True stories, diverse perspectives from Off Night productions at John Waldron

The stories coming to the John Waldron Arts Center stage Dec. 10-12 are true, and they may just alter your brain.

When humans hear resonating stories, their brains undergo something called “narrative transportation,” a way we empathize with characters, according to Andrew Fayad, on Forbes.com.

Bringing those stories to the stage for “Off Night Stories: Winter Holidays,” is woman-led theater company Off Nights.

Greta Lind, actor, author and storyteller in the show, said each of the event's stories is "one hundred percent true." Lind will explain how her relationship with her mother, after 15 years of estrangement, was saved.

"She and I had a miraculous repair and were together the last three weeks of her life after she received her end of stage-four pancreatic cancer diagnosis."

Well-told stories like Lind's push listeners to identify with the characters, getting inside and trying on someone else's feelings, plans and personality quirks.

“There’s a theme across the foundational stories of all winter holidays,” the show's director and the theater's cofounder, Aubrey Seader said. "We can endure any season of darkness by finding light and hope in love and community.”

The more of our senses a story calls on, the more we are apt to enter it — and hang on to it.

Off Nights features eight tales from diverse perspectives

When Seader cast her writers/tellers for the eight original and true vignettes, she said she looked for stories with a beginning, middle and end, where the character changes or becomes more self aware.

"As a director, I knew that any story I staged needed to be more active than expository or descriptive," she said.

So, audiences should get plenty of action.

The show's eight stories are diverse. One is about growing up Jewish in Canada, another about growing up in an Urban Mennonite community near Chicago. A storyteller shares a lifelong observance of the Mexican Christmas celebration of Las Posadas, while another is Ecuadorian.

One storyteller describes his son's successes despite a torrent of problems when he was young. Someone else talks of her husband's determination and the strangers who once rescued him in Chicago's freezing darkness.

And it's not just the variety of cultures, Seader said, but how people participate, differently, during holidays.

Off Night Productions produces contemporary theater and music early in the week (off-nights in the traditional performance week). The company offers a variety of opportunities, focusing on female and non-binary theater people.

The show's storytellers wrote and submitted their pieces, and they are being workshopped and staged the way theaters often stage monologs.

"It’s a really fun and collaborative process," Seader said, "because as a director you’re simultaneously working with the playwright and the actor."

Rotary Club believed in Seader's peace-building mission

Seader won the 2018-19 Rotary Global Grant Scholarship of $40,000 to support her master's degree in arts and cultural administration. Promoting peace and preventing conflict is one Rotary's seven "areas of focus," so she needed to demonstrate how her degree program fit within Rotary's peace-making goals.

She accomplished that with a cultural policy program, and the grant covered her entire degree: tuition, living expenses and travel for a two-year graduate program.

"During my master's studies at King’s College London," Seader said in an email, "I did thesis work on the long-term impact of applied theatre on the peace-building process in Northern Ireland. It’s a vital type of theatre, and I think it builds stronger, more resilient community."

This will be the fifth live storytelling event Seader has produced.

'Rudy' actress gets gift in director's cut

Audiences respond to stories in different ways.

"We never know who will be moved by what we share and what actions might come of it," storyteller Lind said. "It’s good to be willing to be surprised. Presence and deep listening are one of the greatest gifts we can give one another."

Lind, who appears in the 1993 American biographical sports movie "Rudy" directed by David Anspaugh, said the director’s cut of that film was released Nov. 14 for its 30-year anniversary.

"Most all my deleted scenes have been restored," Lind said. "It’s a pretty unexpected and amazing full circle moment."

Holiday tunes, carols and hymns too

Holiday favorites and unusual carols and hymns will help listeners experience the stories' flavors. Local musician Ben Jackson is arranging and directing the music. Jackson is also the guitarist for Hank Ruff’s band.

If you go

WHAT: “Off Night Stories: Winter Holidays”: true stories narrated by locals, concert style with musicWHEN: 2 p.m. Dec. 10; 7 p.m. Dec. 11 and 12WHERE: John Waldron Arts Center Whikehart Auditorium, 122 S. Walnut St.TICKETS: $20 at https://buskirkchumley.org/event/off_night_stories_winter_holidays/

Find more information on Off Night visit www.onptheatre.weebly.com.

This article originally appeared on The Herald-Times: Woman-led Bloomington theater company stages winter holiday stories