Sleepy Hollow, was written in response to contemporary events that have been mostly lost to history. When we know the context in which it was written, and the events that inspired it, it gives us (or gave me, at least) an elevated experience and additional appreciation of the material, in addition to a great story. Without turning it into a college lecture, I am thinking about including some of that in the show, the way I record codas after each story for Patreon.

It won’t be fancy, it won’t be staged. It’s literally just me, in a chair, telling you a story for about an hour. There are a couple lighting cues, and that’s it. I’m keeping this as simple as possible, because I don’t have time to rehearse and prepare any staging. I’d rather keep it simple, and feel prepared, than make it complicated and risk feeling like I got in over my head.

Also, I’m giving serious consideration to taking myself on the road, and playing some smaller theaters with live readings that we’ll record for the podcast. This will help me find out if there is any audience for that, if I even feel good reading in front of a live audience, and give me a safe place to stumble a bit, if I need to.

The performance will be streamed live, and archived, for Patreon subscribers, so if you want to watch it but aren’t local, you can join us there for five bucks, which will also give you access to the entire show’s archive, and all our BTS materials, for a month.

When I booked the room, I was fully prepared to play to about a dozen friends, only. That it appears to be on its way to maybe selling out is pretty awesome.

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HI, I’m Wil. This is my blog. If you’d like to receive my posts in your inbox, here’s the thingy: