The Lyric Tiki Lounge - Story Swap

About This Event

6:30 pm sharp the first Thursday of every month, see themes below! Story Swap is a live storytelling hour with a twist: none of the stories are pre-screened, and anyone in attendance is welcome to share! We draw names of participants out of a hat, inviting folks of all walks to come share stories related to the monthly theme. Please keep your stories to 8 minutes or less! 11/5 - Spooked! 12/3 - Unexpected Encounters 1/7 - Hat's Off! On the first Thursday of every month, a similar scene plays out in The Lyric: a microphone positioned at the front of the Tiki Lounge, a wall of skulls on one end and faux foliage on the other. For the Oct. 1 event, a woman stepped on stage and pulled a piece of paper from a beer pitcher to pick the night’s first storyteller. Charles Klamm was the participant chosen. Klamm is a regular participant at Story Swap, a storytelling event hosted monthly at The Lyric. All attendees are able to put their name in the pitcher, and if chosen, they have the stage for eight minutes. Klamm used his time to tell the story of how, after finding a Campus Cash coupon for the Alley Cat Cafe, a series of events unfolded that led him to co-owning several local businesses and retiring at 45. The coupon was Klamm’s “blessing in disguise,” which was the theme for last month’s event. Over the course of two hours, participants explained how tragedy and mishap brought them closer to loved ones and how disappointments led to opportunities they never would have never had otherwise. Omar Al-Hanbali shared how the loss of one friend led him, in part, to his friendship with Omar Yanouri, who had brought him to the event that night. Yanouri said he hadn’t even planned on participating, but he and Al-Hanbali both ended up choosing to share their stories. “I came here last month (and) loved it (so I) decided I (was going to) come back today,” Yanouri said. “I wasn’t planning on telling a story, but Omar said he wanted to, so I was like, ‘You know what? If he does it, I’ll do it to.’” Yanouri and Al-Hanbali weren’t the only ones who made a spontaneous decision to participate in Story Swap. “I never think I’m going to participate, and then I hear something … and I throw my name in the pitcher,” said Liz Phillips, who said she began to attend Story Swap even before The Lyric moved from its original Mountain Avenue location in 2017. Megan Rice, the host of Story Swap, described the phenomenon as a “ping”: a burst of inspiration triggered by another story that compels someone to share their own. Rice said she used to work at The Lyric’s past location and that the owner Ben Mozer gave his employees the freedom to try out new events, even at the risk of initially losing money. Around 2015, Rice said storytelling podcasts like The Moth were becoming increasingly popular, but there weren’t many local storytelling events. “We just kind of thought of that and thought, ‘That could work really well at this theater,'” Rice said. Susan Earley, a participant in Story Swap, runs her own story night at the Magic Rat and maintains an online calendar of storytelling events in the area. “I got involved in storytelling about 15 years ago when I lived in Boston,” Earley said. “I had a really crazy work schedule, and I just needed to do something fun. And so, I found a storytelling show and went (to it). I had never been before, and I just fell in love with it, and I’ve been doing it since then.” Unlike many storytelling events, which select some or all of their storytellers beforehand, nothing at Story Swap is prescreened. Rice said the open format of the event is one of her favorite aspects. Anyone can put their name in the pitcher, no matter their experience level. She also explained this means she never quite knows what direction the event will end up going in. “But the night is always good,” Rice said. “So that’s a testament to the fact that, like, people are just good, you know?” Despite its initial success, Story Swap was upended by the pandemic in 2020. The event had changed hosts since Rice had moved out of Fort Collins, and when she returned, she started it up agai