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Jingle Tales & Tunes - The Colony Theatre 12/13/22
JINGLE TALES & TUNES was a fantastic, fun, and festive holiday show at THE COLONY THEATRE on Tuesday, December 13th. Eight of LA's best storytellers shared hilarious and heartwarming holiday tales along with delightful musical accompaniment. Proceeds from the production support the important mental health work being done by Family Service Agency of Burbank, for whom JAMCreative shows have raised over $31,000 since 2017. Our sponsors make our productions possible. Check them out below and show them the love this holiday season!
Click on the names below to see the stories and songs in Jingle Tales & Tunes
Pam Bassuk
Pam writes screenplays, songs and creative non-fiction. She and writing partner Lindsay Jean Michelle are currently shopping their animated feature comedy App World, which was a finalist in the WeScreenplay Diverse Voices competition. (Any connections are always appreciated!) Pam is a singer, songwriter and Board member for Makom.org, a warm and healing Jewish Renewal community whose services feature music, meditation, chanting and Torah discussions. Come check us out! Pam has been married to Craig for 24 years (yay!). They have a 21-year-old daughter Jessica who is an actress, singer and stand-up comedian. Pam can be reached at pbassuk@me.com
Kelly Carlin
Through her comedic and soulful storytelling in both her solo show and best-selling memoir, “A Carlin Home Companion: Growing up with George,” (St. Martin’s Press), Kelly revealed how being the “daughter of” shaped her heart, mind and creativity.
Kelly’s devotion to empowering others through personal transformation manifests in her coaching program Women on the Verge which invites women to courageously step into their next chapter. Her monthly SiriusXM show, “The Kelly Carlin Show,” dives into the lives and craft of comedy legends and rising starts.
In 2022, she executive produced the two-part HBO Documentary, “George Carlin’s American Dream,” (directed by Judd Apatow and Michael Bonfiglio), which won the Emmy for Best Documentary Special.
Her work on the Industry Advisory Board for the multi-award winning National Comedy Center, where her father’s archives live, allows her to amplify the NCC’s mission to tell the story of comedy to the world.
She is currently developing a new book and podcast, caring for her father’s legacy, and expanding her reach with her teaching so that she can serve more people who are looking for the courage to live their true north.
Kelly’s devotion to empowering others through personal transformation manifests in her coaching program Women on the Verge which invites women to courageously step into their next chapter. Her monthly SiriusXM show, “The Kelly Carlin Show,” dives into the lives and craft of comedy legends and rising starts.
In 2022, she executive produced the two-part HBO Documentary, “George Carlin’s American Dream,” (directed by Judd Apatow and Michael Bonfiglio), which won the Emmy for Best Documentary Special.
Her work on the Industry Advisory Board for the multi-award winning National Comedy Center, where her father’s archives live, allows her to amplify the NCC’s mission to tell the story of comedy to the world.
She is currently developing a new book and podcast, caring for her father’s legacy, and expanding her reach with her teaching so that she can serve more people who are looking for the courage to live their true north.
Ron Hart
Ron is a husband, father, Executive Producer of Nickelodeon’s "That Girl Lay Lay," and desperate for you to leave the theater on December 13 liking him more than you do Bryan Kett.
Brenda Haynes
Brenda is a retired educator, a hands-on grandma, a weekend pickleball warrior, and comes from a family of twelve. Storytelling gives her a chance to tell her side of the story...what she says really happened. Brenda currently lives in Los Angeles, where she grew up, and remembers old school dates when, if a boy really liked a girl, he would carry her books after school all the way to her front door. She has shared her stories on stage at "Tales by the Sea,"Barbara Clark’s "Tell Me a Story," and various ZOOM online events.
Bryan Kett
Bryan is an award-winning teacher, writer, and storyteller. He's a producer for "The Story Collider," an instructor for "The Story Studio," and "Story Coach" for KPCC's UNHEARD LA. His work has been featured on TED.com, "The Moth Podcast," "SoulPancake," and KCRW.
Mike Lambert
Mike holds a BA in Theater from UCLA and is a graduate of the Los Angeles Civic Light Opera Musical Theatre Workshop. In an earlier incarnation, he worked as a stand-up comedian at the Original Improvisation in New York City and wrote jokes for The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. Musical theatre credits include regional and original touring companies of West Side Story, Shenandoah, and The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas. Mike has performed and written the one-man storytelling shows Homo on the Range: Adventures at Oil Can Harry’s and Dear Mrs. Eddy: Letters from a Bad Christian Scientist. He has also appeared in KPCC’s Unheard LA storytelling series. He has sung the national anthem for the New York Mets and has appeared as a solo vocalist with Los Angeles Lawyers Philharmonic at Disney Concert Hall. Lifelong joyful obsessions include Stephen Sondheim, Paris, and pugs.
Arielle Silver
Arielle is a consummate storyteller whose rich, expressive voice and acoustic guitar frame expansive melodies that echo her tours and travels across the American heartland. Raised on folk festival fields and synagogue pews, in woodsy and watery places up and down the Atlantic Seaboard and now based in Southern California, Arielle lives just a traffic jam away from the Pacific Ocean. After a decade break from performing music to focus on creative writing and Eastern philosophy, her fourth album, A THOUSAND TINY TORCHES (2020), is heard regularly on SoCal tastemaker station 88.5 FM, and was featured in American Songwriter and on PRX's Up Close And Acoustic. Her upcoming album, WATERSHED, is an earthy, luminous, and literate collection of songs about ordinary life's watershed moments.
Arielle currently serves as Secretary for Folk Alliance Region West (FAR-West) Board of Directors. She teaches Creative Writing at Antioch University Los Angeles and for the International Women's Writing Guild, is producer and host of the podcast Tomes & Tunes, and co-owns Bhavana Flow Yoga, where she teaches daily Zoom yoga and leads retreats. She loves pie. www.ariellesilver.com
Arielle currently serves as Secretary for Folk Alliance Region West (FAR-West) Board of Directors. She teaches Creative Writing at Antioch University Los Angeles and for the International Women's Writing Guild, is producer and host of the podcast Tomes & Tunes, and co-owns Bhavana Flow Yoga, where she teaches daily Zoom yoga and leads retreats. She loves pie. www.ariellesilver.com
Rena Strober
Rena has had starring roles on Broadway in Les Miserables, Fiddler on the Roof and more. TV audiences know her from VEEP, SHAMELESS or all 4 seasons of Disney's Liv & Maddie. Rena voices hundreds of characters in animation and video games. She has sung the National Anthem for the NY METS, NASA launches and most recently for the UCLA Pancreatic cancer walk. She works extensively with young blind singers and released a Sesame Street album recently with Jason Alexander, French Stewart and a choir of her young blind voice students. The album raises money for Guide Dogs of America. She is also currently studying to become a Cantor because that seems to be the only music that her 5-year-old will let her sing.
Alex Stein
Alex is a writer, award-winning filmmaker, and the author of the essay collection "No, Mr. Bond, I Expect Your Dreams to Die" and the short-story collection "Tales From the Trail: Short Fiction About Dogs, Mushing, and Sled-Dog Races." He works with writers as a story consultant to help them dig deeper and bring out the essential heart and humanity of their work. He has performed in hundreds of storytelling shows in and around Los Angeles and adores the storytelling community here. His writing has been published in many different literary magazines and he recently was awarded an Art of Unity Creative Award from the International Human Rights Arts Festival for his personal essay “Black Water.”
Ellen Switkes
Ellen has written and performed personal stories all over LA, including at Tales by the Sea, The Braid, Off My Head, Manecdotes, Tasty Words and Story Salon. She was a board member of the LA Storytelling Festival for several years. She produced and hosted the highly regarded Cornucopia, a storytelling show for adults, at Actors Workout Studio in North Hollywood. She's delighted to be back at Jam Creative sharing her stories for this worthy cause. Additionally, she's a private tutor, teaching children reading, writing and study skills after school in their homes. In a former life, Ellen was on staff at The Late Show Starring Joan Rivers and Entertainment Tonight.
Your Host, Suzanne Weerts
Jingle Tales is the 9th charity benefit storytelling show that Suzanne has brought to The Colony Theatre. While she is a writer and storyteller herself and has told tales on stages across Southern California, she gets even more joy from giving voice to other people's stories and has worked with professionals and novices alike. You can read more about her work at suzanneweerts-storiestotell.com.
Jingle Tales is made possible thanks to the generosity of our sponsors:
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