Live Shows

Upcoming and past live shows

Meet “My Place” Storyteller Ari Figueroa

May 28 2025 @ 7:00PM

One week until the show! Get your tickets here and meet “My Place” storyteller Ari Figueroa.

Carnie, librarian, drag queen, and teacher—these are just some of the faces Ari Figueroa has worn. But throughout their life, whether growing up in Massachusetts or evolving in New York, they have always been a writer. Everything they make, including poetry, short stories, & plays, is with the intent of connection. Ari is currently working on their first fantasy-humor novel and is always looking for more opportunities to create. They’d like to thank their fiancée Aria and their bestie Jesse, who have both been incredibly supportive but also invaluable sounding boards for Ari’s work. Thank you to Kelly Jean and No, YOU Tell It!  for this new chance to share their stories. 

Event Information

May 28 2025 @ 7:00PM

Grove 34 (3183 34th St., Astoria)

May 21, 2025 Post Comment Live Shows Tags: , , ,

Meet “My Place” Storyteller Francisco Delgado

May 28 2025 @ 7:00PM

Celebrate AAPI Heritage Month with our next storyteller, Francisco Delgado, and story coach Pichchenda Bao, who will read recent work at Kew & Willow Books this Saturday, May 24, at 7 pm.

Learn more and RSVP for the event. Meet Francisco below and get your tickets for our May 28 “My Place” show!

Francisco Delgado is a CHamoru writer of fiction, poetry, and literary scholarship on contemporary Native American and Indigenous literatures. His novella, On Remembering My Friends, My First Job, and My Second-Favorite Weezer CD, won the 2024 Clay Reynold’s Novella Prize and is published with Texas Review Press. Other recent work is featured in Mānoa and Poets of Queens, vol. 2. He teaches at BMCC (CUNY) and lives in Forest Hills with his wife and their son.

Event Information

May 28 2025 @ 7:00PM

Grove 34 (3183 34th St., Astoria)

May 19, 2025 Post Comment Live Shows Tags: ,

Meet “My Place” Artist Ellen Stedfeld

May 28 2025 @ 7:00PM

Ellen Stedfeld created the artwork for our May 3 generative workshop with Queens Memory and Greater Astoria Historical Society. Participants put themselves on the map by contributing their Six-Word “My Place in Queens” Memoirs.

Get your tickets here and come add your six-word memoir to the map at the show!

Visit Ellen this weekend, May 17 & 18, at the 2025 LIC Arts Open. Her studio door is open at 43-01 22nd St, Studio 352 (3rd floor, keep to the right). Learn more here and meet Ellen below.

Ellen Stedfeld and “My Place in Queens” Map

A native New Yorker, I was inspired from an early age to draw the world around me, and create my own masterpieces like those seen in art museums.

With a lifelong love of both reading and art, I naturally gravitated to forms of visual storytelling such as picture books, animation, and manga/comics.

After years of training, I have continued to express this passion for creativity by engaging in original and collaborative artwork as a freelance illustrator.

Many of my concoctions include an interactive element, engaging the viewer, making them privy to the process and inviting them to become a participant.

You can find me drawing at comic shops, conventions, music shows, theaters, open mics, panel discussions, along the subways & wherever my travels lead!

Event Information

May 28 2025 @ 7:00PM

Grove 34 (3183 34th St., Astoria)

May 17, 2025 Post Comment Live Shows Tags: , , , ,

Meet “My Place” Storyteller Mary Lannon

May 28 2025 @ 7:00PM

Happy Birthday to “My Place” storyteller Mary Lannon. Our storytellers are busy revising their true tales on the page.

Get your tickets here to see them swap stories inspired by shared Queens spaces on stage. But first, let’s meet Mary!

Mary Lannon’s unpublished novel, Tide Girl, was a finalist for the 2023 PEN\Bellwether Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction. Her stories have appeared at Necessary Fiction, Story, New World Writing, and elsewhere. She teaches writing and women and gender studies at Nassau Community College in Long Island, NY, and lives in Kew Gardens, where she runs a reading series at the local cemetery. More information at MaryLannon.com.

Event Information

May 28 2025 @ 7:00PM

Grove 34 (3183 34th St., Astoria)

May 15, 2025 Post Comment Live Shows Tags: , , ,

Next Show! “My Place” on May 28

May 28 2025 @ 7:00PM

Tickets are available for our team-up show with Queens Memory and the Greater Astoria Historical Society!

No, YOU Tell It! “My Place” explores the personal stories behind our shared Queens spaces. Purchase tickets here.  

At our May 3 workshop, the four No, YOU Tell It! storytellers will interact with the Queens Name Explorer—a digital map developed by Queens Memory—to find “My Place” in Queens.

Feel free to come join in on the fun! The free May 3 workshop at the Queens Public Library at Broadway in Astoria is open to all!

On May 28, come hear the four NYTI storytellers trade true tales inspired by the historical significance behind the people’s names that grace Queens streets, parks, monuments, and more. 

Plus, artwork by Ellen Stedfeld (ellesaurarts.com) and story trivia for fun prizes!

Storytellers:

Francisco Delgado

Ari Figueroa

Mary Lannon

Wichuda “Tang” McConnell

NYTI Creative Team:

KJ Fitzsimmons

Pichchenda Bao

Erika Iverson

Tim Lindner

***

This project is supported by funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, Statewide Community Regrants Program (formerly the Decentralization program) with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature, and administered by Flushing Town Hall.

This organization is funded in part by the Howard Gilman Foundation administered by Flushing Town Hall.

Event Information

May 28 2025 @ 7:00PM

Grove 34 (3183 34th St., Astoria)

April 23, 2025 Post Comment Live Shows Tags: , , , , , ,

Live Long and Prosper

Live from the Leonard Nimoy Thalia Theatre at Symphony Space, it’s US!

Photo credit: Russ Rowland. Pictured left to right: Calvin S. Cato, Nicole Greevy, Michele Carlo, Najah Imani Muhammad, Tim Lindner, KJ Fitzsimmons, Carl M. Banks

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU for an amazing, first-ever student matinee yesterday. Not only did we hear amazing story swaps, but the students also engaged in a little activity afterward to inspire their own college essays.

Huge thanks to:

  • Everyone at Symphony Space for the beautiful venue and all of the support to make this happen.
  • Our alumni storytellers for such inspiring stories and performances.
  • Najah Imani Muhammad for being an incredible (INCREDIBLE) host.
  • The students from Global Learning Collaborative and Talent Unlimited for being such an energetic and engaged audience (and the staff that helped facilitate!)
  • The NYTI creative team for all their work behind the scenes.
  • Russ Rowland for these fabulous photos.
  • NYSCA-A.R.T./New York Creative Opportunity Fund (A Statewide Theatre Regrant Program) for helping to make this show a reality.

Follow us on INSTA and BLUESKY for more photos and podcasts from the show and to hear what we’re doing next.

Until then, live long and prosper!

March 14, 2025 Post Comment Live Shows Tags:

Meet “Before & After” Host Najah Imani Muhammad

Our first student matinee is tomorrow, 3/13, at 1 pm at Symphony Space!! We are extra excited to introduce our “Before & After” guest host, Najah Imani Muhammad.

Najah was a storyteller for our “College Try” show. Look at that show’s highlights and learn more about Najah below!

Najah is a director, educator, actor, and host based in Beacon, New York. Regardless of the hat she is wearing, Najah uses the arts as a communicative tool to connect. She has directed new works in multiple NYC Festivals, as well as developmental workshops for companies such as InterAct Theatre, Full Out Creative and NC Black Rep. Najah’s passion for arts education has led her to direct students in musicals, plays, and Shakespeare, as well as teaching acting intensives on to students near and far! She currently directs shows for two of her local school theatre programs, while balancing work for companies such as Beacon Performing Arts Center, Disney on Broadway, and The New Victory Theatre. Najah is also the Director of Education for Leaders by Choice, which teaches leadership skills through the arts. She holds a degree in Theatre Education and Acting from Emerson College. Follow along her journey @najahknows

March 12, 2025 Post Comment Live Shows Tags: , ,

2025 NYSCA-A.R.T./New York Creative Opportunity Fund

We are thrilled to announce that No, YOU Tell It! has received a grant from the 2025 NYSCA-A.R.T./New York Creative Opportunity Fund! Check out the other winners of the 2025 Creative Opportunity Fund here.

Our second story meeting is tonight for No, YOU Tell It! “Before & After” at Symphony Space on March 13 at 1 pm. The four storytellers will read each other’s revisions aloud and receive feedback on strengthening their true tales on the page.

Next week, they will swap stories on stage for the junior class at Global Learning Collaborative, who have been working with Kelly Jean on the stories they want to tell in their college application essays.

Thank you to NYSCA-A.R.T./New York Creative Opportunity Fund (A Statewide Theatre Regrant Program) for helping us make our first ever student matinee a reality. Here’s to what we hope is the first of many!

March 5, 2025 Post Comment Live Shows Tags: , ,

Meet Our “Before & After” Storytellers

Our first story meeting for our first student matinee is tonight! But FIRST, meet our “Before & After” alum storytellers.

These four storytellers participated in four different NYTI shows over the past decade. They are meeting tonight to help each other develop their true tales inspired by the theme “Before & After” on the page.

On March 13, they will swap stories on stage for students and faculty from Global Learning Collaborative High School.

Meet our NYTI alums!

We’re excited to build our creative community by having alum storytellers return and trade tales with a new story partner!

These matinees for students working on their college essays are a dynamic example of how the No, YOU Tell It! collaborative process makes writing and performing personal narratives accessible, empathetic, and transformative.

We hope to do more student shows and are raising $2500 in March to make that happen.

If 50 people donate $50, we’ll reach our goal! Want to be one?

Donate $50 here via our fiscal sponsor, The Field, to get the ball rolling.

Want to see this special show at Symphony Space at 1 pm on March 13? Email noyoutellit@gmail.com for a ticket!

February 26, 2025 1 comment Live Shows Tags: , , , ,

Upcoming Shows

We are gearing up for two new 2025 shows, including our first student matinee on March 13 at Symphony Space!

This special show is for the junior class at Global Learning Collaborative and features all NYTI alum storytellers.

Kelly Jean has been working with the students on their college essays, and we can’t wait for them to experience the power of personal storytelling.

Student matinees with alum storytellers are a great way to make new connections within our NYTI community while inspiring the next generation of storytellers.

We hope this is the first of many!

Then, in May, we are partnering with Queens Memory and the Greater Astoria Historical Society to explore “My Place” in Queens!

What’s your Queens story? We will use the interactive Queens Name Explorer map to learn the stories behind the people’s names that grace Queens streets, parks, monuments, and more to inspire and trade our own true tales.

Follow No, YOU Tell It! on Bluesky for more on our first student matinee and how to share your story as part of our May “My Place” show.

February 12, 2025 Post Comment Live Shows Tags: , , ,
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