LIVE from NYPL: THE MOTH. OMG: Stories of the Sacred

“Gotta have faith.” - George Michael

Moshe, Musa or Moses. Join The Moth as we explore the common and uncommon threads through three different religions, all of which extol the virtues of humility, service, compassion, forgiveness and most of all, love. Hear tales of hallowed spaces and blessed events. Soul searchers, devotees and agnostics tell stories of faith, doubt and the places in between. Can we get a witness?

Hosted by:
Mike Daisey

Stories by:

Judy Gold
Peter Hyman
Imam Khalid Latif
Reverend Wayne Reece  
Reverend Al Sharpton
Andrew Solomon
among others

Curated by:
Meg Bowles
Paul Holdengräber

at The New York Public Library
42nd Street and Fifth Avenue

Doors will open at 7:15pm
The main event will start promptly at 8:00pm

$25 tickets ($15 for students and seniors) at www.showclix.com or 888-71-TICKETS

Directors: Catherine Burns and Jenifer Hixson
Producer: Jo Krukowski
Executive Producer: Joan D. Firestone

Mike Daisey (host) has been called “the master storyteller” and “one of the finest solo performers of his generation” by the The New York Times for his groundbreaking monologues which weave together autobiography, gonzo journalism, and unscripted performance to tell stories that cut to the bone, exposing secret histories and unexpected connections. His monologues include If You See Something Say Something, How Theater Failed America, Great Men of Genius, All Stories Are Fiction, and 21 Dog Years. He has performed in venues on five continents, ranging from Off-Broadway at the Public Theater to remote islands in the South Pacific, from the Sydney Opera House to abandoned theaters in post-Communist Tajikistan. He’s been a guest on the Late Show with David Letterman, as well as a commentator and contributor to Wired, Vanity Fair, Slate, Salon, NPR and the BBC. His first film, Layover, was shown at the Cannes Film Festival this year, and a feature film of his monologue If You See Something Say Something is currently in post production.  His second book, Rough Magic, a collected anthology of his monologues, will be published in 2011. He has been nominated for the Outer Critics Circle Award, two Drama League Awards, and is the recipient of the Bay Area Critics Circle Award, four Seattle Times Footlight Awards, the Sloan Foundation’s Galileo Prize, and a MacDowell Fellowship. He lives in New York with his wife and collaborator Jean-Michele Gregory.

Judy Gold is an Emmy Award winning actress and comedian. She is best known as the star of the critically acclaimed long-running off-Broadway hit show 25 Questions for a Jewish Mother. She was nominated twice for The American Comedy Award’s funniest female stand-up. Judy has written for Wondertime Magazine,  Momlogic.com and The Advocate. She has also appeared on Law & Order, Law & Order SVU, Hollywood Squares, The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, and The Conan O'Brien Show. Her newest show, It's Jewdy's Show - My Life as a Sitcom, just debuted to rave reviews in Washington D.C. Judy lives in New York City with her two children.

Peter Hyman is the author of The Reluctant Metrosexual: Dispatches from an Almost Hip Life, a collection of humorous nonfiction. His essays have been included in a number of anthologies, including The Best American Essays 2010 (as a notable selection) and Bar Mitzvah Disco. He has written for The New York Times, New York Magazine, The New York Observer, GQ, McSweeney's, NPR, and Slate.com.  He is currently the editor of Netted, a publication that covers digital culture.

Imam Khalid Latif was appointed the first Muslim chaplain at NYU in 2005 where he began to initiate his vision for a pluralistic future on and off campus for American Muslims. He was appointed the first Muslim chaplain at Princeton University in 2006. Under his leadership, the Islamic Center at NYU became the first ever established Muslim student center at an institution of higher education in the United States. In 2007 Mayor Michael Bloomberg nominated Imam Latif to become the youngest chaplain in history of the New York City Police Department at the age of 24. He has lectured throughout the United States and in various parts of the world and has been quoted, featured and appeared in numerous media outlets including BBC, NPR, CNN, The New York Times, New York Magazine, Newsweek, Time Magazine, BET and GEO TV. Amongst many awards and distinctions for leadership and community service over the last few years, Imam Latif has been named one of the 500 most influential Muslims in the world by Georgetown University's Prince Alwaleed Bin Talaal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding and The Royal Islamic Strategic Studies Centre.

Reverend Wayne G. Reece has been a United Methodist Pastor for more than five decades and has served congregations in Texas, Indiana,  Michigan and the UK, as well as being editor of Sunday School material. He is the author of the book Giving Beyond Ourselves, and wrote and edited three books in the Becoming People of God series. Rev. Reece developed the Project HOMES that renovated low-income houses, spent two years as the President of a Housing Commission and was a delegate to the World Methodist Conference. He did missionary work in Sierra Leone and Ganta Mission, Liberia, and is the recipient of the Amy Crotts Award for Humanitarian Service by The Tennessean. Rev. Reece spent 15 years writing the Bible column for the Michigan Christian Advocate. He lives in Nashville, Tennessee with his wife, and has four daughters, 14 grandchildren and 4 great-grandchildren.
 
Reverend Al Sharpton is one of the nation's most-renowned civil rights leaders and the founder and President of the National Action Network (NAN), a not-for-profit civil rights organization based in Harlem, New York. Rev. Sharpton’s strong commitment to equality and progressive politics has had an irrefutable impact on national politics, as evidenced by his noteworthy presidential run as a U.S. Democratic candidate in 2004 and his compelling speech at the Democratic National Convention. Throughout his career he has challenged the American political establishment to include all people in the dialogue regardless of race, gender, class or beliefs. He is a nationally-syndicated radio host, T.V. personality, and columnist. He has three popular radio shows broadcast throughout the country, a regular television show featured on TV One, and a column that appears in national newspapers across the country. Rev. Sharpton says his religious convictions are the basis for his life and he preaches throughout the country most Sundays.

Andrew Solomon’s most recent book, The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression, won the 2001 National Book Award, and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize; it has received 14 additional national awards and is published in 24 languages. Mr. Solomon is a Lecturer in Psychiatry at Weill-Cornell Medical College, and has lectured on depression around the world. He is a contributing editor at Travel and Leisure, and writes for The New York Times and The New Yorker, among others. He is currently working on a book entitled, Far from the Tree: A Legacy of Love, in which he studies family dynamics and extraordinary children; he is also working on a PhD at Cambridge University. He serves on numerous philanthropic boards in the fields of mental health, the arts, and gay rights, and is a fellow of Berkeley College at Yale University and the New York Institute for the Humanities. He lives in New York and London with his husband and children. 

About The Moth

The Moth – hailed as “New York’s hottest and hippest literary ticket” by The Wall Street Journal – is an acclaimed not-for-profit organization dedicated to the art and craft of storytelling. The Moth has presented more than three thousand stories, told live and without notes, by people from all walks of life to standing-room-only crowds worldwide. Each show features simple, old-fashioned storytelling on thoroughly modern themes by wildly divergent raconteurs who develop and shape their stories with The Moth’s directors. The Moth conducts seven ongoing programs – The Moth Mainstage, which tours nationally; The Moth StorySLAM program, which conducts open-mic storytelling competitions in Los Angeles, Chicago, Detroit, and New York; The MothSHOP Community Program, which brings storytelling workshops free of charge to underserved populations; The Moth Podcast; The MothSHOP Business Program, which offers corporate storytelling solutions; MothUP, which enables people to start their own Moth gatherings in their living rooms; and The Moth Radio Hour, produced by Jay Allison and distributed by PRX, which was launched in 2009 and is carried by more than 200 stations across the country.