So, What's the Story?

In “All Y’all,” Southerners shape their personal narratives

by

Part of the South’s persistent regional identity comes from a strong cultural value placed on the story. To an extent, everyone enjoys and shares stories—it’s a core part of being human—but in the South they’re collected, polished, and hoarded like prized silver, ready to be brought out to dazzle guests when the time comes. There may be eight million stories in the naked city, as the late-‘50s crime procedural tagline went, but few of them will have the larger-than-life oomph of the tales that bloom from the South’s proud storytellers. (My own mother once stole the wrong dog from a kennel—show me a Yankee who’s ever even stolen the correct dog.) Poet George Dawes Green brought that natural flair for the story with him from Georgia to New York, where in 1997 he founded The Moth, the live storytelling series named for those creatures that hover attentively near the porchlight on a long evening of sharing.

Shreveport couple Chris Jay and Sara Hebert, obsessed with The Moth and similar podcasts and events that have followed its lead, decided to bring this variety of performance to their home city and back to the South: “After all,” said Jay, “who has better stories?” They named it All Y’all, after the familiar intensifier Southerners use to indicate the whole room, the entire company: “Hey. All y’all need to listen.” Now in its fourth year, All Y’all presents four live storytelling events a year in Shreveport. Selected stories from the shows are recorded and released intermittently as podcast episodes. Most of the storytellers are chosen simply by pitching stories, though Hebert and Jay have been known to reach out to someone when a friend says, “Y’all have to hear this.”

Dr. David Terry, a communication studies professor at LSU and a two-time winner of The Moth’s “story slams” in New York, identifies a difference between the text of a story and the telling of it. Storytelling podcasts are often defined by being true stories, shared without notes; Terry said that the “without notes” is even more important than the truth of the story. Storytelling becomes (or perhaps remains) a folk art, changeable and subject to few rules; the stories are not set texts to admire but in-the-moment experiences that engage audiences directly and let them invest more directly in the story, the teller, and the experience. 

Dr. Jaya McSharma’s story “#DaddyIssues,” from the March 2016 event “Momma and Daddy” is among the most popular All Y’all has staged and presents a case study in the power of the live performance.

Part of this is merely her talent; she has the “it” for line delivery that’s impossible to teach, the good talker’s equivalent of perfect pitch. Tied in with this is her vulnerability: she pushes herself, and her voice breaks in sincerity. No matter how much a writer works to express even the rawest emotions, there’s no sensory way for a reader to tell short of being on the receiving end of crumpled, tear-stained pages. Finally, in a story about the tension between McSharma and her father, an Indian immigrant with specific cultural expectations for his daughter, the very sound of her voice drives home McSharma’s Americanness. She has the familiar accent of her Louisiana upbringing and the direct speech of a modern American, which contrasts with the accented voice she uses to report her father’s words. The difference in pitch and rhythm would be lost on the page, but aloud, it works to remind us of how intense the differences between father and daughter could be.

"... the stories are not set texts to admire but in-the-moment experiences that engage audiences directly and let them invest more directly in the story, the teller, and the experience." 

Another storyteller, Winston Hall, had a lighter tale to tell. His story, “Look at All the Little Black Dots,” from the Spring 2017 event “I Just Work Here,” chronicles his journey from piano-lesson hating kid to his impulsive application—and hiring—as a professional piano player in a Chinese restaurant in San Angelo, Texas. He snagged the gig despite only knowing five songs, paramount among them the early-‘60s schmaltz-bomb “Moon River;” continuing this trend of adapting quickly to performance opportunities, he’s adapted his All Y’all performance into a one-man show, Wrong Note Right: The Story of an Accidental Piano Man. Hall had an advantage when planning his story; now a professional piano player around Shreveport, he’s used to having a fifteen-minute break during which someone comes up to him and says, “So, how’d you get into this line of work?” (He is also apparently more patient about using his break to tell customers stories than some people might be.) Hall thinks the value of a project like All Y’all lies in its ability to counteract a trend he sees in people devaluing or becoming disconnected from their own stories. People may find their stories “undramatic, or long, or not like the movies,” but that shouldn’t deceive us into thinking they’re not important.

And even if a story is long, undramatic, or very un-movie-like, all is not lost. Jay and Hebert work with their performers to polish and develop their stories, with the knowledge that many of their participants won’t necessarily have significant stage or public speaking experience. Over the course of several meetings, the two help the performer prioritize the most important parts of the narrative thread, understand the important emotional notes for the audience to catch, and choose the best details to get the story across without clutter. When the performer takes the stage, they know where they’re going, even if the details of the journey may change with adrenaline and audience encouragement. While the experience can be intense and emotional, and while performers are occasionally unable to finish a particularly difficult story, the organizers report that the usual reaction is some combination of exhilaration and catharsis. Hebert and Jay credit this, at least in part, to the energy of the crowd. They describe an audience fully invested not just in the story but in the success of the performance as well. Jay said that the audience will automatically root for a struggling storyteller, clapping and cheering to encourage the speaker—this energy acts as an almost literal safety net, providing a moment for self-collection. You can imagine the difference in the feel of a pause: full of cheers, or just dead air?

Both Hebert and Jay spoke about how rewarding and valuable the sense of community has been in the time they’ve been doing All Y’all. It’s allowed them—and their performers, and their listeners—to meet people they otherwise wouldn’t have to learn about subcultures they might never encounter, and to hear some of the best stories the people of Shreveport have to offer. 

All y’all oughta go listen. 

The next live installment of All Y'all will be held Saturday, August 26, at the Woman's Department Club in Shreveport. 7:30 pm. $15. Tickets available here.

The “All Y’all” blog lives, appropriately, at allyallblog.com. Watch that space for podcast episodes (including McSharma’s and Hall’s stories), announcements of show dates and times, and upcoming show themes for those interested in submitting a story idea. Additionally, you can subscribe to the “All Y’all” podcast, released occasionally, on your favorite podcast platform.