Welcome to the Moth Podcast. I'm Suzanne Rust, the curator at the Moth and your host for this episode.

In these next two stories, we'll be taking a trip to Birmingham, Alabama, where we've been hosting story slams since March 2019.

Each story slam we produce really reflects the city it's a part of.

There's some hilarious behind-the-scenes Hollywood tidbits in the LA story slam,

the New York story slams have a real, I'm walking here vibe,

and the Birmingham story slams bring that wonderful sense of being on the front porch as the sun goes down,

listening to a story in the dim twilight.

Birmingham was one of the cities on the Moth's pop-up porch tour in 2022,

and I was lucky enough to spend a week there, getting to know hundreds of locals and hear their stories.

Great town, even better people.

First up, we've got Anne Wheeler, who told this story at a Birmingham story slam where the theme of the night was Vices.

Here's Anne, live at the mouth.

One Sunday afternoon, I opened the Birmingham News, Section E, Art and Entertainment.

On the second page, down on the left hand side, about two-thirds the way down down there was a little one column inch notice open call

auditions Birmingham festival theater Sunday two to five needed three males age 20 to 35

three females age 20 to 35 one female age 35 to 50 Sunday was there. I walked into the theater and the whole lobby was full of people.

They were sitting on the floor and lounging against the wall, leaning over the counters,

filling out the audition sheets.

Well, not my got my audition sheets started to fill it out.

Name, contact information, theater experience.

And then I got to the bottom. There was a line that said, put a check next to the box of all

of the following instruments that you can play. It was going to be a musical. Yes. Okay.

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